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Life in the 1500s.
:
: In our present age it is hard to imagine tolerating a single flea. But
not so long ago people practically lived in barns! Here are some facts
about the 1500s.
:
: Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in
May and were still smelling 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 pets-dogs, cats
and other small animals: mice, rats, 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 is 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 mostly ate
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 in there for a
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 and 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. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms got into
the wood. After eating of wormy 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 the "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."
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:England is old and small and they started running out of places to bury
people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house
and re-use 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 their
wrist and 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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