Weird History
i don't know if this is true or not but it is interesting.
Next time you're washing your hands and the water temperature
isn't
just how you like it, think about how things used to be. 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 awhile. 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. . . (who ever said that History was
boring)?
(--_--)
