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

[I. Marc Carlson]

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

Well, lee's see...

>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. 

Considering the number of bathhouses in the 1500s, and the fact that 
there was great consternation about their licentiousness, I would say that
"most" people bathed more often than just once a year.

I don't remember where the bridal custom came from, but considering the 
fact that after the plague it was generally believed that if you could
smell something, it might be carrying a disease, a bride you could smell 
would be a Bad Thing.  OTOH, it would be more likely the guests who would
be carrying flowers to smell, not the bride.  (Disease transmission was
believed to be by "bad air" and foul smelling air).

>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." 

I believe the phrase is 19th century, and comes from this practice in the
old West.  I could be wrong here.

>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," 

I'll have to check on this, but I don't think so.

>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. 

If you only bathe once a year, I really doubt some bugs falling from the
roof would be that big a deal.  You've already GOT bugs in your bed.
If memory serves, the four poster beds with canopies derive from the lack of
heating.

>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." 

Again, I'll have to check on these, but I don't think so.

>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." 

You'll have to ask the foodways expert, but I think this was supposed
to be a satire.

>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." 

Um, sure, yeah, right.

>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. 

So, who ate them before that?  The Romans?  (If so, then why didn't they
stop eating them, since they used a lot more lead in their cooking).  Tomatos
were thought poisonous because they are members of the nightshade family.

(Note, the Romans didn't all go insane from lead poisoning.  Chemical evidence
from the bones of dead Romans show higher levels of lead than, say the Middle
Ages, which - even with all the lead use were REALLY low, but considerably less
than we have today)

>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." 

I believe Trench Mouth is from WWI.  The Trenches?  

>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." 

It is true that the purpose of the wake may have been to see if the poor
bugger was really dead, but I fail to see why ale or whiskey from lead
cups would knock someone out for a "couple of days".

>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." 

This is Victorian, not 1500s.  The fear of burial while still alive was
a big thing in the mid-1800s.

Marc/Diarmaid