Late Middle Age Construction

The physical construction and location of towns created many of the problems for people of the late Middle Ages.

Starting with hunting and gathering societies many groups of individuals were nomadic giving way to horticultural societies that used land and stayed in the same rural location. From the horticultural society to the seventeenth century’s pre industrial society people started flocking to given areas and populating in mass quantities. In the beginning, many individuals were small groups or villages by the end of the seventeenth century many individuals lived in crowded cities or villages causing detrimental effects on not only their health but also their overall well being.

The Middle Ages had harmful sanitary conditions because of the crowded living spaces. This was in an era that had little sewer systems, persons lived in close quarters of one another, and medicine was still quite primitive. The towns, villages, and even rural farming communities all had issues with trash and waste disposal. Many of the towns had piles of garbage littered upon the ground and if it was not upon on the ground it was thrown into waterways such as the Thames. Regular hygiene was not customary mainly because of the difficult access to clean water unlike today where it flows into our homes. Individuals also lived in confined quarters that may have had poor ventilation and construction. Once the Black Death arrived it took its toll on not only the vastly populated areas but also rural communities. The rise of the death toll can also be contributed to the lack of medicine and the confusion associated with the plague. Typically, the poor were the most affected by the plague and other various diseases of the time period. Famines and malnutrition made for perfect prey for the plague. Many of the seventy percent of England’s population affected were the lower class. The nobility who resided in larger better ventilated dwellings and were not confined to...