for hundreds of years for whatever reason whether innocent or guilty men women and children have found themselves in prison imagine traveling back to the Middle Ages and spending time inside one of those quote unregulated frequently packed verminous ill ventilated and badly sewered places welcome to Medieval Madness it's all about the money as with most things Money Talks so it was better to go into prison with plenty of it or at least have rich friends on the outside the papal chaplain Amar deont for was imprisoned by his cousin King AB the first of England at Corf
Castle in 1276 he resided there along with his retinue of eight Grooms and four valet it doesn't seem like Armory was having too hard a time of it the prison Tower at K Castle was built sometime in the 12 80s by Edward the during his conquest of Wales the criminals accommodation there demonstrates the difference between the classes of prisoners suspected felons were kept in the lower Chambers which could only be reached through a trap door and was ventilated by a tiny window high up on the wall but you could just walk into the dep's chambers
which had much larger Windows you could only hope that you might be sent to one of the prisons that was regarded as being easier bloodgate in London which opened around 1378 was temporarily closed on occasions because it was thought to provide a relatively comfortable confinement from Ludgate the convicts were sent to Newgate where many of them died another jail considered too comfy was The Fleets described by John paston who served time there on three separate occasions as a fair prison the fleet like the tower was classed as one of the king's prisons and usually housed
people who owed him money that meant that the inmates were likely to be from the higher classes of society maybe you could lie and claim that you owed money to the ex- Checker to be committed there even if you had been accused of some other offense you would need a little bit of coinage to get in though the keeper charged 2 Shillings and 6 P at the door 2 Shillings more than any of the other London prisons it stands to reason that in the Middle Ages if you were a poor and Petty criminal you would
be subjected to worse conditions than someone rich and a murderer it doesn't appear fair but the medievals were happy to accept this having to pay the keeper of the prison for basic Provisions like food bedding coal and lamps at inflated prices was going to be a struggle too if you couldn't afford to bring your own luckily the medievals were big on charity so destitute prisoners would have relied on arms charitable requests and confiscated food stuffs and there was always the option of sharing a bet because that worked out cheaper although the fleet might have been
a good choice there were times when the health of the prisoners was endangered there in 1354 some butchers threw the guts from slaughtered animals into a nearby WF causing bad sanitation within the jail and again 2 years later some workers established tanneries nearby and built latrines on the banks of a surrounding ditch even staying at the Tower of London didn't guarantee a salubrious detention in 1295 Matthew of the ex cheer complained that he had been subjected to a number of enormities while confined there saying that he was quote put in the black Cellar on the
bare ground where he remained for 2 years without any kind of fire or light nor had he anything to drink except from The Well of the tower where the rats drowned themselves it seemed that even the Vermin understood that the conditions were too appalling outside influences would always affect the inmates and what went on inside the prison walls Nationwide epidemics and like the one in 1316 caused a sharp upturn in deaths in English prisons impure drinking water was always a problem and contagious diseases like jail fever which we now known to be typhus were RI
Escape you may have been able to escape if you were lucky four prisoners made it out of new gate prison in London by climbing up onto the roof with a female hostage Richard's son of Nigel escaped from Oxford prison in 1225 simply by walking out the of supervision at Oxford was an obvious problem Richard Justified his Escape by saying that prison was bad for him he was later thrown into solitary confinement at Northampton jail where he said he was mentally affected and believed that the devil had appeared to him dressed as a monk he had
no alternative but to pull stones out of the walls and throw them at the demon to defend himself he had attempted to break out of three places using this method digging out a basin full a barrow full and then a cartload full of stones despite his desperate ATT attempts to break out Richard was dragged to a place of execution and hanged manacles were often used to stop escapes although when Richard was put in irons at Northampton he was able to break the clip from the chain that fastened him to the block John blakeman was taken
to a tower in Canterbury in 1220 he had been kept in the deepest part of the prison but still managed to break out despite wearing three pairs of irons the term irons could cover all manner of implements attached to the body to hold it down it could be a chain around the neck or the wrists or ankles John Pur wrote to a member of the family in Norfolk that he was fetd worse than ever and was manacled in the hands by day and night in 1391 at Northampton jail there were two iron columns for tying
