Each person should be interested in the past of his people. Without knowing history, we can never build a good future. So let's talk about how the ancient peasants lived.
Lodging
The villages in which they lived reached about 15 households. It was very rare to find a settlement with 30-50 peasant households. In each cozy family yard there was not only a dwelling, but also a barn, a barn, a poultry house and various outbuildings for the farm. Many residents also boasted vegetable gardens, vineyards and orchards. The place where the peasants lived can be understood from the remaining villages, where the courtyards and signs of the life of the inhabitants have been preserved. Most often, the house was built of wood, stone, which was covered with reeds or hay. They both slept and ate in one cozy room. The house had a wooden table, several benches, and a chest for storing clothes. They slept on wide beds on which lay a mattress with straw or hay.
Food
The food ration of the peasants included cereals from various grain crops, vegetables, cheese products and fish. During the Middle Ages, baked bread was not made due to the fact that it was very difficult to grind grain into flour. Meat dishes were typical only for the festive table. Instead of sugar, the peasants used honey from wild bees. For a long time, the peasants were engaged in hunting, but then fishing began to take its place. Therefore, fish was much more often on the tables of peasants than meat, which feudal lords indulged themselves with.
clothing
The clothes worn by the peasants of the Middle Ages were very different from the period of ancient times. The common clothing of the peasants was a linen shirt and trousers up to the knee or ankle. Over the shirt they wore another one, with longer sleeves, - blio. For outerwear, a cloak with a fastener at shoulder level was used. The shoes were very soft, made of leather, and there was no solid sole at all. But the peasants themselves often walked barefoot or in uncomfortable shoes with wooden soles.
Legal life of peasants
The peasants who lived in the community were in different dependence on the feudal order. They had several legal ranks with which they were endowed:
- The bulk of the peasants lived according to the rules of Wallachian law, which was based on the life of the peasants when they lived in a rural free community. Land ownership was common on a single right.
- The remaining mass of peasants obeyed serfdom, which was thought out by the feudal lords.
If we talk about the Wallachian community, then there were all the features of the serfdom of Moldova. Each community member had the right to work on the land only a few days a year. When the feudal lords took possession of the serfs, they introduced such a load on the days of work that it was really possible to fulfill it only for a long time. Of course, the peasants had to fulfill the duties that went to the prosperity of the church and the state itself. Serfs who lived in the 14th - 15th centuries split into groups:
- State peasants who were dependent on the ruler;
- Private peasants who depended on a certain feudal lord.
The first group of peasants had much more rights. The second group was considered free, with their own personal right of transition to another feudal lord, but such peasants paid tithes, served corvee and sued the feudal lord. This situation was close to the complete enslavement of all the peasants.
In the following centuries, various groups of peasants appeared who were dependent on the feudal order and its cruelty. The way the serfs lived was simply horrifying, because they did not have any rights and freedoms.
The enslavement of the peasants
In the period of 1766, Gregory Gike issued a law on the complete enslavement of all peasants. No one had the right to move from boyars to others, the fugitives quickly returned to their places by the police. All serfdom was intensified by taxes and duties. Taxes were imposed on any activity of the peasants.
But even all this oppression and fear did not suppress the spirit of freedom in the peasants, who rebelled against their slavery. After all, serfdom can hardly be called otherwise. The way the peasants lived in the era of the feudal regime was not immediately forgotten. The unrestrained feudal oppression remained in the memory and did not allow the peasants to restore their rights for a long time. The struggle for the right to a free life was long. The struggle of the strong spirit of the peasants was immortalized in history, and still amazes with its facts.
In the city slums
We will begin our acquaintance with the other side of England with a deep dive. Welcome to the slums of London's East End, the poor East End of the city. Time of action - the second half of the 19th century, somewhere between 1840 and 1890. Life stagnates in narrow and dirty streets, flows so slowly that it is difficult even to determine what decade is in the yard. The local residents are in rags, by which it is difficult to judge fashion, and the poor trembled from cold and hunger in the same way ten and twenty years ago. It is winter outside, so walk carefully through the slush, dark gray from ash. And it is better not to go to the windows - suddenly the contents of the pot will be thrown out on your head, without reaching it to the cesspool. However, once again they try not to open the windows so as not to let the heat out of the room - heating is very expensive.
