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Dec 24, 2009, 10:12am

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Topic: The 1500's (Read 18 times)

ChuckAcorn
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The 1500's
« Thread Started on Sept 26, 2009, 12:05am »

Some of these would be hard to believe………

Back in the 1500s:

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families
used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken &
sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you
were "Piss Poor"

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldnt
even afford to buy a pot...........they "didnt have a pot to piss
in" & were the lowest of the low

The 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, and they still smelled pretty good by
June... However, since they were starting to smell . .. .
brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
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 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 cats and other small animals (mice, bugs)
lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and
sometimes the animals would slip an d 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 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 floor to help keep their
footing. As the winter wore on, they added 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.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

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 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 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 some of the lead to leach onto
the food, causing lead poisoning 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 the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The
combination would sometimes knock the imbibers 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 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...Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

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