up prisoners with begging balls at Herford in 1509 there were three great iron shoes and three pairs of thumb screws that look suspiciously like instruments of torture so it would seem that some wardens were not adverse to brutalizing prisoners when they felt inclined by the end of the 13th century breaking out of the king's jail was only punishable by death if the crime by which you were being held was a capital offense so it was often worth the risk With a Little Help from your friends you may be able to get your friends to help
with the Escape Plan in 1281 during The Peasants Revolt Rebels were able to free a surf imprisoned in Rochester jail and in London and Marshall C The Keeper of the prison was dragged outside by the protesters and summarily executed in 1450 during Jack Cade's Revolt a great deal of damage was caused at Newgate and the keeper there was not only fined but he got a taste of his own medicine when he too was imprisoned and if you were inside because of an oept then the keeper would be liable for that too this was one of
the better consequences of an escape attempt the punishment of a keeper there were exceptions but for the most part Keepers were cruel and greedy men the pay was low and the job thankless the only way they could make a decent living was by extorting the prisoners in their care but beware your fellow inmates might also be held responsible for your Escape even if they were not involved or even unaware aare of your intentions and if you escaped and were caught you would usually be moved to another jail to start your prison term again time already
served meant nothing once you had absconded cold captives in the countryside there were no purpose-built prisons a castle would seem to be the obvious place to house a suspect and many had dungeons just for this purpose however prisoners were not always kept in the actual building but in cages and Huts around the castle yard where they were exposed to the elements as well as a form of punishment stocks were also used as open air prisons and many people were held in them until they could be transferred for trial four pairs of great wooden stocks were
built in Chester in 1301 for the secure custody of those accused in Salisbury in 1384 some prisoners had died because they were kept in the stocks during a cold winter a rotting of the feet was also quite common for those confined to the stocks in one case from the 13th century a man and a woman suffered from an aggregate of 1 foot often this putria of the feet occurred inside prisons as well because of the use of Fetters on the ankles there were separate prisons for the Wayward churchmen any cleric accused of a crime could
plead clergy and be Tried by an ecclesiastical Court rather than a secular Court church court was usually more lenient believing in Penance in prison rather than execution or mutilation even for the more serious offenses so maybe if you have your head tonsured and ready piece of the Latin Bible you might be able to take advantage of this legal loophole in York the minister Cathedral had its own prison for Naughty members of the church York also had the only known Forest prison used for anyone who was caught breaking the laws of the forest in 1135 a
man called David was known as The King's lerer he was responsible for making sure that the king had enough meat to eat when he visited York and was also The Keeper of the forest prison smoggy stinky and swarming with lice whenever outside pandemics of famin swept across a region they would of course affect the prisons it's not like the inmates were getting large amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables to help them stay healthy and boost their immune systems sanitation was practically non-existent even in the jails that had the luxury of purpose built privies and ventilation
was pretty poor to probably to try and keep any disease in rather than to keep the fresh air out some of the rooms had fires but chimneys weren't really a thing until the 15th century even in wealthy homes so the air would have been thick and unpleasant with smoke although there would at at least have been the bonus of being a little warmer the authorities were desperate to keep any disease from spreading to the outside world for the medievals a law breaker was thought of as someone who was diseased and needed to be kept away
from the decent members of society anyway overcrowding was a problem in medieval prisons and too many people meant too little food in 1306 War jail was said to be quote so full of prisoners that many of them had died and die from day to day and inside Newgate in 1341 it was quote so full of prisoners that they were continually dying of hunger and oppression starvation and disease parasites also thrived among the frequently packed assemblage of unwashed inside the ill ventilated and badly sewed rooms at York prison quote the very walls are said to be
covered with lice at another jail quote lice crackling under their feet made such a noise as walking on the shells which were strewed over Garden walks being innocent and hoping for a quick trial and release was probably hopeless to as many suspects had to wait years to receive Justice in the 13th century one alleged horse thief waited 2 years for his trial before acquittal at Guilford jail a woman who was supposed to have murdered her husband was left a rot for 20 years these are just a few reasons why you probably wouldn't last 24 hours
in a medieval prison but the real question is why the hell would you want to thank you so much for watching this episode of Medieval Madness please subscribe to the channel if you haven't yet and I'll see you next week for another video have a great week cheers
