Facts about the 1500s
Posted by: root <root@...>
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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!"
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.
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
Parson 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."
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."
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. 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."
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."
Ah, the good old days!!!!
--
Associate.com - THE Place to Associate! welovegod.org
Over 140 Inspirational/Technical E-mail Lists welovegod.org/lists.shtml