We turn into a tiny courtyard and randomly enter a two-story house. We slowly climb the dark, fetid staircase. The railing is loosened, the rotten steps creak dangerously underfoot - one wrong step and you can fail. We slightly open the door to the apartment on the second floor (the door is not locked, because there is still nothing to steal here). A cooled fireplace, which has not been fired up for several days, is pecking at you. Mold grows on the damp walls, and the plaster on the ceiling is blackened and swollen. There is a rickety table in the center of the room, two beds clinging to the walls. Well, not bad for a family of eight. It happens, you know, worse. Sanitary inspectors will tell you about the little rooms where the whole family, both parents and children, sleep side by side on the same bed. And where there is such tightness, there is close to sin: too soon children will know where they come from ... On a warm day, the kids would run outside all day, but now they are huddled in a corner and are staring at you with shiny eyes.
The mother sits in the corner and lulls the baby wrapped in her shawl - there is no money for diapers. The woman turns around fearfully, and you notice a bruise on the half of her face. But as soon as you open your mouth to sympathize with her, she waves her hand at you and nods to the bed. Covering herself with a torn blanket, her husband snores on the bed. In the summer, relative prosperity sets in in their neighborhood: whole families go to Kent to harvest hops, men earn extra money on construction sites, but in winter it is more difficult to find work.
Yesterday in the block there was such a strong snowstorm that a drunken neighbor, returning from a tavern, fell and froze to death, and during the night a snowdrift poured around him. In the hope of earning money, the father of the family went to the nearest workhouse, perhaps he would be paid a few shillings to clear the snow from the streets. Or at least a few rolls. Half a block was crowded at the gate, the same poor fellows with sunken, unshaven cheeks. But the trustees refused all of them. What kind of fashion is it to distribute help left and right? If you want a job, look for it yourself or rent out to a workhouse. Out of grief, my father went to a tavern and spent his last pennies on gin, and at home his wife dared to hint about money ...
"Widow and Orphans". Engraving by TB Kennington from Illustrated London News. 1888
We back up and leave the little room, which is cramped even without us. Maybe try your luck next door? But gloom reigns in the house opposite. At the table by the window, the widow is hunched over and feverishly sewing shirts. She buried her husband last year and now has to support her family alone. To live somehow, she needs to sew two dozen shirts a day. Everyone has to work. The youngest daughter, a skinny girl of about ten, sells watercress, carrying it home. An older girl, now a teenager, sorts dirty rags in a factory, which are then used to make paper. Rags stink, lice crawl on them and fleas jump. Probably, this is how typhus entered the house, from which the little son died. His body has been lying on the shifted orange boxes for the second day. There is nothing to bury him, first you need to wait for the proceeds for the shirts. Noticing the half-open door, the widow narrows her eyes, and then unleashes a stream of abuse at you. Don't be offended. She mistook you for a preacher who brought her a religious treatise as a consolation. Perhaps we'd better leave.
Where to now? How about this cottage? It's much more spacious, but what is the stench, what is the barking? Dogs rush everywhere and relieve themselves on the floor. Terriers are bred here for sale, because rat-baiting by dogs is one of the favorite pastimes of the East End. So, what is this? A couple of sad lapdogs whine in the cage. Apparently, the purebred dogs were kidnapped somewhere in the prestigious West End when the maid was walking them in the morning. Soon the owners will be required to ransom at least 10 pounds, or even all 25 pounds. However, if the thief is caught, he will have to answer to the fullest extent of the law. Let's get out of here, we will hardly be welcome.
Congratulations - while you were turning your head around, trying to figure out the intricacies of the streets, your wallet was stolen. When? Yes, just now a flock of rags was running by. Do not try to chase after them, just make people laugh. And if you catch a thief and try to shake him by the collar (be careful, the rotten fabric is spreading right in your hands), the locals will stand up for the boy - he is his own, and you are a stranger. So the loss of a wallet can only be mourned.
Luckily, you’ll be more fortunate in the next apartment. You may even be offered tea, although its taste leaves much to be desired: the dormant tea leaves have been dried, tinted, and sold as fresh. Of the furniture, there is not only a table with chairs, but even two armchairs, and in the bedroom you can see a bed with iron posts, and not just a bunk with a straw mattress. A clock ticks on the mantelpiece, the walls are adorned with portraits of the queen and magazine clippings, and a caged canary is poured on the windowsill. Songbirds are loved in the East End, they somehow brighten up the gray days. The landlords are in the business of reselling used clothing that is dumped in the bedroom. Better not to ask where the castoffs come from. Newer children's clothing looks especially suspicious. Some thieves lure the kids into the doorways and, threatening with a knife, make them take off their good-quality suits ... But we will not pry. Having said goodbye to the owners, we will continue our journey through the unkind old England.
