LIFE IN THE 1500'S

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 are some facts about the 1500s:

These are interesting...

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.
Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

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
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."

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 floor
to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh
until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A
piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying

"thresh hold."

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

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 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 high acid content
caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning
death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years
or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

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 the imbibers 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 re-use the grave. When re-opening 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
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."