From my brother Lloyd Williamson: "Do you ever
pine for a simpler time? Well, think again."
Some alleged facts about the 1500's
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 dogs, 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.
With homes with thatched roofs, 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.
Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some
protection. That's how and why 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 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 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 the 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 and 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 "upper crust."
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. 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 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 thought 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 "grave-yard
shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or
was considered a "dead ringer."