It is hard to believe that orange trees once smelled in the smoky East End. But it is so. Prior to the Great Fire of 1666, aristocrats and wealthy citizens lived in east London, but after a devastating fire in the western part of the city, a construction boom began. In place of the burnt-out quarters, new, even more luxurious ones appeared, with cozy squares surrounded by white-stone houses. Respectable audiences flocked west to the West End, while the abandoned mansions were crowded with the destitute. Over time, "slum lords" began to build cheap tenement houses in the east. The East End grew, sucking in the districts of Hackney, Stepney, Poplar, Bental Green, Shorditch, Bermondsey, Whitechapel.
In Essays on Bose (1836), Charles Dickens described the slums and their inhabitants as follows:
“For those who are not familiar with this part of London (and there are many), it is difficult to imagine all the dirt and poverty that reign in it. Miserable houses, where the broken windows are covered with rags and paper, and where a whole family huddles in each room, and sometimes even two or three: in the basement there are craftsmen making sweets and candied fruits, in the front rooms there are barbers and traders of smoked herring , in the back - shoemakers; a songbird merchant on the second floor, three families on the third and a fierce famine in the attic; in the corridor there are Irishmen, in the dining room - a musician, in the kitchen - a day laborer and her five hungry children. Dirt is everywhere: in front of the house there is a gutter, behind a cesspool, clothes are drying in the windows, slops are pouring out of the windows; girls of fourteen or fifteen years old wander barefoot and unkempt in some kind of white coats, worn almost over their naked bodies; there are boys of all sorts of ages in jackets of all sorts of sizes or without them at all; men and women, dressed in a lot, but without exception, everything is dirty and wretched; all this loiters, swears, drinks, smokes, quarrels, fights and swears ".
The slums were not the prerogative of the capital; in other large cities, things were no better. In Liverpool and Manchester, apartment buildings were built back-to-back, with no backyard. If desired, one could easily peep through the windows of neighbors, but the workers hardly had time for such frivolous amusements. At the entrance to the patio, guests were greeted with piles of ash and manure, so that you could immediately understand where you got to. The tenants had to climb narrow dark stairs, but this is still at best. At worst, they went down to the basement.
Devil's Acre slum near Westminster Abbey. Drawing by Gustave Dore from The Pilgrimage. 1877
In the late 1840s, when a stream of starving Irishmen poured into England, 20% of the townspeople huddled in basements in Liverpool alone, and 12% in Manchester. Basement dwellings for the poor were so popular in Edinburgh that they gave rise to legends of the underground city. The underground apartments were not dry and cozy, like the holes of Tolkien's hobbits, but fetid and damp, because the neighborhood with cesspools did not add charm to them. Respectable gentlemen were horrified by these "caves" and called their inhabitants "moles in human form."
Small traders and working people settled in the city slums: carpenters, masons, shoemakers, dressmakers, laundresses, weavers, butchers, loaders. They earned mere pennies: in the middle of the century, dressmakers' earnings began at 7-8 shillings a week, and half of the week's earnings were spent on renting housing. No wonder landlords (Landlords are large landowners in England, in the 19th century they actively bought real estate in cities. - Ed.), who owned tenement houses in the slums were called bloodsuckers: high rent did not allow workers to get out of poverty. However, the tenants did not lag behind the owners. The favorite strategy was to leave the home at night without paying the rent, and grab the pipes, the fireplace grate, and anything else that could be sold with you.
Wages have gradually increased, but prices have risen with it. Unsurprisingly, even in the second half of the 19th century, there was appalling poverty in England, and not only in the slums of London and Edinburgh, but everywhere, from the large industrial cities of the north to tiny Irish villages. It was very expensive to keep a house in order, even if not a house, but a small apartment. Coal was making a big dent in the budget: one shilling a week could be spent on heating one room. What can we say about such luxury as hot bathing water?
