The Renaissance Faire is a peculiar event that sprouted from a high school history project in Southern California during the early 1960’s. It has grown into a sub-culture that spans across the United States, Canada and Europe. Some events are solid historically based events, others are hysterical spectacles of flesh and fantasy, clinging to a thread of Renaissance history…
It's a necessity...we all do it...but the history of how it was done in the Elizabethan Era is interesting...to say the least...
When people conglomerate in major population centers, you have a sewage issue. People go, and go frequently. Elizabethans, of all economic and social strata went in a pot. It could be glazed pottery, it could be glass, and it could have been metal...which makes a fine "tinkling" noise...no pun intended. Some of the wealthy "pots" were grand affairs...furniture quality wooden boxes, into which the pot would be set, with a padded velvet upholstery seat on which to sit...something this nice was known as a "close-stool".
Generally, the pot was kept in the bedroom, or wherever the bed was located, your sleeping chamber, so to speak...hence, the "chamber pot". When all was done, and the pot was brimming with effluviant...it was emptied. If you had money, or were noble, yours didn't really stink...because your paid servants who took it away, never to be seen again...until the next time. If you were poor, that "pot-o-gold" was dumped right into the street, in front of your dwelling...for all to see...and smell. And if you were really poor...when nature called...you simply "dropped trow" or "hiked up", letting it flow...or drop...where you stood.
Consequently, every major Renaissance city's streets were cesspools of human waste, and when it rained, the muck and mud must have smelled just lovely. London did have some public toilets...or "jakes" (a contemporary term for the privy) but not enough to keep up with the "tidal wave" amounts of excrement being generated.
As the upper and middle class continued to grow more and more wealthy, the thought of letting that chamber pot stew in your bedroom after a midnight visit became rather anathema to such tender, Renaissance sensibilities. I mean, you have to smell it when you take a walk, why be forced to smell it when you're trying to sleep? Alas, the septic tank was born...or at least its forerunner...but it wasn't exactly "septic". Behind, that swanky townhouse, directly under your backyard garden, a hole was dug, squared off, and a lumber was cut and installed to make a tank. Somewhere on the top, a hatch was placed for cleaning it out, but we'll get to that later. The tank was not sealed, so it would leak, or leach, out contents into ground and water table. Put simply, you didn't drink water...unless you wanted to dance with sickness and death.
Once, your tank was built you would install chutes and/or pipes, known as a "race", into your home so the waste could be dumped from the pots, instantly traveling down into the tank...outside the house, underground and out of sight, along with most of the smell...until it was time for the "gong farmer".
Every couple of years, your tank became full. It was time to empty the treasure trove of meals past, and only one man will do for such a distinct job...the gong farmer. Gong was an Elizabethan slang term for solid human waste...or as I like to call it...shit. The man, with perhaps a few lads to help him, would "bucket-out" and remove from the premises your personal collection of gong, all for the luxurious price of two shillings...a very, very good wage for lower class tradesmen. Once all the contents were packed up (generally in barrels), they were carted off by the gong farmer, and the tank was ready for its next "load".
In Elizabethan England, strict regulations governed how the "gong farmer" could ply his trade. He could only work between nine at night and five in the morning...period. Heaven forbid English subjects have more exposure to the whiff of...well you know. Given the hours of operation, he was also known by the moniker "night man". There were only certain areas set aside outside the city where a "night man" could deposit the nightly haul. Renaissance intellect was slowly recognizing that waste strewn all over the place caused big problems...such as plague, infection, and disease. They didn't exactly know the how or the why...modern medicine of the time attributed ailments to foul smells floating through the skin and into the body...but they were at least making some sort of connection between pathogens and offal...
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What we know as the modern flush toilet was functional and used in Elizabethan England. It really was the "Cadillac" of close-stools. Harington constructed one in his home, as well as one or two others for those who wished to wash away the "sin". He even included it in his book...
A New Discourse of a Stale Subject Called the Metamorphosis of Ajax is political commentary...but thankfully, Harington, for all his rhetoric of comparing State policy to Ajax ("ajax", another Elizabethan slang term for a turd) was not exactly well received by Elizabeth and her minions in the halls of power. Needless to say, the welcome mat at Court was pulled, and Harington, for all his brilliance, found himself out of favor. But "Good Queen Bess" couldn't stay stay angry at her godson forever, and despite his faults, Sir Jon Harington's reputation throughout Elizabeth's reign stayed relatively unsullied.
Despite being a "novelty", Harington's "privie" was tried and used by Her Royal Highness, and Elizabeth I may very well be the first monarch in history to use a flushing toilet. I doubt she would have had this opportunity had she not had the almost familial relationship with John, visiting him at his home and being exposed to such a wonderous invention. There is some question as to which of the "stools" she used (there were at at least two in England at the time) however, I find the one at Harington's more likely.
Perhaps, just perhaps...this is why we call it the "John"...
