Postby Merlon. » Sat May 03, 2014 6:41 am
"In 1343, however, before there had been any outbreak of plague whatsoever, the city authorities 'for the decency and cleanliness of the city' granted to the butchers of St Nicholas Shambles a segregated spot in the suburbs at Seacoal-lane near Fleet Prison, where they might clean and dispose of the entrails of beasts.2 Filth there thrown into Fleet Stream would, for the most part, have been swept down into the Thames River by the force of the swift stream combined with that of the ebb-tide. The citizens of London seem to have considered the arrangment satisfactory, for they made no complaint of any nuisance being created thereby, even during the appalling outbreak of plague in 1349. But complaint did come soon after from a quite different quarter. In 1354 the king sent a writ to the mayor and city authorities protesting against the stench arising from the cleaning of entrails on this wharf, formerly owned (so the writ stated) by the Prior of St John of Jerusalem, who had petitioned for the removal of the nuisance on the ground that it was so near to Fleet Prison as to be injuri- ous to the health of the prisoners. Naturally the Prior had petitioned the king, because Fleet Prison was under the latter's jurisdiction. (The city prisons were all within the city limits.) The king therefore ordered removal of the nuisance.3 The city authorities, in their answer to the king, stated that they had assigned this place to the butchers so that they might wash the entrails in the tidal water of the Thames, instead of throwing them on the pavement by the House of the Gray Friars; and contended that the place in 'Secolane' belonged to the city and not to the Prior of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, as the latter asserted.4 Clearly the intentions of the city authorities, even at this time, were to mitigate, as much as possible, the nuisance caused by butchers' filth."
Butchering in Mediaeval London
Author: Ernest L. Sabine:
Speculum, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Jul., 1933)