Many, I’m sure, won’t believe this, but I wasn’t around in the 1500s. I’m not sure about publisher, Jack, but for sure I wasn’t there.
However, I found an interesting piece while reading a magazine in a doctor’s office. It may well have been published back then and been in that office since that time, but it explained some of the customs and phrases we use today that came from way back when.
In those days, people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and they still smelled pretty good. But, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
In the 1500s, baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house got the clean water. The other men followed, then the women, the children and, last, babies. By then the water was so dirty you could lose someone in it which brought us the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”
And what about houses back then with thatched roofs; thick straw piled high with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm. All the cats and other small animals lived on the roof and, when it rained and became slippery, they would slip and fall off the roof. That is why people today still say it’s raining cats and dogs.
The floor of the house was dirt, as only the wealthy had something other than dirt. That led to the saying: “Dirt poor.”
Here’s another that makes sense. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to keep their footing. As winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would end up outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way and, bingo, you have a threshold.
When visitors came over, hosts would hang up bacon to show off because it was a sign of wealth that the man of the house could, “bring home the bacon.” They would share it with the guests and would all sit around and “chew the fat.”
Apparently, bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and the guest got the top, or “upper crust.”
The next two items are not for the squeamish because they refer to death in a fashion. It seems they used lead cups for drinking ale or whisky and the combination could 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. And that led to the custom of “holding a wake.”
Back then England was old and small but, the locals started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. But when reopening coffins they found one out of 25 had scratch marks on the inside indicating people had been buried alive. To offset that problem they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through and up through the ground where they would tie it to a bell. Someone, then would have to sit in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) and listen for the bell so the person inside could be “saved by the bell” or was considered “a dead ringer.”
Who was it that said history is boring?
For a joke today we relate the story about the young lad asking his dad why the sky is blue. When the father said he didn’t know, the kid asked what makes clouds. When the father again said he didn’t know the boy asked what the moon was made of. Once again the father confessed that he didn’t know. Then the lad asks if all of his questions bothered his father at all. The father replied: “Not in the least. Without questions how are you going to learn anything?”
