The 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's some interesting facts about the 1500s:
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 odour. 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, 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 (straw) 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 entranceway-hence, a
"thresh hold."
In those old days, 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 but like a
bowl. Often trenchers were made from stale bread,
which was so old and hard that they could be used for
quite some time. Trenchers were never washed and a lot
of times worms and mould got into the wood and old
bread. After eating off wormy, mouldy 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 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."
England is old and small and the local folks 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, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have
scratch marks on the inside and they realised 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."
And that's the truth... (And whoever said that History
was boring?)
I hope you enjoy the rest
Don't forget to send your Comments
To return to HOME PAGE, Click on BACK button, top-left corner of this page.
Last Updated: 23rd Feb 2003
