You Wouldn’t Survive The Stench of Tudor England

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]In people's minds, Versailles is often seen as the ultimate place of excess and filth, lavish luxury next to chamber pots in the fancy hallways. But have you ever thought about what life was like in Tudtor, England?

[00:00:13]Just so you know, Henry VIII had to make a rule to stop courtiers from peeing on the walls during his big banquetss at Hampton Court. And life in the towns wasn't any better.

[00:00:23]The strong smell of open latrines, garbage everywhere, overflowing gutters, butchers slaughtering animals in the open. We usually imagine Tuda England visually through art, films, and documentaries. But can you even try to imagine what it must have smelled like?

[00:00:40]It was a total nightmare. I don't think we can really grasp the awful smell of filth that filled those cities. It might even be tough to put it into words, but we'll give it a shot. Considering the poor sewage systems, the hygienic habits of the time, the diet, and in general, the cleanliness of the cities. Today, we are going to paint a complete picture of what the smells of Tudtor England were really like.

[00:01:05]First off, it's fair and important to clear this up. Not all of Tudtor, England smelled awful, and it's not true that nobody cleaned themselves. That's just a myth. Sure, the smell was pretty strong and overwhelming. However, people washed, clothes were changed, even if not regularly in the way we are used to today. And a basic level of hygiene did exist, especially among royals, though certainly not for everyone.

[00:01:30]But there's one key thing we need to remember. Cleanliness doesn't equal smelling good. Those are two totally different things. The nobility had better hygiene habits, but that didn't mean they lived in places that didn't smell like waste and human filth. They often covered up body odor with layers of perfume and floral scents, making for some pretty gross combinations.

[00:01:52]Clothing absorbed sweat as well as environmental odor, especially garments worn outdoors, which were rarely washed.

[00:01:58]Smelling bad was simply part of everyday life. It was not something people constantly tried to fight or eliminate.

[00:02:05]It was something they lived with. For the Tudtor and generally for people living in the medieval and early modern world, bad smells were also considered warning signs. Their whole view of the human body was based on the theory of humors. If something smelled off, it meant something inside was out of whack.

[00:02:24]They also believed in the miasma theory.

[00:02:26]Back in the tudtor era, people thought that soaking in warm water opened up the body's pores, letting in harmful miasmas or bad air. Thomas Molton, a physician penning his thoughts in the mid 1500s, cautioned against bathing in hot temperatures, asserting that it openeth the pores of a man's body and maketh the venomous air enter for to infect the blood. This advice resonated with many, leading them to mass avoiding it. This idea really took off during the Black Death when people linked illness to toxic vapors and bad air. Funny enough, many could have improved their hygiene, but didn't because they believed that washing would open their skin's pores and let in disease, nasty smells, and even bad vibes. Just take a moment to picture living through a summer with these thoughts in mind, or going through pandemics like the Black Death, or sweating sickness while holding on to these ideas. When hygiene should have been super important, people often washed less because they truly believed that cleaning up could make them sick.

[00:03:26]It wasn't that they wanted to smell bad.

[00:03:28]They thought avoiding water kept them safe from illness.

[00:03:32]These beliefs really influenced daily life. And this is something many people today might not get. There was some basic hygiene, but the way we think of hygiene now would have seemed weird, over the top, and even risky to them.

[00:03:46]That's why it was often missing. The truth is, they probably didn't even notice the smell anymore. It was just normal for them. But for us today, that odor would likely be unbearable.

[00:03:57]And this goes for daily hygiene, too.

[00:04:00]Saying people never washed is off, but saying they washed like we do today isn't right, either. They didn't wash the way we think of hygiene. They didn't have modern soaps or shampoos. In 1559, soap started coming into London's ports, but those soaps were usually made from rancid animal fat mixed with alkaline stuff. From what we know, Henry VIII cleaned up regularly with rose water and scented oils. He was really into medicine and often made his own infusions and remedies. Elizabeth I, on the other hand, was different. She supposedly only bathed when she thought it was needed, maybe even just once a month. We know this partly from what she said herself, probably because, according to historical sources, Elizabeth was super suspicious. She really feared getting sick and thought that washing too much could make her more likely to catch an illness.

[00:04:52]What people usually did instead was dry clean their bodies. They rubbed off dirty skin, often caked with mud and parasites, using rough cloths or brushes made from pig bristles. They also used linen to wipe away sweat during the day, especially from the neck, underarms, and for women, the chest area.

[00:05:11]For wealthy folks and royals, washing with water wasn't as easy as it is now.

[00:05:16]Water wasn't used alone like we use soap today. Instead, they leaned heavily on oils, herbs, and perfumes, which probably mixed with bad hygiene to create some pretty thick and unpleasant smells. The historian Ruth Goodman, famous for living experimentally as both a tuda and a Victorian, makes an important point in their defense. For them, hygiene often meant changing clothes frequently. Of course, this was not the reality for ordinary people living in crowded cities. For them, life was much harsher, and they lived surrounded by filth. First of all, proper sewage systems like we have today didn't really exist. People in cities and homes used chamber pots, which they dumped into the streets and canals, and streets often ended up filled with waste and sewage.

