Life in the 1500's

[Penny Lane]

Got this in my email. Interesting! LIFE IN THE 1500'S
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>Interesting history from your friendly history teacher.
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>LIFE IN THE 1500'S

>Interesting!

>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:
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>These are interesting...
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>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. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
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>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."
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>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 off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."
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>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 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.
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>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 a "thresh hold."
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>(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)
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>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."
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>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."
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>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.
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>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."
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>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."
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>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 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."
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>And that's the truth... Now, whoever said that History was boring ! ! !
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>Educate someone...Share these facts with a friend

[dlemond]

Really good stuff.

One thing I don't get:

"dead ringer" with the person in the grave ringing the bell- how did this come to mean someone looking exactly like someone else?

[Titania]

Originally Posted by dlemond

"dead ringer" with the person in the grave ringing the bell- how did this come to mean someone looking exactly like someone else?

i was wondering the same thing. now i have heard that same concept used to explain the origins of "saved by the bell"

[Seinatra]

and like most of the interesting sounding e-mails it seems to be fiction not fact.

http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.htm

But there was a lot of imagination involved.

[dawsongirl]

Yearly bath...ewwwwwwwwwww. That's gotta be fiction! I can't imagine there was that much of a lack of water.

[MrWarmth]

That part about taking a bath in May, I think they still practice that in the South. Thank you.

[dawsongirl]

Shockingly, the standard practice among common folk at that time was to be bathed at birth and again when laid out before burial. Bathing was considered hazardous to the health, and as such, no sensible person subjected himself to it, let alone on a yearly basis.

That's even nastier!

[Penny Lane]

Yeah some of those things may be fictional but back in the olden days (as late as the 1800's) baths were a once a week ,if not more , thing!Water was scarce /or hard to get. Had to haul it from a creek or river. In "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, she describes the weekly ritual. The Wilder family had to melt snow or icicles to get water for drinking or for a bath. I can see why baths were only taken once a week in the winter time especially! Remember this was the days before running water! In the summer after working long hot days in the fields the men washed in the creek/river. But women would never had done that in public! So how much is fiction? But I find it interesting to learn where some of our old sayings come from.

[Ewan's My Man]

Don't hold me to this, but actually I seem to have heard some sort of shocking bath statistic in history class, I think that that is more of a fact than fiction.

[Penny Lane]

Originally Posted by Seinatra

and like most of the interesting sounding e-mails it seems to be fiction not fact.

http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.htm

But there was a lot of imagination involved.

Although written about the late 1800's, read Laura Ingalls Wilder's books of life on the prairie. It was not too far removed from these life styles quoted here. But in Laura's case her parents (especially her Ma) were educated in the importance of cleanliness and hygiene and practiced them! Life was very primitive yet even then. So as far as this being far-fetched and imaginative I tend to believe a lot of it! Way back when there were a lot of superstitions that guided people's everyday lives. My gosh! Even doctor's and hospitals of the era were ignorant of germs and bacteria. Doctors would go from disecting a cadaver right into an operating room to deliver babies(without scrubbing) which resulted in infections and deaths to the mothers.Early hospitals were very dirty. So, in other words, people were not very hygenic in the very early days of civilization.It took people like Lister and Pasteur to bring these facts to light which were not readily accepted by the medical profession of the time.

Far fetched? No I don't think so

[Dude111]

Snopes is run by MSM idiots who say ASPERTAME IS SAFE!!!!!

Dont listen to a word they say dues!!



Very interesting about the 1500s!!!