Filth, Noise & Stench in England
Not Just the Tudors
History Hit
4.8 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2022
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In English cities of the 17th century, there was plenty to offend the eyes, ears, nose, taste buds, and skin of inhabitants. Residents were scarred by smallpox, refuse rotted in the streets, pigs and dogs roamed free.
In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Emily Cockayne — author of Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England — about all the unpleasant aspects of city life and how they were navigated, or endured, by citizens.
This episode was edited by Thomas Ntinas and produced by Elena Guthrie.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | For many of us, when we were children, thinking about the past, drew on our senses, we imagined |
| 0:09.8 | what the Tudor Court would look like. Or perhaps we imagined the taste of meats roasted |
| 0:16.8 | on a spit. We pondered what early modern clothes felt like. Be those belonging to the rich |
| 0:23.0 | or the poor, whether beds were comfortable. We imagined what towns smelled like and even |
| 0:28.1 | the people. We thought about the chatter, the music, the sound of a sword being sheathed. |
| 0:36.1 | Now of course there are many people who continue to remember those things. I certainly forgot |
| 0:40.9 | promptly about the physical, visceral reality of the past for many years and had to be jolted |
| 0:47.3 | back into it. I think that such a visceral encounter with the past isn't something that |
| 0:53.0 | should be reserved for our childhood. I think it's incredibly exciting that one of the |
| 0:57.1 | nearest areas to develop in social history in recent times is to recover people's sensory experiences. |
| 1:05.0 | 20 or 20 years ago, when today's guest Dr Emily Cocaine was completing her PhD study |
| 1:11.7 | into sounds and noise in early modern England, she decided to develop it into a book called Hubbub, |
| 1:19.6 | Filth, Noise and Stench in England, 1600 to 1770, which is a remarkable feat of investigation |
| 1:28.2 | into the offences that people experience to each of their five senses. Today, as associate professor |
| 1:34.8 | in early modern history at the University of East Anglia, Dr Cocaine continues to examine |
| 1:39.8 | interpersonal relationships, material culture, nuisances and domestic and street environments in |
| 1:46.1 | England. She's written cheek by Zhao, a history of neighbours, which came out in 2012, rummage, |
| 1:53.3 | a history of things we have reused, recycled and refused to let go in 2020, both of which to much |
| 1:59.4 | critical acclaim. And I am delighted to welcome her today to discuss Filth, Noise and Stench in |
| 2:05.4 | early modern England after a second edition of Hubbub was published last year with a new afterward. |
| 2:16.6 | Dr Cocaine, thank you so much for being willing to talk to me and join me on not just the tutors. |
| 2:24.1 | I think your book is absolute triumph, I mean it's one of many books, but the one we're going to be |
... |
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