Garderobe

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": thus, a closet or a toilet seat that would tend to prevent clothing from getting soiled.

Its most common use now is as a term for a castle toilet.

Store room

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]

Toilet

The term garderobe is also used to refer to a

A description of the garderobe at Donegal Castle indicates that while it was in use, it was believed that ammonia would protect visitors' coats and cloaks from moths or fleas.^[4]

Other languages

In European public places, a garderobe denotes a

• Bretèche, a small balcony in a medieval fortress
• Dansker, a German term for a castle toilet in a tower over a watercourse

References