Not a Picture of a Toilet, Not Even a Medieval One

There are ever so many lovely pictures of toilets lurking in the depths of the Privy Counsel archive, but we thought that, since we mentioned medieval toilets the other day, we'd show you a picture of one, or what we thought was a picture of one until we looked again. We came across this beauty COMPLETELY BY ACCIDENT, believe it or not. Actually, it's not a picture of a toilet at all, as our non-barbarian readers can no doubt tell at first glance, but to our sewer-trained mind it turned into one, the same way that songs that are completely not about toilets turn into Toilet Songs. (Maybe we need to start a new category? "Pictures that we deludedly believe are of toilets"?)

Totally not a 15th-century toilet. The weather, at least, appears topical: supposed
to represent February, it seems to us to correspond to that of April 2013.

Although this is probably not a picture of people sitting on the bog, but an illustration of people drying their clothes in front of a fire, as one is wont to do in February (or even April), it is still worth looking at. This lovely illustration is from a book called Moyen Age: Les Grands Auteurs Français du Programme (Lagarde, André and Laurent Michard, eds. Paris: Bordas, 1968).

Here's what the book looks like. It is colourful and agreeable in many ways.

Right. We're off to look for a picture of an actual medieval toilet now.

Related Reading:
Þorsteins Þáttr Skelks: Medieval Toilet Anecdote 
We Ponder Sewers and Medieval French
Danger, Danger: Medieval Toilets
Taking Our Baths and Our Women