Medieval Times In Medieval England, people used potties and would simply throw their contents through a door or window into the street. The more affluent would use a garderobe, a protruding room with an opening for waste, suspended over a moat (above right).

In the 1500s, going to the toilet was a rudimentary and often public affair. In castles and manor houses, people used garderobes—small, private alcoves built into the exterior walls with a simple hole in a stone or wooden bench. Waste would fall directly through a shaft into a moat, a cesspit, or simply onto the ground below. For the majority of the population living in rural or urban homes, the chamber pot (a ceramic or metal bowl kept under the bed) was the standard tool. These pots were emptied daily into "cesspools" in the backyard or, in crowded cities, thrown directly out of windows into the street gutters, often with a warning cry like "Gardyloo!" In Tudor England, the cleaning of these urban cesspools fell to "gong farmers," who were paid to remove waste under the cover of night. Hygiene was minimal, and "toilet paper" usually consisted of hay, moss, or old rags. While the wealthy had "Close Stools" (padded boxes with a pot inside), the modern concept of plumbing and privacy was still centuries away for most people.