I know it has nothing to do with surnames, but I thought all you geneology
folks might get a kick out of this. I'm not sure where they got their
facts though. It was forwarded to me from a friend. Enjoy!
~Patty~
Interesting historical info about Life in the 1500s, rather
disgusting .....
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 b.o.
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 if they
made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed
that problem. Hence those beautiful big four-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
it would all start slipping outside when the door opened. A piece
of
wood was placed at the entry way--hence a "thresh hold."
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 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 a trencher--a piece
of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trenchers were
never
washed, and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating
off
wormy trenchers, 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, eat and drink, 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 reuse 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."
Regarding burying people alive. Most of this occured with men that
had
gotten so drunk off of ale that they would pass out for days.
Thinking
they were dead (no stethescopes etc. back then I guess), they would
bury them. The phrase, "mind your P's and Q's" came from this.
Meaning
mind your pints and quarts.
--------- End forwarded message ----------
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