History Main / TheDungAges

** Parodied in [[http://www.cracked.com/video_18579_if-disney-songs-were-historically-accurate.html this video]], which applies this trope to a Disney musical. There are giant piles of manure, carts full of dead babies, child brides, and even the singing princess coughs up blood and looks forward to dying in childbirth.

** The scene with the "autonomous collective" was supposed to take place on a normal-looking farm. Because they couldn't get access to a real farm on their filming budget, they changed it to a ''mud farm.'' You could say they were [[IncrediblyLamePun dirt poor]].

* On ''Series/AdamRuinsEverything'', Adam explains to Murph and Emily ''where'' all those studies that say [[MyBiologicalClockIsTicking you have to have children before age 35 OR ELSE]] got their data from: French farmers in the 1500s. He lets in several people, all of whom are dirty and tracking in straw. Murph opens up a window because they smell. One of the farm girls comments in French, "No dirt, no plague...this must be {{Heaven}}!" A researcher on the subject (who herself had all her children relatively late in life) follows and explains that this is a problem because the data comes from an era before fertility treatments (such as IVF), antibiotics, modern medicine, etc. Also, it's only census data, so it doesn't explain ''why'' few of those women were having babies after 35. Sure, it could mean that those women were going through menopause or perimenopause sooner than women today do. But it could also reflect that those women were dying early of diseases (such as TheBlackDeath), or [[DeathByChildbirth dying in childbirth]], or that their husbands had gone off to war, or maybe sex after a certain age was considered "unseemly," or many other possible explanations. [[note]] And, in case you're wondering, more ''modern'' data suggests that a woman's fertility declines, not in her mid 30's, but in her mid ''40's''. And the risk of a live birth with a birth defect ''does'' double: from 0.5% to 1%. So you can have babies later in life than you've been led to believe.
[[/note]]

Something to keep in mind is that neither The Dung Ages nor YeGoodeOldeDays is "more" accurate than the other. The reality is that while hygiene was not good by modern standards, and living conditions were not what we'd call "comfortable" (what with the lack of air conditioning, flush toilets, and weekly garbage pick-up), neither did most people walk around barefoot, caked in filth, eating rotten food and living in tumble-down huts made of sticks.

* Mel Gibson's ''Film/{{Braveheart}}''.

* In an ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive NP'' non-canon arc in which the characters expressed opinions about video games, NeatFreak Susan naturally [[https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/teddgameopinions-038 says]] she ''hates'' this in pseudo-medieval games, saying firstly that people in the Middle Ages ''did'' clean their clothes ("In in ways that I'd hate, and maybe with less frequency than I'd like, but '''they still got cleaned''!") and secondly, even if it ''was'' accurate, ''she doesn't care''; it's not like the games are aiming for historical accuracy in other repsects.

* Despite all the talk of how clean Imperial Japan looked, [[http://figal-sensei.org/hist157/Textbook/Higuchi.htm surprisingly the Heian era turned out to be this, at least for the Heian court.]] Despite the aesthetics of the Heian imperial court, some historians point out that the living conditions would be considered unsanitary by today's standards, rivaling those of the Renaissance period, given that bathing is seldom mentioned but perfume was frequently used.

* In ''Videogame/EldenRing'', it is implied that the Lands Between were far nicer and cleaner before the Shattering ruined everything, and even modern Leyendell still looks quite nice despite the majority of the population having gone insane or fallen into indolence and half the city's buildings sealed with corpse-wax. The rest of the Lands Between, especially Limgrave, have fallen into utter disrepair with no intact towns or cities and starving citizens who cannot die left scrabbling in the dirt for food. Note that this is before you get to the parts of the Lands Between where there's open genocides and villages filled with cults of the Frenzied Flame, or regions infected by the Scarlet Rot. CrapsackWorld doesn't begin to describe how terrible things have become.

* James Clavell's novels are explicit on the mutual CultureShock between West and East. ''Literature/{{Shogun}}'' sees the ValuesDissonance between Blackthorne's Dutch sailors and their unwilling hosts in mediaeval Japan. The Westerners consider three baths in a lifetime is a sufficiency and come from cities where it is common to sling ''all'' your waste and refuse into the street. The Japanese have other ideas. Their first action is to have Blackthorne forcibly bathed and his clothing taken away, at arm's length, for incineration. Blackthorne learns to adapt and bring his personal hygiene up to Japanese levels. His crew do not - they end up in the ghetto set aside, and preferably downwind, for the ''Eta'', the Untouchable caste who do all the dirty work. Even the Eta are repulsed by typical Western standards of cleanliness...

* UsefulNotes/LeonardoDaVinci once designed his "ideal city". One big issue he wanted to solve with this city was the sanitation issues of the European cities of his time, and so the design boasts enough toilets for everyone and round spiral staircases everywhere so there's no corners that people can urinate into.

