- Next time you are washing your hands and complain
because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about
how things used to be...
- Here are some facts about life in the 1500s:
- 1) Most people got married in June because they took
their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June.
However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of
flowers to hide the body odor. Baths consisted of a big tub filled
with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice
clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and
finally the children--last of all the babies. By then the water was so
dirty you could actually lose someone in it--hence the saying, "Don't
throw the baby out with the bath water."
- 2) Houses had thatched roofs--thick straw, piled
high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to
get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice rats,
and bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and
sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof--hence the
saying "It's raining cats and dogs."
- 3) There was nothing to stop things from falling
into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs
and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a
bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some
protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.
- 4) The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something
other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate
floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread
thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on,
they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all
start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entry way--hence,
a "thresh hold."
- 5) They cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that
always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things
to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They
would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food
in it that had been there for quite a while--hence the rhyme, "peas
porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days
old."
- 6) Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them
feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their
bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring
home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and
would all sit around and "chew the fat."
- 7) Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food
with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the
food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with
tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered
poisonous.
- 8) Most people did not have pewter plates, but had
trenchers, a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl.
Often trenchers were made from stale paysan bread which was so old and
hard that they could use them for quite some time. Trenchers were never
washed and a lot of times worms and mold got into the wood and old
bread. After eating off wormy moldy trenchers, one would get "trench
mouth."
- 9) Bread was divided according to status. Workers
got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests
got the top, or "upper crust."
- 10) Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The
combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days.
Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare
them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple
of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait
and see if they would wake up--hence the custom of holding a "wake."
- 11) England is old and small and they started running out
of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the
bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins,
one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and
they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would
tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up
through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in
the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell;
thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."
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