Until the second half of the 19th century, the rich and noble inhabitants of the empire took a bath in their bedrooms, in front of a blazing fireplace. Servants brought water from the kitchen and poured it into the sitz bath. Hot water became available in wealthy homes in the 1840s, and in the 1870s hot water became available to the middle class as well. The poorer houses had mini-boilers or gas water heaters for heating water, but they were expensive to maintain, made a lot of noise and exploded from time to time. In new houses, a separate bathroom was built, in old ones, one of the rooms was assigned to it. Another innovation that became popular in the 1890s was the shower. Some shower models were attached directly to the faucet, so they tended to break loose and generously gush around with either boiling water or ice water.
But for the workers such a luxury was not available for a long time. Water had to be taken in a street pump, often paid for, and carried in a bucket home, where all households claimed the rights to it - someone was thirsty, someone had to arrange a wash, and only sissies would think about bathing. It's good if you managed to wash yourself at least once a week. No wonder London was called "The Great Dirt"!
There was a long queue at the pumps, especially since in some areas they worked only twice a day, and then on weekdays. The East London Plumbing Company did not supply water on Sundays, apparently in the belief that it was necessary to pray on the holy day, not indulge the sinful flesh. Poor people collected rainwater in cisterns, but an unpleasant surprise could be found at the bottom of the cistern. When the inhabitants of Darlington, County Durham, tasted the strange taste of the water and emptied the cistern, they found in it the decomposed corpse of a baby that had lain there for several months. Fortunately, by the middle of the century, the situation began to improve. To the delight of the cleaners, the city baths were opened, where for a few pennies it was possible to wash and wash clothes. And in 1853, the tax on soap was lifted, and sales doubled.
Labyrinths of dirty alleys, where people literally lived on each other's heads, worried respectable neighbors. Inhabitants of the prestigious districts of London - Kensington, Bayswater, Mayfair, Belgravia - shuddered at the thought that hicks were swarming nearby. Henry Mayhew (1812–1887), famous Victorian painter, at the beginning of his book London Labor and the London Poor, compared East End inhabitants to nomadic savages. Slums have become known not only as breeding grounds for infection, but also for immorality, and even worse - for example, communism. You never know what the poor are doing in such cramped conditions. Maybe they are plotting something unkind. Even in the second half of the 19th century, the prevailing opinion was that the poor themselves were to blame for their misfortunes. Instead of rising out of the mud and standing firmly on their feet, they walk through life with the wobbly gait of drunkards. Now, if they worked, prayed and remained sober, then it would be of use. Unfortunately, such an attitude towards the poor completely ignored factors such as unemployment and scanty earnings, lack of education and poor health. Solving these problems was much more difficult than cursing the poor for laziness and drunkenness.
City officials fought the slums as best they could, but the fight was mostly about the demolition of dilapidated buildings. In 1838, the slums of St. Giles, London's Holborn borough, were partially demolished, followed by Rose Lane and Essex Streets in Spitalfields and Whitechapel. But the change in the terms does not change the sum, and the poor, muttering to themselves, collected simple belongings and moved to another street, which immediately turned into a slum. More effective measures were also taken. The Shaftesbury Act of 1851 authorized the city to buy land and build dwellings on it for working families, while the Disease Prevention Act of 1855 allowed parish trustees to inspect living quarters where they believed pockets of infection were located. However, the poor did not like the fact that inspectors were frequenting their homes and lecturing them on cleanliness.
Without waiting for government measures, rich and conscientious gentlemen themselves built housing for the poor. So in 1848 in London's St. Pancras area, a 5-storey apartment building was built, where 110 working families were housed. The wages were moderate, 3 shillings 6p a week. The new home was generating income for investors, and low-cost poor homes with plumbing, toilets and laundry facilities began to appear throughout London.
While some philanthropists provided affordable housing to the poor, others preferred to work face to face with them. On the streets of the East End, which were teeming with ragamuffins and traders of all stripes, men in white clerical collars or young ladies with a stack of religious leaflets met from time to time. The benefits of such would-be helpers were few, and the inhabitants of the slums openly made fun of them. However, some philanthropists did bring real benefits to the poor. Among them was Thomas John Barnardo (1845-1905), or simply Dr. Barnardo (in addition to philanthropy, he is also known for the fact that his daughter married the writer Somerset Maugham).
