Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Figures and Charts
- Introduction
- 1 Cleanliness, Civility, and the City in Medieval Ideals and Scripts
- 2 The View from the Streets: The Records of Hundred and Leet Courts as a Source for Sanitary Policing in Late Medieval English Towns
- 3 Urban Viarii and the Prosecution of Public Health Offenders in Late Medieval Italy
- 4 Food Offenders: Public Health and the Marketplace in the Late Medieval Low Countries
- 5 Policing the Environment of Late Medieval Dordrecht
- 6 Muddy Waters in Medieval Montpellier
- 7 Regulating Water Sources in the Towns and Cities of Late Medieval Normandy
- 8 Policing the Environment in Premodern Imperial Cities and Towns: A Preliminary Approach
- 9 Official Objectives of theVisitatio Leprosorum: Ambiguity, Ambivalence, and Variance
- Index
7 - Regulating Water Sources in the Towns and Cities of Late Medieval Normandy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Figures and Charts
- Introduction
- 1 Cleanliness, Civility, and the City in Medieval Ideals and Scripts
- 2 The View from the Streets: The Records of Hundred and Leet Courts as a Source for Sanitary Policing in Late Medieval English Towns
- 3 Urban Viarii and the Prosecution of Public Health Offenders in Late Medieval Italy
- 4 Food Offenders: Public Health and the Marketplace in the Late Medieval Low Countries
- 5 Policing the Environment of Late Medieval Dordrecht
- 6 Muddy Waters in Medieval Montpellier
- 7 Regulating Water Sources in the Towns and Cities of Late Medieval Normandy
- 8 Policing the Environment in Premodern Imperial Cities and Towns: A Preliminary Approach
- 9 Official Objectives of theVisitatio Leprosorum: Ambiguity, Ambivalence, and Variance
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter examines the ways in which water supplies were maintained, and their cleanliness regulated, in fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Normandy, focusing particularly upon the region's chief city, Rouen, for which rich manuscript sources survive. Concerns about the quality and availability of water had strong religious associations, which reinforced the moral and medical imperative to prevent the contamination of sources. Wealthy citizens made the provision and protection of hydraulic infrastructure a focus of their Christian charity; but the use and conservation of rivers, streams, piped water systems, sewers, ponds, and ditches, also operated in the context of late medieval ideas about health and disease especially regarding the threat posed by toxic air and the need to avoid polluted water.
Key words: public health; water; Normandy; Rouen; monasteries; urban Infrastructure
The rivers and streams that ran through late medieval towns and cities were a source of ill health and sustenance alike. Contemporaries recognized that there was a connection between polluted water and disease, which could be understood in terms of both disease transmission via the corrupt air that emanated from waste-filled or stagnant water, and direct poisoning through drinking such water. At the same time, the ready availability of water for drinking, washing, and industrial processes such as dyeing cloth, as well as for waste disposal, was essential to the wellbeing and prosperity of the urban population. Water sources also supplied fish, a key component of the diet of medieval people, especially in the maritime region of Normandy in north-western France. Furthermore, bathing in certain waters was considered to alleviate the symptoms of illnesses such as leprosy, while also contributing significantly to spiritual health.
This chapter investigates how the regulation of water sources formed part of public health provision in the towns and cities of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Normandy. As we shall see, however, the longevity of certain ideas and practices concerning water and health in Normandy is apparent from evidence dating back far earlier, to the twelfth century at least. The following analysis encompasses not only rivers and streams, but also piped water systems, wells, sewers, ponds, ditches, and marshy land, as well as the sea. It takes into account late medieval assumptions about health and disease, especially regarding the transmission of sickness via corrupt air and other types of environmental pollution.
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- Information
- Policing the Urban Environment in Premodern Europe , pp. 207 - 230Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019