life , as it was, 500 years back.....

Life in the 1500s
The next time you're washing yourself and complain that the water
temperature isn't to your liking, think how it was for the unfortunate
people living in the 1500s.

Most people married in June because they took their yearly bath in May
and still smelled pretty good in June. However, they were starting to
smell so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
Hence the custom of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

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 sons and
other 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 was a real problem in the bedroom, where bugs and other
droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. A bed with big
posts and a sheet over the top afforded some protection. That's how
canopy beds came into existence.

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 on the floor to help their footing. As
the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until it would all
start slipping outside when you opened the door. A piece of wood was
placed in the entranceway, a "thresh hold."

In those days people 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, then start over the next day. Sometimes the
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."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which was 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 it could be used
for quite some time. Trenchers were never washed. Sometimes 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 burned 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 people 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 take the bones to a
"bone house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out
of 25 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."

And that's the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth...whoever said history was boring?