They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were "piss 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 piss in" and and were the lowest of the low.

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 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 odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

A bath 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 entranceway. Hence: a "threshhold."

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire 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 tomatose, 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 co uple 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."

 

interesting read

 

and now i'm ready for my History finals.

 

Why? There were streams and rivers to bathe in. Actually, people who lived nearby streams and rivers used to bathe a few times a week.

 

The last one the graveyard shift creepy!

 

I'm working a graveyard shift right now -_-

 

That was pretty interesting to read. I've heard about the graveyard one and the bells before though!

 

All very interesting, and, according to snopes, at least in part untrue.

 

People thought you'd get sick from bathing too much so they didn't bathe in the streams and rivers as often as you'd think.


I remember my relatives still taking baths according to priority in the late 1950's and early 60's. But by this time they almost believed in weekly baths. When I'd go visit I'd get lectures on the evils of bathing. Any time one of us got sick we were told it was due to bathing too much. And women certainly weren't allowed anywhere near water during that time of the month.

In the 50's and 60s they still didn't believe in indoor plumbing as that caused the "humors". Also at that time a woman shaving anything was considered the work of the Devil so all my relatives were hairy legged women.

The tub had a table top on top of it and sat in the middle of the dining room. We ate on it all during the week.

On Saturday nite [so you'd be clean for church] off would come the dining table top off and then they'd put about 8" of water in the bottom of it & according to the priority listed up above, take their baths. Us boys were on the bottom of the totem pole and the water was always dark by the time it got to us plus the older boys (higher on the totem pole) would always tell us they'd pee'd in the water. I'm betting they did.

Don't you remember in all those old westerns about the bath houses? You could pay extra for clean water but most just used the dirty water. Bathing was definitely not a regular thing.