If cleanliness is next to piety, these monks miss the point.
It is not surprising that those who survived the Middle Ages survived a time when villagers dumped their doo-dus in the streets and in designated 'sewage plants'. especially intestinal parasites.
By contrast, the monastery just outside the town had water supply, barns, and hand-washing facilities, all of which were luxuries for the common townsfolk.
Despite some seemingly unsanitary urban practices, a new archaeological study by researchers at the University of Cambridge suggests that the highest prevalence of worms in the intestines of the dead was in medieval Cambridge. determined that it was not the general public. He lived in a nearby Augustinian monastery.
"Medieval Cambridge monks appear to have been plagued by parasites," said the study's lead author, Piers Mitchell , in a statement. "This is the first attempt to elucidate how parasites are common among people living different lifestyles in the same medieval town."
At the time, human Both dung and pig dung were commonly used as agricultural fertilizers.
Monasteries and monasteries, on the other hand, subsisted primarily on their own organic resources, reusing their own excrement as fertilizer.
Not uncommon in the Middle Ages, In vegetable gardens with human faeces, this could have led to repeated infections by earthworms," Mitchell said. and exhumed 25 locals buried in a nearby cemetery. All died in adulthood between his 12th century and his 14th century. Archaeologists were able to determine whether the remains were infected with worms by analyzing the soil near the pelvis of the skeleton. 58%) died from the infection, compared to only 8 villagers (32%).
The researchers noted that these rates are considered minimal because some of the worm's tracks may have been consumed or destroyed by insects and fungi. They also noted that the prevalence among townspeople was comparable to relevant findings from that period.
Those monks may have been plagued with parasites. On average, they lived longer than those outside the Holy Wall. wealth.
