Sanitation in Urban Britain, 1560–1700 Popular belief holds that throwing the contents of a chamber pot into the street was a common occurrence during the early modern period. This book challenges this deeply entrenched stereotypical image as the majority of urban inhabitants and their local governors alike valued clean outdoor public spaces, vesting interest in keeping the areas in which they lived and worked clean. Taking an extensive tour of over thirty towns and cities across early modern Britain, focusing on Edinburgh and York as in-depth case studies, this book sheds light on the complex relationship between how governors organized street cleaning, managed waste disposal and regulated the cleanliness of the outdoor environment, top-down, and how typical urban inhabitants self-regulated their neighbourhoods, bottom-up. The urban-rural manure trade, sanitation infrastructure, waste-disposal technology, plague epidemics, contemporary understandings of malodours and miasmatic disease transmission and urban agriculture are also analysed. This book will enable undergraduates, postgraduates and established academics to deepen their understanding of daily life and sensory experiences in the early modern British town. This innovative work will appeal to social, cultural and legal historians as well as researchers of history of medicine and public health. Leona J. Skelton is Post-Doctoral Research Assistant in the History Department at University of Bristol, UK. 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Skelton First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Leona J. Skelton The right of Leona J. Skelton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Skelton, Leona J., author. Sanitation in urban Britain, 1560-1700 / Leona J. Skelton. 1. Sanitation--Great Britain--History--16th century. 2. Sanitation--Great Britain--History--17th century. 3. Public health--Great Britain--History-- 16th century. 4. Public health--Great Britain--History--17th century. I. Title. RA485.S536 2016 363.720941--dc23 2015029600 ISBN: 978-1-8489-3592-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-62075-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby Dedicated to the memory of Prof. Christopher W. Brooks (1948–2014) My brilliant PhD supervisor who died before he could see this work in print This page intentionally left blank