Children of the slums. Drawing by Gustave Dore from The Pilgrimage. 1877
A Dublin native, Barnardo came to London to study medicine and then heal the suffering somewhere in China. But after getting to know the East End, Barnardo stayed in London - it is unlikely that China can surpass such squalor. He directed all his energy to the smallest inhabitants of the slums, hungry ragamuffins, whom the British called "street arapchat". Some were found by his assistants during night raids, some were brought to him by their parents, but one way or another, all the children in Barnardo's orphanages received food, clothing and education. Boys were trained to work in workshops or sent as cabin boys to the navy, and girls were raised to be industrious servants. Perhaps these were not the most desirable professions, but the street children did not have to choose.
The doctor's reputation was impeccable, and the British, inspired by his enthusiasm, generously donated to orphanages. But in 1877 a terrible scandal erupted. For several years, Dr. Barnardo managed to annoy both his fellow philanthropists and, much more dangerous, the Society for the Organization of Philanthropy.
Established in 1869, the Society was careful to ensure that unworthy individuals were not huddled in among the poor receiving assistance. Why spoil them with free soup? Let them go to work. And if they cannot work, let them go to the workhouse, there they will quickly find something to do. And then they came to the ready-made ...
The society was so zealous in separating the lambs from the goats that it was just right to be renamed the "Society for the Fight against Charity." And Barnardo's motto - "We will accept all disadvantaged children" - was a speck in the eye for many. Let the parents take care of the children - as they hear the pitiful cries, so quickly they will take up their minds!
But Dr. Barnardo thought differently and continued to raise funds for the hungry children. They took the intractable philanthropist on a pencil and began to collect a dossier on him. The former employees of the orphanage, who were fired for drunkenness and a dissolute lifestyle, became a real gift for the enemies. It was they who acted as the main witnesses in the process that shook the whole of London.
The public's favorite was accused of terrible sins - and of embezzlement of charitable funds, and cruel treatment of pupils, and in dealing with prostitutes, and in falsifying photographs. He also got the honorary title "doctor", which Barnardo used undeservedly - he never graduated from medical university. And even his orphanages were exposed as real brothels: supposedly mentors drink in taverns and beat students, and former street children, also not timid, are engaged in sodomy with each other. It is difficult to say how much of this was true, and how much slander, but the public was outraged. The flow of donations stopped, and dark days fell on the shelters of Dr. Barnardo. But Barnardo was so convincing in his defense that the members of the arbitral tribunal found him not guilty and thereby saved his reputation.
However, he was shamed for falsifying photographs. To raise more funds, Dr. Barnardo deftly played on sentimentality - selling photographs of street children "before and after." In one photo, a street boy was depicted in rags, in the second he, already dressed in a shelter's uniform, was doing something useful. The ladies gasped, moved and bought postcards. Dr. Barnardo insisted that he was photographing the ragamuffins "as they are." In fact, he shredded the boys' clothes, smeared them with soot and asked them to make a sad face. On the other hand, how else to influence the moneybags? The story turned out to be on the side of Dr. Barnardo, and a charitable organization named after him to this day helps the children of Great Britain.
"Abandon hope, everyone who enters here": workhouses
"Among the public buildings in a certain city, which for many reasons would be prudent not to name and to which I will not give any fictitious name, there is a building that has long been found in almost all cities, large and small, namely - a workhouse."- this is how Charles Dickens begins his novel The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Although Oliver's request - "Please sir, I want more" - was spoken in a faint, trembling voice, it was a fierce criticism of the entire workhouse system.
It should be noted that Oliver was very lucky. A doctor was present at his mother's birth, which was more of a privilege than a routine practice. Although Mr. Bumble frightened the boy by plucking a hemp, Oliver was hired as an apprentice to the undertaker. But many of his peers ripped off the skin on their fingers, tearing old ropes into fibers. But no matter how hard the hearts of Dickens' novel were, most Englishmen remained convinced that workhouses were a necessary measure to fight poverty. And the conditions there should be a little better than prison conditions. Still not a resort.
Workhouses appeared in England in the 17th century and were charities where the poor worked in exchange for food and shelter. Until 1834, parishes were in charge of the workhouses. They also provided the impoverished parishioners with another type of assistance - bread and scanty sums of money. Targeted assistance came in handy for the workers and peasants who lost their ability to work. In factories where safety rules were not followed, there were a thousand and one ways to be crippled, and frequent illnesses undermined health. But where can we get funds to support cripples, beggars, orphans and widows? The wealthy parishioners were taxed in favor of the parish, which, of course, did not please them. Moreover, in the 17th-18th centuries, the poor, left without means of subsistence, had to return for help to the parish where they were born. At the sight of the gloomy ragamuffins, and even with a brood of children, the parishioners began to grumble. Come in large numbers! Now they hang around the parish's neck.
In the first half of the 19th century, the situation with poverty and unemployment deteriorated so much that radical measures were required. From 1801 to 1830, England's population grew by two-thirds to reach 15 million. This trend worried economists, especially supporters of Thomas Malthus, who argued that uncontrolled population growth would lead to hunger and disaster. According to him, the population grew exponentially, and food - in arithmetic. If it were not for abstinence and disasters that halt population growth, humanity would be catastrophic. Simply put, hungry hordes would eat all the food.
The followers of Malthus did not like the practice of delivering bread to the homes of the poor. Otherwise, what good, they will begin to multiply uncontrollably. And already in the 1820s – 1830s, the prophecy of Malthus seemed especially relevant. The Napoleonic wars and the trade blockade undermined the economy of England, and the Bread Laws did not benefit the farmers, but they affected the family budgets of the workers - the price of bread went up significantly. Some counties were on the brink of ruin. In the mid-1830s, farmers breathed a sigh of relief, enjoying the warm weather and bountiful harvests, but a three-day snowfall in the winter of 1836 marked the beginning of a prolonged cold snap. England was waiting for the "hungry forties", a period of crop failure, epidemics, unemployment, stagnation in the economy.
How can we take care of the growing number of the poor in such conditions? On the ominous 13 August 1834, Parliament passed a new Poor Law. The outdated system of parish philanthropy was replaced by a new workhouse-based system. Individual parishes were united in unions for the care of the poor, and a workhouse was built in each union. The poor went there, turning from parishioners into national property. The workhouses were run by a local board of trustees, which appointed an overseer (Master) and a housekeeper (Matron), considered applications from the poor, was in charge of budget issues, and investigated cases of abuse. And there were a lot of them.
The common people were hostile to the innovations. Rumors immediately spread that all the beggars would be forced into workhouses, and there they would be fed with poisoned bread - no parasites, no problems. In reality, the poor were faced with a choice. They could live in semi-prison conditions, with scarce food and exhausting work, but with a roof over their heads. Or to preserve freedom, but then to take care of their own food. Conditions are harsh, but there were no others at that time. No matter how much the Times criticized the new establishments, the middle and upper classes were pleased with the parliamentary initiative. There were fewer beggars, and the parish tax fell by 20%.
Homeless. Drawing by Gustave Dore from The Pilgrimage. 1877
Journalist James Grant described the fate of the poor as follows: When they enter the gates of the workhouse, they begin to think that they have ended up in a huge prison, from where only death will save them ... Many inhabitants of the workhouse consider it a tomb in which they were buried alive. This is the grave of all their earthly hopes "... What was in store for a beggar family in a workhouse, at the mere mention of which a chill ran down the spine?
The workhouse was a massive building with living and working quarters and patios for walking. Add a stone fence here, and the picture is gloomy. Sick and healthy, men and women, old people and children - all these categories lived separately. Once in the workhouse, the husband went to one wing, the wife to the other, the children over two years old to the third. First, the new guests were examined by a doctor, then they were thoroughly washed and given a gray uniform. As a sign of shame to unmarried mothers, a yellow stripe was sewn onto the dress.
The day at the workhouse was scheduled by the hour. Its inhabitants went to bed at 9 pm, and woke up after dark. The ringing of the bell informed them about the change of activity: get up, get dressed, read prayers, eat breakfast in silence, and work, work, work! Small children worked on a par with adults in their free time from school. In addition, the children were given to apprentices, as in the case of Oliver Twist, or they tried to arrange for the service.
If the harsh life didn’t suit someone - well, go to bed, just don’t forget your wife and children. The whole family left the workhouse in the same way as they did. In theory, husbands and wives were allowed to see each other during the day, although they had to sleep separately so as not to breed poverty. In fact, it was very difficult for the spouses to see each other during the day. The same was true for mothers with children, and newborns were taken away from unmarried mothers.
