Preventing disease in the medieval period

• Religious actions to prevent disease


  • Living a life free from sin
  • Attending church services and processions
  • Prayer for God's forgiveness
  • Pilgrimages
  • Wearing magical or religious charms
  • Fasting
  • Flagellation
• Pilgrimages, fasting and flagellation


  Activities that allowed people to experience suffering, as Christians believed Jesus had done when he was crucified
• Suffering, through these methods or because of illness, was accepted as it let people consider their Christian faith more closely
• Miasma theory


  Unclean air could make people unwell
• Methods to purify the air


  • Carrying posies
  • Lighting fires
  • Burning herbs or substances
  • Ringing bells
  • Allowing birds to fly around the house
• Medieval towns worked hard to keep their streets clean
• Methods used by medieval towns to keep streets clean


  • Employing rakers
  • Punishing people for throwing waste onto the streets
  • Making butchers dispose of waste outside city walls
  • Building public latrines
• Advice from Church and physicians to prevent disease


  • Washing regularly
  • Exercising
  • Resting to balance the four humours
• This advice is given today because society now possesses more accurate scientific knowledge about the body and the spread of disease