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Something interesting......(got in an email)
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 in England.
>
> 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, 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 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 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 entrance way, hence, a "thresh hold."
>
> 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 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 be used
for
> quite some time. 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 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
> 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... (whoever said that History was boring?)
>
>
__________________
~the arrogance is amazing!~ Arrogance does NOT equal righteousness. Don't fall for it.
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