Welcome to another episode of "Mysteries of the Past
Revealed." I'm your host, Timothy, and tonight we're going
to learn about the late Middle Ages-- the time from 1000 to 1500
AD.
Have you ever wondered about knights and castles? Well,
wonder no more, because your questions are answered. First, what
is a castle? It is a big building with four turrets {towers} on
top with many soldiers that walk from turret to turret. Barons
and kings lived in castles, but in the Middle Ages, no one had
his own room. Even kings shared rooms with their slaves, wives,
children and dogs. Think your little brother makes too much
noise?
Back then, no one owned a Bible. Why? Because there weren't
any printing presses. The monks had to copy the Bible by hand so
only a church would have a Bible, but then the printing press was
invented and people could buy a Bible.
The following information about life in the 1500's was
written by an anonymous person and sent over email to me. I
thought it was funny so I am including the whole thing for you to
read.
Most people got married in June because they took their
yearly bath in May and were still smelling pretty good by June.
However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet
of flowers to hide the smell of their body.
Baths equaled 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 made of thick straw, piled high,
with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get
warm, so all the pets... dogs, cats and other small animals,
mice, rats, 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 really mess up your nice clean bed. So, they
found that if they made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over
the top, it addressed that problem. Hence, those beautiful big 4
poster beds with canopies.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than
dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had
slate floors, which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So
they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As
the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until, when you
opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of
wood was placed at the entryway, hence a "thresh hold".
They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung
over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to
the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't 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
the stew had food in it that had been in there for a month.
Hence, the rhyme: "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold,
peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
Sometimes, they could obtain pork and would feel really
special when that happened. When Company came over, they would
bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of
wealth and that a man "could really 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 a high
acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. This
happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating
tomatoes... for 400 years.
Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers -
pieces of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trenchers
were never washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood.
After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get "trench
mouth."
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 whiskey. The combination
would sometimes knock them 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 they started running out of
places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would
take their bones to a house and re-use the grave. Upon reopening
these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch
marks on the inside and they realized that they had been burying
people alive. So, they thought they would tie a string on the
dead person's wrist and 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 to listen for the bell. So on the
"graveyard shift" they would know that someone was
"saved by the bell" or he was a "dead
ringer".
This has been another episode of "Mysteries of the Past,
Revealed." Back to you, Fred.
