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16th Century Living

To: triumphs@autox.team.net, spitfires@autox.team.net
Subject: 16th Century Living
From: OHFASTONE@aol.com
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 21:49:29 EDT
I was sent this, it's supposed to explain a bunch of old expressions.  I 
don't know whether to laugh of call it gross!!


> Life in the Sixteenth Century - (the 1500's) - so much for being

> romantic.

> Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in

> May and were still smelling pretty good by June. However, they were

> starting to

> smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the bad odor.

> Baths equaled 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 pets... dogs,

> cats and other small animals, mice, rats, 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. So, they found that if they made beds with

> big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem.

> Hence those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies.

> The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt,

> hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors, which 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 at the entryway, hence a "threshold".

> They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the

> fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They

> mostly ate vegetables and didn't 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

> in there for a month. Hence the rhyme: "peas porridge hot, peas porridge

> cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

> Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that

> happened. When Company came over; they would bring out some bacon and

> hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man "could

> really 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. This happened

> most often with

> tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes . . . for 400 years!

> Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of

> wood with the middle scooped out likes a bowl. Trenchers were never

> washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off

> wormy trencher, they 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 the

> "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 they started running out of places to bury

> people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a

> house and re-use the grave. In 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 their wrist and 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 to listen for

> the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone

> was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer."

> Dr. Beatrice Stiglitz

> Professor of French and Italian

> College of Charleston

> Charleston, SC

> From Canfields


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