>> Speaker A: It's kind of like keeping up with the Joneses, but in this case, it's kind of like keeping up with Charles the fat and Lewis the stammer. But settle down, gents. Settle down. The size of your rampart doesn't matter. Uh, welcome back to privy. Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom. I'm your host, hunter hoover, and I love
bathrooms. Um, this week, I, uh, was speaking to the magnificent Michael wall, um, former guest on the show, uh, and if I have anything to do with it, future guest, uh, but I was talking to him. I regularly run into Michael at the end of my workday at the school, kind of beginning of his work day at the school. And recently, Michael has just been enjoying ride after ride on the floor scrubber. It's really great. And he threatened to run me down. He would never do it, but I obviously got
out of the way. Um, but after this choice Michael occasion interaction here, um, my other budy, Josh, and I are standing there, and we're talking to Michael, and Michael informs that he's just baffled. And Michael just says, you know, I'm always just baffled by the amount of. Just the sheer density and the amount of actual fecal content that some of these kids produce. >> Speaker B: And there's never any toilet paper. >> Speaker A: That's the thing.
>> Speaker B: Michael noted that there's next to no. >> Speaker A: Toilet paper in the bowl. And it only leaves you to believe that these people are just producing just such girthsome logs that it wipes for them like they come pre wiped. Uh, but it's just the turds that are clogging the toilet, he notes. I also want to note, while we're speaking about, uh, know, the guy has been playing what many people would argue would be too much of the new Harry
Potter game. Now, uh, though I myself do enjoy Harry Potter, I haven't dipped my toe. >> Speaker B: Into this new Vidgy game, and this. >> Speaker A: Is not a podcast where we're going. >> Speaker B: To advertise or talk about it, but. >> Speaker A: Um, in short, I haven't played it because I don't have a machine to play it on. And I'm highly unmotivated to spend hundreds of dollars at this point to get
said machine. Uh, and so my son and I have been enjoying, like, a seven, eight year old video game at this point, Breath of the wild, in anticipation of the new Legend of Zelda game coming out, hopefully this year. But if video games track records for releasing when they say has anything to. >> Speaker B: Say about it, it won't be this year. >> Speaker A: Uh, maybe next year. It'd be nice to have it for. >> Speaker B: The holidays, though, this year. That'd be pretty rad.
>> Speaker A: But, yeah, he's been playing a lot of the Harry Potter game and something. >> Speaker B: That'S been on my know, he told. >> Speaker A: Me you can explore all the parts of the. Like, you can really just get just. >> Speaker B: Sully deep into this Hogwarts castle. And it's made me wonder a couple things.
>> Speaker A: The first is, and it's on my mind more often than it probably should be, is how the people in the world of Harry Potter deal with their waste. Like, do they have a magical solution? >> Speaker B: Now, we know they have pipes because. >> Speaker A: In book two, in the Chamber of Secrets. >> Speaker B: Time to nerd. Welcome to the privy book club here. >> Speaker A: Uh, we're going to talk about the pipes in Harry Potter. Harry Potter's
pipe. Uh, but we know they have indoor plumbing. >> Speaker B: And we hear there is flushing the. >> Speaker A: Toilets in the scenes with moaning Myrtle and how she spends her time in the like. We know that they have plumbing, so they are not relying on magical means for removing their waste, much like they do for electricity, rather than using the muggle. Know why it sort of got me, like, did Dumbledore update those bathrooms? Because to my knowledge, I was pretty.
>> Speaker B: Sure they didn't have flush toilets back. >> Speaker A: Then, like, when the castle would have been built. I'm pretty confident they didn't have flush. >> Speaker B: Toilets, so they would have updated it. >> Speaker A: And so my question to anyone who is playing. >> Speaker B: This new Harry Potter game. >> Speaker A: Is, what's the toilet? You first. >> Speaker B: Number one, can you explore the bathrooms?
>> Speaker A: And number two, what is the toilet situation like? Does it look like it is modern toilets? And are we just accepting that we have some data? And what's interesting is the data we have is somewhat weird. Again, we know they have pipes, but when the castle was built, that would not have probably been the thing that they would have used. >> Speaker B: So I decided to verify, like, okay.
