Subj: Life in the 1500s
Date: 6/16/99 12:38:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: DDaimwood
To: CPI NYC, sdugas@aamescorp.com
To: gtaylo@bellsouth.net
To: swiley@mail.secstate.state.nc.us

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 equalled 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. 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 re-use 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 term
"graveyard shift." They would know that someone was "saved by the
bell" or he was a "dead ringer".