Les olors de la Lleida medieval. Salubritat i salut pública entre els segles XIII i XV

This work seeks to break preconceived ideas around concepts such as disease, food and dirt in the Middle Ages. For the medieval man, smells were a transcendental element, capable of evoking divinity and illness. For our ancestors, the perfume of the spices transported them to the earthly paradise and gave truth to a miracle. The strength of the waste, on the other hand, was the cause of corruption in the air and engendered terrible diseases such as the plague. This duality could be perceived in the urban space, where, from the 13th century onwards, measures began to appear to improve the health of places such as the butcher shop, the market, the main streets… This is the birth of a common space which was progressively structured and defined over the course of several centuries.

As shown in the book, despite the hygienic problems arising from living in increasingly populated cities, our ancestors did not resign themselves to live passively in the mud, but sought measures to improve their day-to-day life. These pages are the study of some of these measures between the 13th and 15th centuries.