Bickering neighbors from 700 years ago

Robert Frost once made the wise observation that good fences make good neighbors. Apparently, in medieval England, good relations between neighbors was dependent to a large degree on one’s ability to dispose of one’s waste, at least according to a 700-year-old English document which details a list of grievances made against fellow residents. 

Take case No. 214 in the Assize of Nuisance (above), a list of grievances made against irksome neighbors in London between 1301-1431.

It involved Alice Wade, a 14th century London resident who, in an era when many of her fellow citizens relieved themselves in chamber pots and then dumped the contents out the window, had a toilet of her own in a small room.

It involved a hole cut in a wooden platform over a cesspool, according to the BBC.