Someone sent the contents of this post in an e-mail. I have read extensively about the Middle Ages, and opinions vary about how life was during these times. I am not saying the following is true, not even knowing the source, but life was probably something similar.
I do know, for instance, that in the 1500's "doctors" placed freshly killed pidgeons at the feet of a sick person to "draw out the bad vapours". So here is something to think about the next time you feel you have it bad-
"The 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 1500's:"
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good in 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 priviledge of the clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last were the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water".
Houses had thached 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 they would fall off the roof. That became "its raining cats and dogs".
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor". They would spread thresh (straw) on more thresh until it would start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the doorway, which became a "thresh hold".
They cooked with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day, they added things, mostly vegetables, to the pot. Leftovers were always in the pot, hence the rhyme "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old".
Those with money had plates 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 four hundred years , tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom, family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust".
England is old and small and the locals started running out of places to bury people. They would dig up the coffins and would take the bones to a bone house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they were burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, thread it through the coffin and up through the ground to a bell. Someone would sit in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus someone could be "saved by the bell" or be a "dead ringer".
So what do you think of your complaints now?