>> Speaker A: So if you built a big old castle back in the olden times, long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, what would those bathrooms look like? >> Speaker B: And that googling and the resulting rabbit. >> Speaker A: Hole eventually became this episode. Because this week on privy, we're going to be talking about medieval plumbing. Specifically as that medieval plumbing relates to castles. The term castle derives from too many words. There are too many to count.
>> Speaker B: It comes from so many. >> Speaker A: But they essentially all boil down to the idea of a fortified place. Now, when you're looking for a place to drop a stack, you're going to want a fortified place. You don't want somebody sneaking up on. >> Speaker B: You, uh, and catching you unawares while. >> Speaker A: You'Re trying to do your business. I mean, I think I've shared the story
on here. Um, if not, this is an informal hunter's anecdotes, and if I have, you can disregard my previous comment, but about how many of us living in the dorms at Corbin University. I'm going to start tacking Corbin University onto a lot of the nonsense that I do. Um, I'm sure that they'll love to have their dorms and their whole thing associated with what we're doing here, but, um, in the dorms of cormode university, there was many of us who regularly would
not lock the stalls. And that way, when there was a newcomer to the bathroom, you can chow, knock that stall door wide open, and then you're face to face with your intruder. Like, there's no sneaking up on that. But they all boil. The term castle all derives from words that essentially mean, like, a fortified place. As a result, the term has led many to believe that castles were built and used primarily as military fortification. Now, while this is often the case, think about
all of the very good. Think about, like, clash royale. You get your little castle built in the center of your little thing. Or, uh, not clash royale. Clash of clans. The teens are loving it right now, but it's often the case that castles were there for military fortification. But, uh, they are likely much more than that. Oh, that's crisp. Oh, man, that orange vanilla Seltzer is just hitting real strong. Castles were designed to be fortified, usually as a residence of a lord or.
>> Speaker B: Other nobility, such as a king, a. >> Speaker A: Prince, or one of those things, you know, nobilities. The carolingian empire. I'm sure I butchered
the formal term of that. But the carolingian empire, which would expand greatly under the leadership of Charlemagne, headed into the time of expansion during the early days of the Holy Roman Empire, which, as one of my college professors so rightfully pointed out, was anything but holy, not technically roman, and without the presence of an emperor. Not an empire. But I digress. Charlemagne, which. Remember, in our previous episode,
Charlie Mang, um, died. At which point, a guy named Louis the pious. >> Speaker B: Louis the pious, either way, took over. >> Speaker A: I bet that guy was a real treat to have at parties. Like, uh, Lewis might have been pretty pious, but he sucked at keeping a handle on his kingdom, let me tell you. I mean, forgive me, empire, because he's not a king. He had three sons, which, could you. >> Speaker B: Imagine, like, who's coming to the party?
>> Speaker A: Oh, Louis the pious is on the list. Well, there goes all that fun times. Um, but Louis the pious had three sons, speaking of not being able to manage your empire. And these three sons would fight over the whole kingdom, the whole thing. Um, after they ousted their dad, which wouldn't be death until 843, when his kids came to an agreement at the Treaty of Verdun. Then there was a guy named Charles the Bald, after whose reign
they began to be attacked by Vikings. Old bald Charlie getting really roached and poached by the Vikings out here. Uh, really getting it, getting the works by the Vikings, old bald Charlie died, and his son, Lewis the stammerer took over. These names don't seem real sometimes. I'm not going to lie. They seem like weird NPC names in Skyrim or like dungeons and dragons. It's like Lewis the stammer. I wonder why they'd called him that. I bet he was pretty eloquent.
Two other wild names, while we're on the topic. Ah, are Charles the fat, poor bloke. I hope that he was, like a really skinny guy. And bozo of Vienna. So good. So good. It sounds like the three Stooges, Louis, Charles and Bozo. By the 18 hundreds, the empire was divided. Individual lords and princes would take up defending their own territories. And when you're trying to fortify a position and need a place to live. >> Speaker B: Within that position that is also close.
