Fire in medieval cities

Fire was a constant concern in medieval cities.  Because both heating and cooking required open fires, there was always a chance for accidents.  Fireplaces, where the flames were at least surrounded by stone on most sides, were expensive (both for the stone and for the masons to build the fireplace), and because a lot of the heat went up the chimney, they were less efficient than a fire out in the middle of the room.

We have coroners' reports from late medieval London, showing how people died.  For children, one of the heart-breaking aspects of these reports is the frequent indication that the cause of death was accidentally falling or rolling into the fire.

Mom would have been very busy, doing all the things moms do but with far less technical help (no running water, no refrigerators, no washers & dryers, no vacuum cleaners, no ranges, no packaged foods, no prepared baby food, no disposable diapers).  As all mothers know, someone with legs less than a foot long can outrun the grownups if given a head start.  Short of tying the kid up, something no parent would want to do, it would be impossible to make sure they never encountered something dangerous.

Especially in the cities, there was also the constant danger that all those fires would start a fire that would sweep across town, destroying houses.  We now think of medieval buildings as built of stone, but those are the ones that survive--and are mostly late medieval.  For much of the Middle Ages, houses were primarily wattle and daub, made with a wood frame filled in with mud and straw and whatever else came to hand.  Roofs in the countryside were typically thatched, and a good thatch roof will be relatively cheap and last a long time, but one can see that they would be a true fire hazard.

City councils naturally tried to avoid fires.  Cities would have fire barrels on every block, barrels filled with water ready to pour on a fire.  Those in the neighborhood were strictly charged with keeping the barrels full.  Once the barrels were exhausted during a fire, citizens would form a human chain to bring water up from the lake or river (all cities were built on bodies of water).  City councils tried to encourage people to replace thatch roofs with clay tiles or slate, even though these were both heavier (requiring a lot better beams) and a lot more expensive.  And they encouraged replacing wattle and daub with stone.

Even though stone will not actually burn, stone buildings will, as seen most recently with Notre Dame.  If beams that hold the roof burn, as happened in Paris, the walls are in immediate danger of collapsing.  And of course anything inside a house or church may be burned.

Three months after the fire at Notre Dame, they still aren't sure how it started.  A long article in the New York Times, however, indicates that the cathedral came extremely close to being destroyed and was only saved by some very brave firemen and firewomen running up and down hundreds of stairs dragging hoses.

In practice, in spite of everyone's best efforts, medieval cities burned every generation or so, and the churches were often damaged.

© C. Dale Brittain 2019

For more on medieval cities and other aspects of life in the Middle Ages, see the ebook, Positively Medieval, available from Amazon and other ebook platforms.