1500's

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That's where that expression comes from
FACTS FROM THE 1500's

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.
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 dogs, cats, and
other small animals, mice, rats, and 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. 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 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
in the entry way-- hence, a thresh hold.

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 the 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 a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food,
causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes,
so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Most people did not have pewter plates, but had trenchers,
a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl.
Often trenchers were made from stale paysan bread which was so old
and hard that they could use them for quite some time.
Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms and mold got
into the wood and old bread. After eating off wormy, moldy trenchers,
one 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 "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 out 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,
one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and
they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought 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 graveyard shift to listen
for the bell; thus,
someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."