>> Speaker A: To where you're in control of, you have the makings of a castle. In fact, you probably made yourself a castle. Castles at this time in the 18 hundreds started to pop up all over Europe. At first, they were made of wood and dirt. Later they used cut stones, uh, to further fortify these settlements. Now, when you get a bunch of lords and things in an area all trying to defend their land, you get into what kind of becomes a case of my castle's bigger pissing
match. It became kind of a sign of prosperity and wealth to have the biggest, most fortified castle in the, um. Know, it's kind of like keeping up with the Joneses, but in this case, it's kind of like keeping up with Charles the fat and Lewis the stammer. But settle down, gents, settle down. The size of your rampart doesn't matter. But they still did this. And castles, as a result, began popping up all over Europe. The castles also, again, served as a
symbol of wealth and power. They would be built into a hillside, a rocky cleft and other outcroppings. Now, these castles that were built, they have a number of significant features. They have a lot of features. Many include a bailey, a keep. A bailey is like a location in the castle, not a person named Bailey, although maybe they did have people named Bailey inside the castle. Who am I to say? The gatehouse, the battlements, the great hall, you know, classic castle stuff.
But none of this helps our purposes. It doesn't help us understand the bathroom situation in these castles. Like, at the end of the day, Charles, you know, Charles the fat's taking a big fat, like, where did he do it? Where did fat Charles drop his fat Charles? While the most common bathroom feature of this period, as we have discussed in. >> Speaker B: A number of episodes, is you poop. >> Speaker A: Or pee into a pot, and then.
>> Speaker B: That is carried outside your dwelling place to a set location. >> Speaker A: And, um, know, you go macho man, randy flambage into the piss pot, and that is carried outside of the living quarters and dumped, usually rinsed, hopefully rinsed and dumped out, often into the streets, um, where the lowly citizens would have to walk through
it. But if you're trying to shut yourself up in a fortified place, like a castle, you may not have the luxury of taking it outside the castle walls. >> Speaker B: To dump whenever you need. >> Speaker A: I mean, I'm sure they did that for some time. Like, well, I'll just take it outside the walls and dump it. But interestingly enough, many castles were built along a river or other depression that would later be
filled with water. Now, while you could just dump your skeet in the street, they would often dig out moats and other previous castles that were not located near enough to water, would dig out these depressions in the ground so as to be filled with water. Thus, like creating your own river. These nearby, um, water sources, also known as moats, served as added defense. You couldn't sneak in on the sides. Now, but you know what they don't tell you about these
moats. At the end of the day, moats were essentially sewer systems for the castle and its occupants. If you were tasked with emptying the pot outside the gates, or in many cases over the edge of the wall, you would be very likely to dump that pot into the moat which lies below. Now, if that sounds like a toilet, you aren't totally wrong. Um, this system of dumping it overboard. >> Speaker B: Didn'T last long, because many castles were. >> Speaker A: Fitted with a feature called
a garter robe. A garter robe is essentially a hole that you would poop into or through that would carry the waste out of the castle and down the moat. The most rudimentary of these garter robes would just be a simple hole in the wall that you press your beefy Haynes up to and let fly. The more intricate systems would have a seat with a carved, essentially piping. It was more just carved hole.
>> Speaker B: That. >> Speaker A: The matter that you expelled would travel down, often carried by water, you would pour down it. Now, if that sounds a little bit like a toilet, you aren't totally wrong. Um, they didn't have running water. It just kind of emptied out into the open air, often directly into the moat or onto the hillside, where the logs would accumulate and roll down into the moat via gravity. What a beautiful system.
Like, you're approaching the castle, and you just kind of see these little turds just kind of fall from the side of the castle, fall from the edge of these little outcroppings down into the moat. Sploosh below. Originally, garter, uh, robes were used as storerooms for valuables. It comes from the french word for wardrobe. What's unfortunate is the same word is used in castles to describe the waste moving turd depository system
described previously. Could you imagine some king danes himself to bring himself to visit? Some cometor asks where their garter robe is, and they take him to a storage room, and he just drops a royal because he's a king deuce in the corner of their closet, like, bad King Charles, like, now you have a little pile of Charles in the storage room. We got to rename one. We don't have to, because we don't have to worry about this system. Uh, you know,
it's an unfortunate thing that these. I wonder if that ever happened in these castles. The garter robes would be, again, of, uh, varying types. Some looked kind of like a toilet with a rudimentary stone seat or a wooden platform with a hole in it. >> Speaker B: That you'd make your deposits into. That's best case scenario. >> Speaker A: But you have to imagine, like, a stone seat. How cold would that be? >> Speaker B: Like, these castles weren't heated, and Europe.
>> Speaker A: Isn'T like, the warmest place in the world all year round. Like, you're putting bare beef on ICE cold stones, flipping cold and hard. If you're going with the wood option, I fear the same thing we've discussed in the past about getting splinters in your butt. That's the seated option. But there's another option that's a lot more like what people would describe as a glory hole. >> Speaker B: You just press your butt up to.
>> Speaker A: The hole and let her rip right out the side of the castle down to the murky moat. It makes you wonder, how many times do you think these castles got sieged and my dude has just got his butt pressed up to the garter robe. >> Speaker B: Hole, just letting it fly. >> Speaker A: And he's like, come on, they're attacking the wall. And he's like, outside of the wall. >> Speaker B: Is just, this dude's like, plop, plop, plop coming
down. And depending on how far that drop. >> Speaker A: Is to the moat below, man, you had to have varying degrees of sound on that hit. You ever stand on a bridge, especially one where you can't necessarily see what's down below, and you just toss stuff off, and you listen for the sound of the kerplunky? Imagine that. But it's your turds hitting the poop a. It's a gravity impacted plop. There's a variety of garter robes in
Germany. They have a thing called a dansker, which is like a garter robe, but it's in a tower. Um, so they had the intelligence and the wherewithal to build their dookie tower separate from the side of a building. They had the wherewithal to build theirs. Um, in a tower that's like, on the other side of a bridge, which often travels over the river, remote. And it separates and gets the left deposits further away from the water sources of the castle. It's a little bit smarter.
The moat often would carry the ingredients necessary for cholera and other diseases. Note the health problems and conditions of the time. It's the murky moat. You're just trying to live your life in the kingdom as a king. Me in your castle. You hit up ye oldie taco bell, and it's hitting you at 02:00 a.m. You got to hit the garter robe, and Big Doug
hasn't finished carving out your stone seat. So you got to press beefy ham up against the wall of the thing and just let fly out the hole down into the murky moat below, where likely so many enemies and so many traders have been tossed. And as you do, your enemy approaches on the roadside, and they see the deposit come out the side of the castle and plummet. And your enemy thinks to themselves, while we know what they're doing, it paints quite a bit different of a picture of these
moats. They were not swimming pools, unless, of course, the castle was built along a running river. >> Speaker B: Like, if it's on a running piece. >> Speaker A: Of running water, that's a different story. But if you had a stagnant moat with standing water, there would definitely be something extra floating around in that swamp. Like, that is not a body of water that you want to get messed up in mixed up in garter robes and moats. It's one of my personal hopes that I am able
to use a garter robe one day. Um, who knows? It's hard to say. Either way, it really changes the look of those Disney castles and the huh huh. Like, you have that pristine moat that's always crystal clear. I'm pretty confident it wasn't that crystal clear. With that, we were approaching the end of another episode of privy. Thank you for joining us. I hope that you enjoyed, uh, this discussion. I want to take a moment and just remember, take time to be thankful. Uh, let's all be thankful.
That one, for the most part, we don't have to worry about getting splinters in our backside. Second, when we have to poop, we have indoor plumbing to carry it away. We don't have to put our butt up to a hole in the wall and let it fly. And thus out the thing. Imagine those holes got pretty randy. Like, there's not a lot of aiming that happens when you are pooping in such a way. And so let's all be thankful that we aren't on that system anymore here
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Don't forget to wash your butthole. And now, as always, don't forget to flush our >> Speaker B: channel.