* A central humorous theme in the French TimeTravel comedy film series ''Film/LesVisiteurs''. A medieval knight and his squire are sent to the late 20th century by mistake and pretty much everyone notices how smelly they are, Jacquouille (the squire) in particular (and since he ends up in the house of a dentist, the rotten state of his teeth does not go unnoticed). Peasants in the era they come from look like they're taken straight from one of the aforementioned Monty Python movies and Jacquouille's NeatFreak descendant emphasizes the trope even more by his reactions to his ancestor's dirtiness. Even the 18th-century characters of the third movie are disgusted by Jacquouille, despite their era not having 20th century hygiene standards. And Jacquouille's brother is a manure gatherer, with the expected smell and scabbies he transmits to everyone...

* The village landscapes in ''Film/{{Dragonheart}}'' are several shades of brown.

* Even the United States wasn't immune to this trope. Before the 20th century, horses and other pack animals did their business wherever they were, and the cities were rife with animal waste. In New York City, for instance, over 500 tons of manure was shoveled from the streets ''every day''. Ironically, the invention of automobiles and trains was seen as ''good'' for the environment at the time, as less animals on the streets meant less manure. Not to mention the "occasional" dead horse. [[http://www.banhdc.org/archives/ch-hist-19711000.html In 1880 alone]], NYC removed fifteen thousand dead horses from its streets.
* Up until the 19th century, the water from the Thames was used both for drinking and sewage. The brutally hot summer of 1858 was known in London as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink "The Great Stink"]], the Thames became so pestilential that the Parliament at Westminster (which is right by the river) shut itself down because the stench from the river was unbearable. In some places, it was said that that feces, dead fish, and industrial sludge piled up six feet deep by the shore. Fortunately, this became the final straw that led to the building of massive sewers and water treatment facilities that rehabilitated the Thames. Though earlier examples exist, these Victorian sewers, built to account for future growth of the city above, have become one of the archetypal examples of another trope, the AbsurdlySpaciousSewer.

* Following horses to clean up after them (or installing bins under carriages to collect their waste) is relatively recent. Before then, wherever they wanted to go, they went.
** Creator/HGWells once wrote a pretty apocalyptic article where he pictured London covered to the roofs in the horse dung -- due to rapidly increasing traffic.
** Ironically, the invention of automobiles and trains was seen as ''good'' for the environment, due to less manure in the streets. Not to mention the "occasional" dead horse: [[http://www.banhdc.org/archives/ch-hist-19711000.html In 1880 alone]], New York City removed fifteen thousand dead horses from its streets.

* VideoGame/APlagueTaleInnocence has this view of medieval France, just with the dung replaced by rotting corpses and plague rats. Justified as it is set during TheBlackDeath, and it doesn't help that [[spoiler: the BigBad is trying to weaponize the plague]].

* Speaking of ancient Rome, while a lot is made of the fact that Romans had sewers, flush toilets, and public baths; Roman sanitation was still incredibly gross by modern standards and [[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/ancient-roman-toilets-gross/423072/ of questionable effectiveness.]] The water of the baths was only changed intermittently and it was custom to conclude a bathing session in a swim at the portion of the bath which was essentially a giant unchlorinated pool. Public toilets would be better described as flush latrines rather than flush toilets. People did their business over a big cistern that was only flushed when it got too stinky. And everyone wiped their ass with the same sponge. Worse, the Roman sewer was initially designed just to drain rainwater, but people started using it to dump human waste into anyway. If it didn't rain for a while, it could make the whole city smell rancid. It's telling that wealthy Romans used toilets not connected to the sewer and emptied in a more traditional method.

* Following horses to clean up after them is relatively recent. Before then, wherever they wanted to go, they went.

*** This is why when automobiles became common is cities, it was seen as being good for the environment: no more manure to clean up. Not to mention the "occasional" dead horse: [[http://www.banhdc.org/archives/ch-hist-19711000.html In 1880]] New York City removed fifteen thousand dead horses from its streets.

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* ''Literature/TheWarlordChronicles'' by Bernard Cornwell rips the Myth/KingArthur mythos from the medieval version of GorgeousPeriodDress setting into this one.

* Hob Gadling in ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'', who is [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld really 600 years old]] but looks 30, grumpily complains that a Renaissance Fair or SCA event he's dragged to doesn't have enough shit everywhere. But later he complains that the toilets are "bloody disgusting" and gets back a "we strive for realism".
** Note that a mere hundred years after his deal with Death, there's an old guy complaining about these newfangled inventions like chimneys instead of brasiers, the smoke staying inside and strengthening wood beams and the occupants' health. Hob tells him to shut it.