Got this long one from someone I know, thought I'd share it here:
Aren't you glad you did not live in the 1500s or 1600s??
The next time you are washing your hands and complaine because the water temperatur 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 smelled pretty good by June...However, since they were starting to smell...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 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 "Dont 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 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 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 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 place in the enterance-way. Hence: a thresh hold (getting quite the education aren't you?).
-In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire...everyday they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. Thew would eat the stew for dinner, leaving left-overs 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 sigh 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 load, 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 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 the would wake up. Hence the custom of a wake.
-England is old and small and local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffinsand would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the coffins. 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realizzed they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the srist of the corpse, lead it through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyar all night (graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, save by the bell or was considered a dead ringer....