Garderobe is a historic term for a room in a medieval castle. The Oxford English Dictionary gives as its first meaning a store-room for valuables, but also acknowledges "by extension, a private room, a bed-chamber; also a privy".
The word derives from the French garde de robes, meaning "robes (or clothing) protector". Its most common use now is as a term for a castle toilet.
Garderobe is the French word for "wardrobe", a lockable place where clothes and other items are stored. According to medieval architecture scholar Frank Bottomley, garderobes were "Properly, not a latrine or privy but a small room or large cupboard, usually adjoining the chamber [bedroom] or solar [living room] and providing safe-keeping for valuable clothes and other possessions of price: cloth, jewels, spices, plate and money." [1]
The term garderobe is also used to refer to a medieval or Renaissance toilet or a close stool. [2] In a medieval castle, a garderobe was usually a simple hole discharging to the outside into a cesspit (akin to a pit latrine) or the moat (like a fish pond toilet), depending on the structure of the building. Such toilets were often placed inside a small chamber, leading by association to the use of the term garderobe to describe the rooms. Many can still be seen in Norman and medieval castles and fortifications, for example at Bürresheim Castle in Germany, where three garderobes are still visible. [3] They became obsolete with the introduction of indoor plumbing.
A description of the garderobe at Donegal Castle indicates that while it was in use, it was believed that ammonia—a byproduct of excretion—would protect visitors' coats and cloaks from moths or fleas. [4]
In European public places, a garderobe denotes a cloakroom, wardrobe, alcove, or armoire used to temporarily store the coats and other possessions of visitors. [2] In Danish, Dutch, Estonian, German, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Ukrainian, the word can mean a cloakroom. In Latvian, it means "checkroom".
A closet is an enclosed space, with a door, used for storage, particularly that of clothes. Fitted closets are built into the walls of the house so that they take up no apparent space in the room. Closets are often built under stairs, thereby using awkward space that would otherwise go unused.
A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably derives more from the Renaissance period. An oubliette or bottle dungeon is a basement room which is accessible only from a hatch or hole in a high ceiling.
A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground, or more advanced designs, including pour-flush systems.
A bedroom or bedchamber is a room situated within a residential or accommodation unit characterised by its usage for sleeping. A typical western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds, a clothes closet, and bedside table and dressing table, both of which usually contain drawers. Except in bungalows, ranch style homes, ground floor apartments, or one-storey motels, bedrooms are usually on one of the floors of a dwelling that is above ground level. Beds range from a crib for an infant; a single or twin bed for a toddler, child, teenager or single adult; to bigger sizes like a full, double, queen, king or California king). Beds and bedrooms are often devised to create barriers to insects and vermin, especially mosquitoes, and to dampen or contain light or noise to aid sleep and privacy.
A changing room, locker room, or changeroom is a room or area designated for changing one's clothes. Changing-rooms are provided in a semi-public situation to enable people to change clothes with varying degrees of privacy.
A composting toilet is a type of dry toilet that treats human waste by a biological process called composting. This process leads to the decomposition of organic matter and turns human waste into compost-like material. Composting is carried out by microorganisms under controlled aerobic conditions. Most composting toilets use no water for flushing and are therefore called "dry toilets".
Cesspit, cesspool and soak pit in some contexts are terms with various meanings: they are used to describe either an underground holding tank or a soak pit. A cesspit can be used for the temporary collection and storage of feces, excreta, or fecal sludge as part of an on-site sanitation system and has some similarities with septic tanks or with soak pits. Traditionally, it was a deep cylindrical chamber dug into the ground, having approximate dimensions of 1 metre (3') diameter and 2–3 metres depth. Its appearance was similar to that of a hand-dug water well.
A chest is a form of furniture typically of a rectangular structure with four walls and a removable or hinged lid, used for storage, usually of personal items. The interior space may be subdivided.
Clothing terminology comprises the names of individual garments and classes of garments, as well as the specialized vocabularies of the trades that have designed, manufactured, marketed and sold clothing over hundreds of years.
A cloakroom, known as a coatroom and checkroom in North America, is a room for people to hang their coats, cloaks, canes, umbrellas, hats, or other outerwear when they enter a building. Cloakrooms are typically found inside large buildings, such as gymnasiums, schools, churches or meeting halls.
Buda Castle, formerly also called the Royal Palace and the Royal Castle, is the historical castle and palace complex of the Hungarian kings in Budapest. First completed in 1265, the Baroque palace that occupies most of the site today was built between 1749 and 1769, severely damaged during the Siege of Budapest in World War II, and rebuilt in a simplified Baroque style during the state communist era. Presently, it houses the Hungarian National Gallery, the Budapest Historical Museum, and the National Széchényi Library.
The King's Wardrobe, together with the Chamber, made up the personal part of medieval English government known as the King's household. Originally the room where the king's clothes, armour, and treasure were stored, the term was expanded to describe both its contents and the department of clerks who ran it. Early in the reign of Henry III the Wardrobe emerged out of the fragmentation of the Curia Regis to become the chief administrative and accounting department of the Household. The Wardrobe received regular block grants from the Exchequer for much of its history; in addition, however, the wardrobe treasure of gold and jewels enabled the king to make secret and rapid payments to fund his diplomatic and military operations, and for a time, in the 13th-14th centuries, it eclipsed the Exchequer as the chief spending department of central government.
A wardrobe, also called armoire or almirah, is a standing closet used for storing clothes. The earliest wardrobe was a chest, and it was not until some degree of luxury was attained in regal palaces and the castles of powerful nobles that separate accommodation was provided for the apparel of the great. The name of wardrobe was then given to a room in which the wall-space was filled with closets and lockers, the drawer being a comparatively modern invention. From these cupboards and lockers the modern wardrobe, with its hanging spaces, sliding shelves and drawers, evolved slowly.
Valet de chambre, or varlet de chambre, was a court appointment introduced in the late Middle Ages, common from the 14th century onwards. Royal households had many persons appointed at any time. While some valets simply waited on the patron, or looked after his clothes and other personal needs, itself potentially a powerful and lucrative position, others had more specialized functions. At the most prestigious level it could be akin to a monarch or ruler's personal secretary, as was the case of Anne de Montmorency at the court of Francis I of France. For noblemen pursuing a career as courtiers, like Étienne de Vesc, it was a common early step on the ladder to higher offices.
A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popular in Europe and North America with a toilet seat, with additional considerations for those with disabilities, or for a squatting posture more popular in Asia, known as a squat toilet. In urban areas, flush toilets are usually connected to a sewer system; in isolated areas, to a septic tank. The waste is known as blackwater and the combined effluent, including other sources, is sewage. Dry toilets are connected to a pit, removable container, composting chamber, or other storage and treatment device, including urine diversion with a urine-diverting toilet.
A toilet is a small room used for privately accessing the sanitation fixture (toilet) for urination and defecation. Toilet rooms often include a sink (basin) with soap/handwash for handwashing, as this is important for personal hygiene. These rooms are typically referred to in North America as half-bathrooms in a private residence.
A dansker is a toilet facility, belonging to a castle, that is housed in a tower over a river or stream. The tower, a type of garderobe tower, is linked to the castle over a bridge, which has a covered or enclosed walkway. The dansker is frequently found on German Ordensburgen and is an architectural feature of the 13th and 14th centuries.
Lady Audrey Walsingham was an English courtier. She served as Lady of the Bedchamber to queen Elizabeth I of England, and then as Mistress of the Robes to Anne of Denmark from 1603 until 1619.
Servais de Condé or Condez was a French servant at the court of Mary Queen of Scots, in charge of her wardrobe and the costume for masques performed at the Scottish royal court.
The Toilet History Museum is a private museum in Kyiv, Ukraine, that contains the largest collection of toilet-related souvenirs and items in the world, including historic chamber pots, squatting pans, and urinals. The museum was founded in 2006 by a Ukrainian couple who worked in the plumbing business and is currently housed in a building within the Kyiv Fortress. In 2016, the Guinness World Records recognized it as "the largest collection of souvenir toilet bowls in the world".
The name garderobe – which translates as guarding one's robes – is thought to come from hanging your clothes in the toilet shaft, as the ammonia from the urine would kill the fleas