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 (early summer) and still smelled pretty good by June. However,

they were starting to smell so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to

hide the body odour. Hence the custom today 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 other

sons and men, then the women and finally then 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 entranceway-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 a while -hence

the rhyme,”Peas porridge hot, peasporridge 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 high acid

content caused somof 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. 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 whisky. 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, some 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… and whoever said that history was boring?