is there any evidence for lime pits in convents?
Dear Judith,
Perhaps the archaeologists on the list will be able to answer this
more definitively, but lime pits were certainly not the usual form of
handling sewage at monasteries of any kind. Running water was
preferred. Attempts were made to locate the monastic buildings close
to a stream, and sometimes a channel was dug under the reredorter,
which usually comprised a row of toilets. There is quite a
spectacular one surviving at Royaumont in the Ile-de-France. From
the 12th century onwards, many monasteries were piping in water
supplies, sometimes from great distances, although waste disposal was
not the primary motivation for such works (cf the surviving
12th-century water tower at Canterbury Cathedral Priory, and the
plumbing map of the precinct slipped into the Eadwine Psalter). I
rather doubt whether there were many essential differences between
houses of monks and nuns, but in general, nunneries were less well
financed and may have had to make do with less elaborate
arrangements.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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