My Leverton

                                                              A few Fact about Life in the 1500s

The next time you are doing something we all take for granted (something simple like having a wash for instance) just pause and think about what life was like in the 1500s and how things used to be in those far off days. These facts are very interesting indeed. Read on:

Most people got married in June because they took their annual bath in May, and still smelled pretty good in June. However, they were already starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour - hence the custom today of the bride (and others) carrying a bouquet at the wedding.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water with the man of the house getting the first dip into the nice clean water, followed by the sons and  men (lodgers etc) followed by the women, and finally the children but 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; straw piled thick and high with no wood underneath. This was the only place (the roofing material) for the animals to keep warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice 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 syaing: 'It's raining cats and dogs'.
There was nothing to stop the things from falling into the house, and this posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence came the bed that had 4 big posts and a sheet hung over the top to afford some protection. That is how the canopy bed came into being.

The floor was just dirt, and only the wealthy had something other than dirt to walk on in the home, hence the saying: 'Dirt poor'.
The wealthy had slate floors that became very slippery in winter, and when wet, so they spread 'thresh' (straw from 'threshing') on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they added more and more thresh until, when the door was opened, it would begin to slip outside. A piece of wood was placed across the entrance, hence the saying: 'A threshold' ( I hope you are paying attention - there will be questions later). 

In those days they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle always hanging over the fire (in the early 1900s, when I was a boy in the country, that was still the scene). Every day when they lit the fire they would add things to a pot that was almost permanently hung over the fire, too. They ate mostly vegetables, and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving any leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start again the next day. Sometimes this stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while, hence the rhyme: 'Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot nine days old'.

Sometime they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came 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, hence the saying: We are just chewing the fat' ( having  a good old natter).

Those with money had plates made of pewter and food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto/into the food, causing death by lead poisoning. This happened most often while using 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 the guests got the top, or the 'Upper crust'.

Lead cups were used too drink ale or whisky and the combination of the lead and spirit 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 round and eat and drink and wait to see if they would wake up, hence the custon of, 'Holding a wake'.

England is old and small and the local folk began running out of places to bury people, so they would dig up coffins and take the bones to a bone house, then reuse the grave. When these coffins were opened, 1 in 25 was found to have scratch marks on the inside, they then realised they had been burying people alive. So, they would then tie a length of string to the wrist of the 'corpse', lead it up 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 the 'Graveyard shift' and, 'Saved by the bell' and indeed, 'A dead ringer'. And all that is the truth.

Who ever said that history is boring!

I read the above in the Lincolnshire Family History Society magazine I take as a member. The gentelman who submitted it says his version is from Church News Service but that the article is widely available on the WWW.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Alan