[00:06:03]Sometimes folks even tossed chamber pots right out of their windows onto the streets below, turning public roads into spots where excrement and garbage piled up all the time. There were even workers who took care of emptying cesspits and latrines. They were called gong farmers or nightmen because they mostly worked at night hauling away human waste and later selling it as fertilizer out in the countryside.

[00:06:28]The sewers and streets of Tudtor, England were often pretty much the same.

[00:06:32]There were hardly any proper sewage systems. In some spots, there were just simple gutters along the sides of the streets, while in others, shallow ditches ran right through the middle to let waste drain away slowly. The streets turned into dumping grounds for just about everything. People dumped their chamber pots right outside. The guts of slaughtered animals ended up in the roads along with dead cats, stray dogs, and all kinds of trash you can think of.

[00:06:57]Barber surgeons who were really into bloodletting as a treatment would also pour blood into the streets after their procedures.

[00:07:05]During the summer months, when rain failed to wash the roads clean, the filth simply accumulated. Human waste, animal remains, mud, rotting food, and blood would pile up beneath people's feet, creating smells that must have been absolutely unbearable.

[00:07:21]The streets became so revoling that many people wore special wooden overshoes known as patterns. These were worn over normal shoes and functioned almost like raised clogs, lifting the wearer above the filth covering the ground. One historian who looked into tuda life even talked about walking through fish guts, cow poop, mud, and street waste while wearing patterns, saying that the shoes lifted people just enough to keep them from stepping right into the human waist covering the roads.

[00:07:50]Pause for a moment and imagine what it must have felt like to walk through a city such as London.

[00:07:57]Nobles had private toilets connected to primitive drainage systems, but eventually the waste still ended up outside in the streets. Interestingly, during this period, the first flushing toilet was actually invented. In 1596, John Harrington, a godson and favorite of Elizabeth I, designed and presented a flushing water closet. Unfortunately, almost nobody showed interest and the invention was largely ignored.

[00:08:23]The streets of London therefore smelled absolutely horrific. Beyond the garbage and sewage, animals also lived in dreadful conditions. Horses, pigs, and stray dogs wandered through the streets constantly carrying dirt and disease.

[00:08:38]Not to mention butchers and food workers that followed no hygienic standards.

[00:08:42]Their work often took place directly in public streets where people walked. They dismembered pigs and other animals openly while blood mixed together with sewage and flowed into nearby gutters and canals. The river temps often looked black.

[00:08:57]That's one big reason people tried to avoid using water whenever they could, whether for washing or drinking. Clean drinking water like we know it today didn't exist. Most of the water around was really contaminated.

[00:09:10]So, how did people survive in these environments?

[00:09:14]Both men and women often carried pomanders, small pieces of jewelry or containers worn around the neck filled with aromatic herbs, flowers, or perfumes meant to help them tolerate the smells around them. Inside royal palaces, they often covered the floors with herbs and flowers to hide bad odor.

[00:09:31]But historical records say these herbs weren't always swapped out regularly.

[00:09:35]They often ended up rotting on the floors, mixing with dirt, leftover food, and whatever people tracked in during the day.

[00:09:43]The Tuda courts, much like Palace of Versailles later would be, were places of enormous contradiction. We often think of Versailles as the ultimate symbol of luxury mixed with filth. But the Tudtor Court was not much better, especially during the reign of Henry VIII.

[00:09:59]Enormous feasts filled halls with sweating bodies, food scraps, waste, poor hygiene, and overcrowding. Only the king or queen had truly private toilet facilities. Everyone else relied on the same primitive systems already mentioned.

[00:10:14]Animals were also brought into banquet halls. Dogs wandered freely, climbed onto tables, or ate scraps thrown onto the floor beneath them. All these unhygienic conditions accumulated inside enclosed spaces, creating unbearable smells while also encouraging the spread of disease, bacteria, and epidemics.

[00:10:34]One of the most shocking realities of Tudtor England is that even the royal palaces themselves became so filthy and foul smelling that Henry VIII and his entire court were often forced to abandon them temporarily. This is something many people do not realize. We imagine places such as Hampton Court Palace as symbols of luxury and royal grandeur, but within only a few days of the king arriving with his enormous court, these palaces could begin to smell absolutely horrific. And the reason was simple. The TUDA court was gigantic.

[00:11:06]Henry VIII often traveled with more than 1,000 people. Servants, guards, cooks, nobles, musicians, priests, stable workers, attendants, and their animals all moved together from palace to palace. Feeding this enormous machine required astonishing amounts of food every single year. Records from Hampton Court mentioned thousands of sheep, over a thousand oxmen, and countless other animals being slaughtered to sustain the royal household. The result was an overwhelming accumulation of rotting food scraps, grease, smoke, animal waste, vermin, and human sewage. And because TUDA, England, had no modern plumbing or sanitation system capable of supporting such numbers, the situation quickly spiral out of control. Within days of the royal court settling into a residence, a terrible smell would begin to spread through the palace. Human waste was stored beneath buildings in underground cesspits waiting to be emptied. Fires burned constantly, covering walls and ceilings in thick soot. Kitchens operated day and night.

