Why is there no bathroom in Lope´s house?
In Lope de Vega's time, no house, not even the best equipped, had a bathroom or a toilet. The people who lived there used chamber pots. At night, they threw the contents out the window, warning first with the shout of "agua va!" ("water coming down!").
- The streets of Madrid then were landfills of the waste and excrement of the people. In 1639 they tried to 'regulate' this problem and in a proclamation requesting "That no person empty through the windows and drain pipes, filth or other things, but rather do so from the door to the street; in the summer at 11 o'clock at night, and in the winter at 10 o'clock; penalty of four years of exile and 20 ducats to the masters who allows it, and 100 lashes and six years of exile to the servants who perform the act in addition to paying for damages incurred."
