NK - Fwd: Life in the 1500s - interesting (fwd)

[Rebecca M. Heydon]

It's interesting, sure, but how accurate?  Anyone?  Anyone?

Rowan
>
>Life in the 1500's: 
>
>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
>b.o. 
>
>Baths equaled 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 loose 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. So, they found if they made beds
>with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem.
>Hence those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies. 
>
>The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt,
>hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors which 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 at the entry way, hence a "thresh
>hold." 
>
>They cooked in the kitchen in 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 didn't 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 month. Hence the rhyme: peas porridge hot, peas porridge
>cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old." 
>
>Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that
>happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and
>hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man "could
>really 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. This happened
>most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes ... for 400
>years. 
>
>Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of
>wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trencher were never washed
>and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy
>trenchers, they 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." 
>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 reuse the grave. In 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 to listen for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard
>shift" they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or a "dead
>ringer." 
>
******
Rebecca M. Heydon			
University of Tulsa - College of Law Library	
ph:  918-631-3557 (voice mail only)	
fax:  918-631-2151  
rebecca-heydon at utulsa.edu
"Language is the light of the mind."
		--John Stuart Mill
******