--part1_66d9aa3e.24587f9e_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This was fwd to me.......very interesting to those of us who love history and genealogy. Pat --part1_66d9aa3e.24587f9e_boundary Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Return-path: SOMMERTEX@aol.com From: SOMMERTEX@aol.com Full-name: SOMMERTEX Message-ID: <66d9aa3e.24586a1c@aol.com> Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 09:41:48 EDT Subject: Fwd: Fw: [TNMAURY-L] Life in the 1500's----- To: Sommertex2@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="part2_66d9aa3e.24586a1c_boundary" X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 10 Reply-To: SOMMERTEX@aol.com --part2_66d9aa3e.24586a1c_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --part2_66d9aa3e.24586a1c_boundary Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: <donnamo@pdq.net> Received: from rly-zb01.mx.aol.com (rly-zb01.mail.aol.com [172.31.41.1]) by air-zb03.mail.aol.com (v59.4) with SMTP; Wed, 28 Apr 1999 00:53:14 -0400 Received: from pocahontas.pdq.net (mail.pdq.net [204.145.251.78]) by rly-zb01.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with SMTP id AAA23743 for <sommertex@aol.com>; Wed, 28 Apr 1999 00:53:13 -0400 (EDT) X-AirNote: 1 Received: from 56K-220.MaxTNT1.pdq.net [209.144.226.220-18] by meg.pdq.net; Tue, 27 Apr 1999 23:53:08 -0500 Message-ID: <002a01be9133$2d003320$dce290d1@pdq.pdq.net> From: "donnamo" <donnamo@pdq.net> To: "Zane & Carolyn Webb" <zwebb@postoffice.worldnet.att.net>, "Chase & Heather Stewart" <towergrunt@aol.com>, "Mike Sommerfield" <sommertex@aol.com>, "Bob Nothnagel" <bnothnagel@sprynet.com>, "Sharon Meisetschlaeger" <sharonm@pdq.net>, "Becky McDuffee" <bmcduffee@xplorenergy.com>, "robert brush" <roostor@flash.net> Subject: Fw: [TNMAURY-L] Life in the 1500's----- Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 23:54:12 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Reply-To: donnamo@pdq.net -----Original Message----- From: MegLinGun@aol.com <MegLinGun@aol.com> To: TNMAURY-L@rootsweb.com <TNMAURY-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Tuesday, April 20, 1999 4:12 PM Subject: [TNMAURY-L] Life in the 1500's----- >Hi all, >I received this today and wanted to share it. Author unknown. If anyone >knows where this came from I'd love to give proper credit. >Lorien Gunsallus > >Life in the 1500's----- > > Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare. She married at the >age of 26. This is really unusual for the time. Most people married >young, like at the age of 11 or 12. Life was not as romantic as we may >picture it. Here are some examples: > > Anne Hathaway's home was a 3 bedroom house with a small parlor, which >was seldom used (only for company), kitchen, and no bathroom. > > Mother and Father shared a bedroom. Anne had a queen sized bed, but >did not sleep alone. She also had 2 other sisters and they shared the bed > also with 6 servant girls. (this is before she married) They didn't >sleep like we do lengthwise but all laid on the bed crosswise. > > At least they had a bed. The other bedroom was shared by her 6 >brothers and 30 field workers. They didn't have a bed. Everyone just wrapped >up >in their blanket and slept on the floor. They had no indoor heating so >all the extra bodies kept them warm. > >They were also small people, the men only grew to be about 5'6" and >the women were 4'8". SO in their house they had 27 people living. > > Most people got married in June. Why? They took their yearly bath in > May, so they were till smelling pretty good by June, although they were >starting to smell, so the brides would carry a bouquet of flowers to >hide their b.o. > > Like I said, they took their yearly bath in May, but it was just a big > tub that they would fill with hot water. The man of the house would get >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 pretty thick. Thus, the saying, "don't throw the baby out >with the bath water," it was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. > > I'll describe their houses a little. You've heard of thatch roofs, >well that's all they were. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood >underneath. They were the only place for the little animals to get warm. So >all the > pets; dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs, all lived >in the roof. When it rained it became slippery so sometimes the animals >would slip and fall off the roof. Thus the saying, "it's raining cats >and dogs." Since there was nothing to stop things from falling into the >house they would just try to clean up a lot. But this posed a real problem >in the >bedroom where bugs and other droppings from animals could really mess >up your nice clean bed, so they found if they would make beds with big >posts and hang a sheet over the top it would prevent that problem. That's >where those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies came from. > >When you came into the house you would notice most times that the floor >was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, that's where >the saying "dirt poor" came from. The wealthy would have slate >floors. That was fine but in the winter they would get slippery when they >got wet. >So they started to spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. >As the winter wore on they would just keep adding it and adding it >until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. SO they >put a piece of wood at the entry way, a "thresh hold". > > In the kitchen they would cook over the fire, they had a fireplace in >the kitchen/parlor, that was seldom used and sometimes in the master >bedroom. > > They had a big kettle that always hung over the fire and every day they > would light the fire and start adding things to the pot. Mostly they >ate vegetables, they didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for >dinner then leave the leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and >then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew would have food in it >that had been in there for a month! Thus the rhyme: peas porridge hot, peas >porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old." > > Sometimes they could get a hold of some pork. They really felt special >when that happened and when company came over they even had a rack in >the parlor where they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. > That 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 they >would all sit around and "chew the fat." > > If you had money your plates were made out of pewter. Sometimes some of > their food had a high acid content and some of the lead would leach out >into the food. They really noticed it happened with tomatoes. So they > stopped eating tomatoes, for 400 years. > > Most people didn't have pewter plates though, they all had trenchers, > that was a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. They >never washed their boards and a lot of times worms would get into the wood. > After eating off the trencher with worms they would get "trench mouth." > > If you were going traveling and wanted to stay at an Inn they usually > provided the bed but not the board. > >The bread was divided according to status. The workers would get the >burnt bottom of the loaf, the family would get the middle and guests >would get the top, or the "upper crust". > >They also had lead cups and when they would drink their ale or whiskey. >The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. > >They would be walking along the road and here would be someone knocked >out and they thought they were dead. So they would pick them up and take them >home and get them ready to bury. They realized if they were too slow >about it, the person would wake up. Also, maybe not all of the people >they were burying were dead. So they would lay them out on the kitchen table >for >a couple of days, the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait >and >see if they would wake up. That's where the custom of holding a "wake" >came from. > > Since England is so old and small they started running out of places to >bury people. So they started digging up some coffins and would take >their bones to a house and re-use the grave. They started opening >these coffins and found some had scratch marks on the inside. > > One out of 25 coffins were that way and they realized they had still >been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their >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. That is how the saying "graveyard shift" was >made. > > If the bell would ring they would know that someone was "saved by the > bell" or he was a "dead ringer". > > >==== TNMAURY Mailing List ==== >Researching the following Maury County surnames: BINKLEY - BOOKER - CASKEY - CRAIG - CRAWFORD - CREWS - DABBS - DANIELS - DEMASTUS - DIAL - DILLEHAY - DODSON - DOOLEY - DUGGER - demastus@aol.com > > > --part2_66d9aa3e.24586a1c_boundary-- --part1_66d9aa3e.24587f9e_boundary--