A terrible, but revealing story took place in the Eton workhouse, which was in charge of the former Major Joseph Hove (military men were taken as overseers). One of his workers, Elizabeth Wise, asked for permission to take her two and a half year old child for the night. The baby had frostbitten legs, and the mother wanted to console and heal him. Just before Christmas, Mr. Hove announced that from now on the child should sleep with other children. The mother had the right to visit him during the day. But when the guard found her in the children's ward, where she washed the baby's legs and changed his bandages, he got angry and ordered her to leave. The woman refused to obey, and the warden dragged her out of the room, dragged her up the stairs and locked her in the punishment cell.
The punishment cell was a dark room with a barred window without glass. Elizabeth had to spend 24 hours there - no warm clothing, food, water, straw to lie down, and even no chamber pot. The temperature outside was -6 C. At the end of her term, Elizabeth was fed cold oatmeal left over from breakfast, and she was again driven into the cell so that she could wash the floor after herself (the absence of a pot made itself felt). The woman did not have enough strength for wet cleaning - her hands were numb. Then the sufferer was locked in a punishment cell for another 7 hours. Fortunately, rumors of the warder's brutality leaked to The Times, and then another incident surfaced: at his former duty station, Mr. Hove crippled a child by pouring boiling water over him. Despite this incident, Hove was calmly accepted to his new location. However, after the scandal with Elizabeth Wise, he was expelled in disgrace.
Punishments in workhouses were regulated by rules. Violators of silence, liars, parasites, brawlers and simulators were punished with solitary confinement and deprivation of food. Boys, like their peers in regular schools, were allowed to be flogged with rods, but corporal punishment was not applied to girls. As much as the teachers complained about the girls' insolence, as much as they insisted that blows and punishment were not considered punishment, the Workhouse Commission remained adamant. Cases of ill-treatment were investigated and resulted in fines and dismissals. Of course, if they got publicity. And what happened behind closed doors is another question.
The victims of cruelty were most often the most defenseless inhabitants of the workhouse - the elderly and children. In the winter of 1836, three toddlers were transferred from a nearby workhouse in Bishop Waltham to a workhouse in Fairham, Hamptonshire, where there was a large school. The eldest of the orphans was five years old, the youngest three and a half. The sudden change of scenery frightened the kids so much that they started wetting the bed. For the damage to the sheets, a severe punishment was imposed - the portions of the children were cut in half. The diet of each child for a whole week was 1 kg of bread, a pound of potatoes, 300 g of pudding, 1.5 liters of milk porridge and a tiny piece of cheese and mutton.
How not to recall the lines from "Oliver Twist": “Oliver Twist and his comrades endured agony for three months, slowly dying of malnutrition; finally, they became so greedy and so mad with hunger that one boy, who was tall for his age and was not used to this state of affairs (his father once kept a small tavern), darkly hinted to his comrades that if bowls of porridge, he is afraid that he might accidentally eat the puny boy sleeping next to him at night. His eyes were wild, hungry, and the children blindly believed him ".
Naturally, hunger did not solve the problem of wet sheets, and then the guilty people began to be deprived of meals altogether - while other children were eating, they had to stand in the dining room in special blocks. In the end, they were transferred from their bedroom to an unheated barn in mid-January. When the boys returned to the old workhouse eight weeks later, they were barely able to stand.
The workhouse in Andover, Hampshire has become famous throughout the country. It must be said that the workhouses were neither easy nor pleasant. Very often the poor had to pluck the hemp, that is, to unweave the tarred ropes, from which they caulked ships with fibers. The inhabitants of Andover House had another responsibility - grinding bones into fertilizer. The stench from the bones knocked me off my feet, the dust blinded my eyes, sharp fragments scratched my skin. But that was not the worst thing. The warden and his wife were dishonest and cut the diet of their charges so that the poor devils gnawed on the rotten bones brought in for processing.
Due to the scandal that The Times fueled with all its might, Andover's overseer lost his seat. But despite all the efforts of journalists, workhouses continued to exist until the middle of the 20th century.
