Here’s one of those things where it seems like one would have to be pretty gullible to believe all this stuff, but I can’t say I can disprove any of it either.
Can anybody out there prove to me that the following message from an e-mail is fake? Can anyone prove its validity?
> 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.
>
> 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 rats, and 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 droppings from coming 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 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 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
> entry way–hence, a “thresh hold.”
>
> 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 “would 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, causing lead poisoning and
>
> death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years
> or
> so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
>
> Most people did not have pewter plates, but had trenchers, a piece of wood
>
> with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Often trenchers were made from
> stale
> pays and bread which was so old and hard that they could use them for
> quite
> some time. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms and mold
> got
> into the wood and old bread. After eating off wormy moldy trenchers, one
> 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 “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 out 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, 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 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.”
