4RE Leather Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 Appologies if this is a repost! Absolutely riveting! They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery.....if you had to do this to survive you were "**** Poor" But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot.....they "didn't have a pot to **** in" & were the lowest of the low. The next time you're 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 they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell . ..... . brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. 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 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." 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 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 (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: 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 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 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 the upper crust. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination 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 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 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". And that's the truth... Now, whoever said History was boring? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bounty Bar Kid Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 Why is this in the green room? I found this all interesting and surprisingly legible considering it's from Peter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4RE Leather Posted March 25, 2013 Author Share Posted March 25, 2013 Why is this in the green room? I found this all interesting and surprisingly legible considering it's from Peter. I didn't know where to post it BBK. Feel free to plonk it somewhere else. Legible, I can be sometimes:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bounty Bar Kid Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 Off topic discussion! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Chubby Ninja Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 interesting read Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricey Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 Good find Pete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 Very interesting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.asp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bounty Bar Kid Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 Shame its all a lie! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4RE Leather Posted March 25, 2013 Author Share Posted March 25, 2013 (edited) Got it off a military site that someone stuck up. I thought it was a good read. Sad that someone would want to go out of there way to try and prove it wrong. But then who really gives a monkeys. Edited March 25, 2013 by 4RE Leather Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATTAK Z Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 Got it off a military site that someone stuck up. But as we said earlier. There will always be some to want to prove it wrong:) All sounds perfectly plausible to me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4RE Leather Posted March 25, 2013 Author Share Posted March 25, 2013 PMSL as always:) So one person on the internet says it's a myth so it must be true then:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 One person? Snopes, dear fellow. Always check Snopes first for anything and everything, I humbly apologise if you were offended by my pointing out that what you had posted was a load of old twaddle. In the future, I shall endeavour to let you carry on posting falsehoods simply because they look like they might be plausible. My bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wizurd Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 interesting read. only way to really know if something is right is to research it yourself. I'm sure even snopes is wrong sometimes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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