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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....This is very interesting and worth the trouble of taking the time
to read.
Here are some 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 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, 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 out 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 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 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 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".
And that's the truth...(and whoever said that History was boring?!)
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