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 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 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 entry way,
hence a "thresh hold".
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 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 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 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".