[00:12:08]Hundreds upon hundreds of people were packed together inside overheated and poorly ventilated rooms. Cleaning properly became almost impossible.

[00:12:17]Ironically, Henry VIII himself was known for being unusually concerned with cleanliness and disease. Unlike many rulers of the period, he bathed relatively often, changed his undergarments daily, and attempted to impose hygiene rules within the court.

[00:12:31]But according to contemporary records, it was a losing battle. Courtiers frequently ignored chamber pots altogether. Some reportedly urinated in corridors, stairwells, hidden corners, and even inside fireplaces. In an attempt to stop people from relieving themselves against palace walls, large red crosses were painted on problem areas. According to contemporaries, drunken courtiers simply began using the marks as targets. Henry even issued royal decrees ordering servants not to throw dirty dishes into hallways or near the king's chambers.

[00:13:05]Kitchen workers were criticized for wearing filthy clothing and sleeping beside the fires in the kitchens themselves. Officials were instructed to buy cleaner and more respectable garments for them to manage the enormous quantities of waste. Henry commissioned what became known as the great house of easement, an enormous communal toilet with dozens of seats built above the river tempames. Even then, the underground waste pits beneath royal palaces constantly overflowed. cleaning them fell to workers known as gong scourers whose job was to climb into cess pits and manually remove human waste. It was considered one of the most disgusting occupations in Tudtor England. And this is one of the reasons Henry VIII's famous royal progresses happened so frequently. In July 1535, for example, Henry and a court of more than 700 people began a massive royal tour that lasted months. They moved through dozens of palaces, mana houses, and religious institutions across England. Officially, these progresses allowed the king to display power and meet his subjects. But there was another reason. The palaces themselves needed time to recover.

[00:14:13]Once the court left, rooms could finally be scrubbed, floors aired out, cesspits emptied, and the overwhelming smell temporarily reduced.

[00:14:22]Even the surrounding farmland needed recovery time after supplying enormous amounts of food to the traveling court.

[00:14:29]In reality, TUDA royalty were not escaping filth. They were carrying it with them from palace to palace. And to all of this, we must add another important detail. Ventilation barely existed. Once again, because of miasma theory, people often believed that less outside air entering a room was actually safer. Massive fireplaces and constantly active kitchens filled buildings with smoke and ash. Without ventilation systems, soot and dirt spread through the air and settled everywhere. Rooms became extremely hot and suffocating, making the already overwhelming smells even worse. And this allows us to imagine what periods of illness must have smelled like under these conditions. Take Henry VII as the most dramatic example. When he began suffering from severe leg ulcers, he lived surrounded by these beliefs in these environments.

[00:15:20]The smell of disease combined with poor hygiene, lack of ventilation, overheated rooms, and infected wounds must have created an atmosphere almost unimaginable to us today. Of course, for them, it was normality.

[00:15:35]There is also another famous figure from this period worth mentioning because he became notorious for hygiene habits even worse than what was already considered normal.

[00:15:44]James V 6th. Technically, he was a Steuart king, but he directly succeeded Elizabeth I and still belonged to the same world. James was known for washing even less than average standards of the time. He rarely changed his clothes and was terrified of washing his hands. It was considered completely normal for him to eat with dirty hands. This detail is confirmed by historical sources, including references from his favorite George Villars. In one love letter, Buckingham reportedly wrote, "Craving your blessing, I kiss your dirty hands."

[00:16:17]Instead of properly washing before meals, James often merely wiped the tips of his fingers with a damp corner of a napkin. Like many people of the period, he believed water itself could make people sick because it opened the pores.

[00:16:30]It was an extremely dangerous and unfounded belief, but knowledge and medical understanding were incredibly limited at the time. Still, it is important to emphasize just how dangerous this mindset could become, often developing into genuine obsessions. Tutor England feels so disturbing to us because it forces us to confront how physical human existence really was before modern hygiene separated people from their own bodies.

[00:16:56]Today, bad smells are temporary. We remove them immediately. We disinfect, deodorize, ventilate, sanitize. We live in a world designed to erase every trace of decay as quickly as possible. The Tudtor did not have that luxury. They lived surrounded by the natural processes we spend our entire lives trying to hide. Sweat, rot, blood, infection, smoke, sewage, animal waste, sickness, death. And after a while, those smells stopped being unusual.

[00:17:27]That is what is perhaps hardest for us to understand. Tudor England did not smell terrible because people were disgusting or unintelligent. In many cases, they were actively trying to protect themselves. They genuinely believed they understood how disease worked. The fear of water, the obsession with perfumes, the herbs scattered across palace floors, the pomminadas held to the nose, all of it came from people attempting to survive in a world they could not medically explain. And in a strange way, it reminds us how fragile our own sense of normality really is.

[00:18:01]Because if we had been born into Tudtor, England, we probably would not have noticed the smell either. Eventually, the overflowing gutters, the smoke-filled palaces, the blood in the streets, the infected wounds, and the suffocating air would have become ordinary to us, too. Human beings adapt to almost everything.