Close stool
early type of portable toilet
A close stool was an early type of portable toilet, made in the shape of a cabinet or box at sitting height with an opening in the top. The external structure contained a pewter or earthenware chamberpot to receive the user's excrement and urine when they sat on it; this was normally covered (closed) by a folding lid. "Stool" has two relevant meanings: as a type of seat and as human feces. Close stools were used from the Middle Ages (the Oxford English Dictionary gives the first citation as 1410) until the introduction of the indoor flush toilet.
At the Tudor Court
Records of the English court mention the "close stool" and detail its construction. As an example, the furniture maker and upholsterer William Green made a "close stool" in August 1537 for the Lady Mary. The stool was upholstered with crimson velvet and a silkwoman, Mistress Margery Vaughan, provided crimson silk fringes and ribbons for its decoration. Green made a leather carrying case for the stool. Close stools belonging to Cardinal Wolsey were covered with scarlet cloth and black velvet. Lady Jane Grey ordered crimson velvet to cover two close stools in July 1553.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Close stool” as early type of portable toilet. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as early type of portable toilet. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2947723. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1410, 1537 and 1553.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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This entry incorporates text from “Close stool” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.