Life in the 1500s

[stewart38]

Give recent threads re what a horrible world it is out there I though i might share this with you :nice:

I think and i maybe wrong you were probably 20 times more likely to be murdered walking the streets of london cira 1750 then today

Fear of crime is the biggest crime

LIFE IN THE 1500'S
>
>
>
>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:
>
>These are interesting...
>
>Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in
>May, and still smelled pretty good by 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 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 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 adding
>more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping
>outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying
>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 "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."
>

>

[cheeks]

:clap:

thanks S38 really enjoyed that :hug:

:nice:


Pauline:flower:

[cheeks]

Subject: History

Insight into the minds of 6th graders: The following were answers provide by 6th graders during a history test. Watch the spelling! Some of the best humor is in the misspelling.



Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote inhydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that all the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten Commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.

The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and threw the java.

Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: "Tee hee, Brutus."

Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw.

Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah."

It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. Sir Francis Drake circumsized the world with a 100-foot clipper.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couple. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.

Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backward and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. They believe the assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large.

Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbits. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered the radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.

[stewart38]

Subject: History

Insight into the minds of 6th graders: The following were answers provide by 6th graders during a history test. Watch the spelling! Some of the best humor is in the misspelling.



Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote inhydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that all the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten Commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.

The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and threw the java.

Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: "Tee hee, Brutus."

Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw.

Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah."

It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. Sir Francis Drake circumsized the world with a 100-foot clipper.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couple. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.

Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backward and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. They believe the assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large.

Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbits. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered the radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.


what spelling mistakes ? :sick:

sorry LMC that was just evil (free how space !)

[azande]

Subject: History
snip
:rofl:

Priceless!!!!

[cheeks]

what spelling mistakes ? :sick:

:rofl: :rofl:


sorry LMC that was just evil (free how space !)

cruel :whistle:

[stewart38]

:rofl: :rofl:



cruel :whistle:


Its 'our' not 'how' space , for god sake check before you post stewart38 !!!

you wouldnt believe i give out medical prescriptions !!

[cheeks]

you wouldnt believe i give out medical prescriptions !!

:hug: but you aren't meant to understand prescriptions anyway

Are you:whistle:

:flower:

[Jenni]

Subject: History
Dying, he gasped out: "Tee hee, Brutus."

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Fab!

Jenni :flower:

[CeeCee]

Originally posted by Cheeks
they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients

The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies

In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic

Madman Curie discovered the radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.

Hilarious!

Well done Cheeks for posting these, hope you have some more because reading them is like therapy.

So much laughter and so little time...

[cheeks]

Some clips may be similar to previous.....

The History of the World - according to students

Intro

One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together the following "history" of the world form certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the United States, from eighth grade through college level. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot.

The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of huge triangular cube. The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who brought up his twelve sons to be partiarch, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

Pharao forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.

Without the Greeks, we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in "The Illiad", by Homer. Homer also wrote the "Oddity", in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Acutally, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.

In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the visitor was a coral wreath. The government of Athen was democratic because the people took the law into their onwn hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought the Parisians, the Greek were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.

Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History call people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guestes wore garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March killed him because they thought the was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyrany who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harlos mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

In medevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote literature. Another tale of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.

The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen". As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted "hurrah". Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Milton. Milton wrote "Paradise Lost". Then his wife died and he wrote "Paradise Regained".

During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discoverd America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Fe. Later the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and that was called the Pilgrim's Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by Indians, who came down the hill rolling their was hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the setters. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their pacels through the post without stamps. During the War, Red Coats and Raul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.

Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared "a horse divided against itself cannot stand". Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

George Washington married Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Then the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength". Abraham Lincoln write the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg n the back of an envelope. he also signed the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Admendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. On the night of April 13, 1965, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat bye one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy". Gravity was invented bye Issac Walton. Is is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.

Back was the most famous composes in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

France was in a very serious state. The Frenche Revolution was accomplished before it happend. The Marseillaise was the theme of the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. he wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear him any children.

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. Her reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick Raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the "Organ of the Species". Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.

The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

[cheeks]

The history or rather the origins of giving the finger

In the recent film, Titanic, the character Rose is shown giving the finger to her fiance's manservant (another character). Many people who have seen the film question whether "giving the finger" was really done around during the time of the Titanic disaster, or if it is a more recent gesture invented by some defiant seventh-grader.

And now you know the rest of the story... According to research, here's the true story:

Giving the Finger - Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew").

Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew! PLUCK YEW!"

Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this symbolic gesture. Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say (like "pleasant mother pheasant plucker," which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows for the longbow), the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'F', and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird."

And yew all thought yew knew everything!

[Barry Shnikov]

Stuff about giving the finger deriving from English archers in the middle ages

I've heard this about the V sign. In my view, that makes more sense. If you cut off someone's middle finger they can still pull a bow with the index and ring and little finger (instead of the index, middle and ring finger which are usually used).

However, if you cut off the index and middle finger, there are only the ring and little finger left.

Thus, to show the French that they were still capable of firing a bow the English archers waved their two fingers at the french - the infamous V sign.

Churchill turned his fingers the other way round to produce the V for Victory sign in WWII. He probably thought the French might be a little peeved about being invaded by Germany and didn't need to be reminded of the 100 Years War as well...

[El Salsero Gringo]

This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree...And here's my entry in the Pedant of the Month competition:

The English Longbow was made from staves cut from Spanish yew trees. It was compulsory at one stage to import consignments of Spanish bow-staves with shipments of Spanish wine.

Interestingly, the special constitution of yew timber which makes it efficient at storing and releasing strain energy (making it suitable for the longbow) means that its mechanical properties deteriorate rapidly with increasing temperature. A yew bow cannot be reliably used above 35 degrees Celcius and so yew was never used for bows in the Mediterranean countries where the tree grows best.

[Barry Shnikov]

Interestingly....(stuff about trees)


:what:

[Barry Shnikov]

Interestingly...(stuff about trees):what:

only kidding...:)

[Gadget]

(like "pleasant mother pheasant plucker," which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows for the longbow)
I am not a phesant plucker: I'm a phesant plucker's son. I'm only plucking phesants 'till the phesant plucking's done.

I had heard that the V signs were to do with the long-bows, and the finger was a retort from the french, showing that they only needed one finger to fire a cross bow. :shrug:

[jacksondonut]

I am thrilled to say I was not too good at history at school and have learned so much from everyones' posts...:what: besides falling off my chair laughing..
:rofl:

Thanks everyone.
:clap: :clap: :clap: