This research examines environmental problems of cities in the late medieval period and their responses. Medieval cities are prejudiced as always having a stench and being filled with filth, garbage, and insanitary. Nonetheless, such conditions were not a universal phenomenon. Unlike general prejudices, the people of the medieval period strived to improve their living environments and hygienic conditions. The environment-related city ordinances fully enacted after the 14th Century were the medieval countermeasures for those environmental issues. However, there were clear limitations because cities only made short-term protective measures rather than radically fixing the causes of environmental deterioration. Even still, the cities’ efforts for improvements to the environment and hygienic conditions produced considerable results. The reason medieval cities neglected environmental issues was not because they simply lacked a consciousness regarding cleanliness. As seen in the enactment of urban laws, even though the cities had a firm will toward an improvement in their environment, they could not gather the support of their citizens or the economic power necessary to carry it into practice. It was because cities did not have any remaining power to focus on environmental issues while trash disposal had been considered an individual problem for a long time. Going through circumstances where living environments are deteriorated and contagious diseases are repeated, environmental issues became gradually perceived as a public issue while citizens coped with it as a community. When seen from such an aspect, legislations and measures on the environment were the process of cities intensifying their character as a community.

This research examines environmental problems of cities in the late medieval period and their responses. Medieval cities are prejudiced as always having a stench and being filled with filth, garbage, and insanitary. Nonetheless, such conditions were not a universal phenomenon. Unlike general prejudices, the people of the medieval period strived to improve their living environments and hygienic conditions. The environment-related city ordinances fully enacted after the 14th Century were the medieval countermeasures for those environmental issues. However, there were clear limitations because cities only made short-term protective measures rather than radically fixing the causes of environmental deterioration. Even still, the cities’ efforts for improvements to the environment and hygienic conditions produced considerable results. The reason medieval cities neglected environmental issues was not because they simply lacked a consciousness regarding cleanliness. As seen in the enactment of urban laws, even though the cities had a firm will toward an improvement in their environment, they could not gather the support of their citizens or the economic power necessary to carry it into practice. It was because cities did not have any remaining power to focus on environmental issues while trash disposal had been considered an individual problem for a long time. Going through circumstances where living environments are deteriorated and contagious diseases are repeated, environmental issues became gradually perceived as a public issue while citizens coped with it as a community. When seen from such an aspect, legislations and measures on the environment were the process of cities intensifying their character as a community.