> 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 b. o.
>
> 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. 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 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 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 at the entryway, hence, the
> origins of the words "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 - a
> piece 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
> 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, they started running out of places
> to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take
> their bones to a house and reuse the grave.
>
> In 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 their wrist and lead it through the coffin
> and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
>
> Someone would sit out in the graveyard all of the first
> night listening for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift"
> they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he
> was a "dead ringer".

Note: since I read this I've discovered most of these statements to be entirely false