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Life in the 1500s
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. Therefore, 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." 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 few
hundred 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 mould 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." 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...(whoever said that history was boring?!?) |
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