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- 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...
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- Here are some facts about life in the 1500s:
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- 1) Most people got married in June because they took
their yearly bathin May and still smelled pretty good by June. However,
they were startingto 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 thehouse 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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- 2) 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 anddogs."
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- 3) There was nothing to stop things from falling into
the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other
droppingscould 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.
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- 4) The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something
other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had
slate floors that wouldget 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 slippingoutside. A piece of wood was placed in the entry way--hence,
a "thresh hold."
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- 5) They cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that
always hung overthe 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 stewfor dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
overnight and thenstart over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food
in it that had beenthere 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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- 6) Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them
feel quitespecial. 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." Theywould cut off a little to share with guests and would
all sit around and"chew the fat."
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- 7) Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with
ahigh acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causinglead
poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the
next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
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- 8) Most people did not have pewter plates, but had trenchers,
a pieceof wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Often trenchers
were made from stale paysan bread which was so old and hard that they
could usethem for quite some time. Trenchers were never washed and a lot
of timesworms and mold got into the wood and old bread. After eating off
wormy moldy trenchers, one would get "trench mouth."
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- 9) Bread was divided according to status. Workers got
the burnt bottomof the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got
the top, or "upper crust."
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- 10) Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The
combination wouldsome times knock them out for a couple of days. Someone
walking along theroad would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.
They were laidout 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-hencethe custom of holding a "wake."
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- 11) England is old and small and they started out running
out of placesto 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, 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 the wrist of the corpse, lead
it through the coffin andup through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone
would have to sit outin 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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