Life in the 1500's

Jolie77

Jolie77

New Member
Premium Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Messages
8,728
Reaction score
9
*LIFE IN THE 1500'S *

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 still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so 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 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 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 entranceway. Hence the saying 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 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.
Click to expand...

I got this via e-mail and thought it was interesting. Although, I'm not sure if all of these are true but it's worth a shot to share it with you guys. :)
 
I am pretty sure that I heard about the flower bouquet during a documentary...

Curious whether the rest is true too... Anybody know?

JamieLynn

PS. Thanks for posting this! It is interesting indeed

ETA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosegay

A nosegay, posey (or posie, posy), flower bouquet or tussie-mussie is a small bunch of flowers, typically given as a gift. They have existed in some form since at least medieval times, when they were carried or worn around the head or bodice to mask the unpleasant smells of the time[citation needed] - literally, to keep the nose gay (to keep the nose happy). In their current form, they rose to popularity during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 onwards, at which time the tussie-mussie became a popular fashion accessory. Typically, tussie-mussies include floral symbolism from the Language of Flowers, and therefore may be used to send a message to the recipient. See the book entitled Tussie-Mussies, the Victorian Art of Expressing Yourself in the Language of Flowers, Workman Publishing, 1993
Click to expand...
 
Even with all the inconvienience, I would still like to experience life in that time.
 
I'm pretty sure some of it might be true. I knew people in the dark ages don't take bath often as we do today.
 
Bottesini said:
Even with all the inconvienience, I would still like to experience life in that time.
Click to expand...

A time machine would be good... Just so I can be part of it... sort of invisible because I am not really enthralled about getting hit by a crossbow :wave: (or anything else for that matter...)

JL
 
JamieLynn said:
A time machine would be good... Just so I can be part of it... sort of invisible because I am not really enthralled about getting hit by a crossbow :wave: (or anything else for that matter...)

JL
Click to expand...

But that reassembles people better than in Michael Chrichton's book Timeline.:giggle:
 
Bottesini said:
But that reassembles people better than in Michael Chrichton's book Timeline.:giggle:
Click to expand...

Sorry, haven't seen the movie... I'm not really into thrillers or anything else that scares me right out of my pants :giggle:

JL
 
society's_child said:
You haven't missed anything, trust me. It sucked big time. The book was great, though.
Click to expand...

Is the book scary? It sounds...

I still have Patricia Cornwell's (have ALL her books) Portrait of a Killer to read... :giggle: I think I am never going to finish that one

Jamie
 
society's_child said:
It's not scary but it is suspenseful. Yeah, I don't like scary books, myself.

Lol, are we going OT here, or what? :giggle:
Click to expand...

I just wanted to know... (and thanks for answering, might be buying the book then 'cause the plot summary intrigued me...) Thanks!

I'll leave the rest of the thread going back to topic :wave:

Jamie
 
That's really interesting. :)

If there was a time machine I would visit every epoch from now til prehistorian times. :D
 
If there is a time machine, I would go find out which is true. Creation or Evolution.
 
:lol: Your jokes are so dead on true with a twist! Good to read about that bit also.
 
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Click to expand...

Ew. A bath in May, and then they don't take any more baths during the summer and early fall? Ew! If I was one of them I would have continued to take baths until it got too cold to take baths. Not just once a year.

When I was in college, my ex-roommate - when she was still living in the dorms while I lived in my own apartment (before she and I became roommates later on in another apartment) - she had a dorm roommate who NEVER took a shower, EVER. Whether I came to visit my ex-roommate, her room would stink so bad, and her roommate had dirty laundry and trash all over her side of the room. Apparently her roommate does not know what a hamper was and what a wastebasket was. She never did her laundry, EVER, either. They were both roommates for TWO YEARS. I finally was able to talk my ex-roommate into moving out cause I didn't like having to put up with the godawful stench of her nasty roommate whether I visited her. After she moved out, I told her roommate off and told her that clearly she cannot take care of herself and will never be able to get a job as an elementary school teacher (she was taking child development and wanted to become an elementary school teacher) if she stank that much all the time, and that if she kept it up, I would call the health department and the social services on her because her not bathing and not keeping her room clean is causing health issues for other people. She was so dirty...her blonde hair was so greasy that it would become a darker blonde, like a light brownish blonde, and so greasy that that if she was to adjust her hair in whatever way like pushing one side of her hair off to the other side to get it out of the way of her eyes or whatever, it would stay that way there...not come back down like clean hair would do. She never changed her underwear which can cause serious kidney and bladder infections, she never changed her clothes, and even let them get very dirty. She looked like she had just dragged herself through the mud. All her fingernails were VERY dirty because she says she does not wash her hands, even when she goes to the bathroom! I pretty much told her that she is not allowed to touch me or my things whenever I visit. I'm pretty surprised she didn't get sick nor get lice! She wore the same clothes everyday, I would see her wear the same outfit for 3 months, sometimes even SIX months! And there was a rumor going around that she's had numerous roommates before she had my ex-roommate, she had like 6 roommates in two years, and that they all put in a request to change roommates because of her not taking care of herself and because they couldn't stand the smell. She smelled so bad that I would smell her as soon as I stepped out of the elevator on the 12th floor to turn left to walk down the hall to their dorm room. I'm very surprised she did not have bedsores that became infected because she spent all her time on the bed when she's not in class. I'm also very surprised that the 12th floor dorm RA never did anything about it. She never wore shoes and socks when she's not in class, and her feet were so dirty. She also smoked, fortunately no smoking was allowed in the dorm, thank goodness. Finally I convinced my ex-roommate to move out and find an apartment, and she got an apartment with another friend of mine who has good hygiene habits. Some people might say nasty roommate has a mental illness, but I am not so sure about that because that girl never seemed depressed...she always had a smile on her face and laughed a lot, always telling jokes. I've visited my ex-roommate a lot in those two years, and never once have I seen that girl sad or anything, so I don't think it's a mental illness, just an inability to take care of herself simply because she does not care. :barf:

Anyway, my ex-roommate moved out, and I never saw that girl again, thank goodness. :barf:
 
So if it weren't for the 1500's we wouldn't have any interesting idioms at all.

Yay for the 1500's.
 
Back
Top