Cities and towns -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- History, Local; Great Britain -- Social conditions; Villages -- Great Britain
9. The =water-supply= of a town was a very important matter. Here,
again, the monasteries and colleges frequently led the way, and showed
how water might be brought by pipes from a distant spring. It was not
an uncommon thing for water to be brought in this way to a "conduit" in
the market-place, whence the people fetched it as they needed. Many a
good wealthy citizen has performed the pious work of providing his town
with a supply of water. Parts of old water-pipes, some of wood and some
of lead, laid for such a purpose, have often been discovered in recent
years.
10. Usually, however, a town had to depend upon wells for its
water-supply; and with open gutters running through the town it is very
easy to see that many of these wells supplied water which, at times,
could not have been pure, however bright and clear it may have looked.
11. In the villages the dangers arising from want of proper drainage
and from impure water were not quite so great as in the towns. Yet even
now, in this twentieth century, how to drain our villages properly,
and provide them with a good water-supply, are questions needing
attention in many places. We have seen that the houses in the villages
were usually close together, and men had not realized that dirt is one
of the greatest enemies of mankind. There are a good many people, even
in our time, who see no great harm in having pigsties, refuse-heaps,
and manure-heaps close to their houses.
12. One of the most loathsome of the diseases common in the Norman
times and later was =leprosy=. The lepers _were_ kept out of the towns,
but at first very little was done for them. The refuse of the markets,
and the food that was so bad that it had to be carted outside the town,
was thought to be good enough for them. Gradually, however, we find
=hospitals for lepers= established. They were not what we understand
by hospitals, places where sick folk could be doctored and nursed and
cured; they were religious houses which poor lepers might enter, and in
which they might have safe shelter, care, and attention for the rest of
their sad lives. They were always built outside the walls of the towns.
13. =Other hospitals= for poor and suffering people were also
established. They were not large buildings, with wards holding scores
of people. They were little religious houses, each with its chapel
and priests to carry on its services, providing homes for small
numbers--perhaps half a dozen or a dozen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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