I received this in the mail today and thought I'd share. I hope you chuckle as much as I did.
regards,
felix a
History Lesson
Historical tidbits or truth are always stranger than fiction: 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:
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 rats, and 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
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 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."
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 use them for quite sometime. 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,being a rather old and small country, 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. 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... (and whoever said that History
was boring?!)