As we complain about the simple things we encounter each day we should think back to how things were hundreds of years ago...
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 body odor!
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.
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 the 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 the wrist of
the dead person 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
"graveyardshift" they would know that whether someone was "saved
by the bell" or whether he was a "dead ringer!
