It’s all here: • The stinking streets and hovel houses • Choice medieval diseases—plague, smallpox, leprosy—and how to get them • Rotten rulers and gruesome tortures • A day in the life of a London serf • The real Dick Whittington • Richard III and the princes in the Tower • The creepy clergy and naughty nuns • Hotel rates at the Bloody Tower • Streamline lavatories and the new hygienic sewerage systems (only kidding!) • Petty crimes and savage punishments Famine, the Black Death, impossible taxes, open sewers in the middle of the streets, livestock in your living room and criminal kings are just some of the pleasures of the city at its smelliest and vilest moment.