"Pea Soup" or London Mist
In his poem Symphony in Yellow, Oscar Wilde compares the London fog to a yellow silk scarf. Charles Dickens called the fog "London ivy" that winds around the houses, and in Bleak House (1853) he sang a real ode to the fog: “Fog is everywhere. Fog in the upper Thames, where it floats over green islands and meadows; fog in the lower Thames, where it, having lost its purity, swirls between the forest of masts and the coastal waste of a large (and dirty) city. Fog in the Essex swamps, fog in the Kent Hills. The fog creeps into the galleys of the coal brigs; the fog lies on the yards and floats through the rigging of large ships; the fog settles on the sides of barges and boats ... On the bridges, some people, leaning over the railing, look into the foggy underworld and, themselves shrouded in fog, feel like a balloon hanging among the clouds ".
The fog did not become less dense and suffocating from poetic comparisons. Plunging into the cloud of the color of pea soup, Londoners hardly thought about beautiful metaphors. Rather, they were coughing and pinching their noses.
The only ones who were pleased with the fog were the capital's prostitutes. On foggy days, they earned much more, because even the most timid men were not afraid to talk to them.
A thick veil promised clients anonymity. According to the Frenchman Hippolyte Thain, in the fog it was sometimes impossible to make out the face of his interlocutor, even holding his hand. The same anonymity came in handy for the London unemployed, who gathered in Trafalgar Square on February 8, 1886. Under cover of fog, a crowd of 20,000 rioted the West End, looting shops and hauling passengers out of carriages.
London fog. Drawing from the magazine "Punch". 1853
But if the prostitutes and rebels were happy with the bad weather, the rest of Londoners were alarmed by the fog. Meteorologist Duke Howard described a typical London fog on a January day in 1826: "Offices and shops lit candles and lamps, and carriages moved at walking speed."... But on the same day, 8 km from London, the sun was shining in a cloudless sky - the fog wrapped up the capital and was not going to leave it. It happened that passers-by lost their way in the darkness and fell into the Thames, finding their death in its murky waters. But that was not the only danger lurking in the fog.
Vapors from the Thames mixed with smoke from countless chimneys to form smog (short for smoke and fog). Londoners began to heat fireplaces with coal as early as the 13th century and continued throughout the Victorian era, so that the main source of pollution was not the chimneys of factories, but cozy fireplaces. Londoners burned over 18 million tons of coal a year! In the 1840s, the tireless reformer Edwin Chadwick urged his compatriots to switch from ordinary coal to anthracite and rebuild fireplaces so that they burn coal more efficiently, but the British were in no hurry to follow his advice. Parliament rejected Chadwick's proposal. It was not enough for sanitary inspectors to encroach on the holy of holies - the hearth, the heart of the house! And the pipes continued to smoke.
In 1853, in a note on Wandering London, Max Schlesinger wrote: "The fog is completely unsuitable for breathing: the air seems to be grayish-yellow, orange and black at the same time, it is humid, thick, fetid and simply suffocating."... Working in basements and stuffy workshops, the townspeople suffered from pulmonary diseases. In winter, a real hell began for asthmatics and tuberculosis patients. According to the air pollution control committee, during the intense fog of 1886, the death rate among the townspeople reached the level of a cholera epidemic. Perhaps they were exaggerating, but the historian Anthony Wall gives impressive figures: at the beginning of December 1891, the death rate in London reached 18 deaths per 1000 living, but after the fog fell on the city on December 20 and lasted another five days, this figure increased up to 32. The fog concealed crimes, but he himself was a murderer.
Great stench
In the hot and dry summer of 1858, London was seized with horror. From the heat, the Thames became shallow, and instead of water, already dirty, streams of sewage slowly flowed along it. Passers-by almost fainted. The passengers of the omnibuses shouted to the coachman to speed up his pace, otherwise in the cramped space of the carriage one could suffocate. Doctors sounded the alarm: according to the widespread theory of miasms, diseases spread through bad smells, and such a stench promised an epidemic of epic proportions.
The parliamentarians also had a hard time. After the fire of 1834, which destroyed the old parliament building, a new Westminster Palace was rebuilt on the banks of the Thames. But the Gothic windows did not protect against the monstrous stench, and the spacious halls smelled like a country lavatory. It was absolutely impossible to sit in such conditions. Prime Minister Disraeli ran out of parliament, holding his nose with a scented handkerchief, and his colleagues rushed after him. Finally, lawmakers have learned something that has long been obvious to all Londoners: the city needs a sewer, and the sooner the better.
Lack of efficient sanitation was only part of the problem. It is difficult for a modern person to imagine the scents that hovered in the cities of the 19th century, and our complaints about exhaust gases would make the British roll their eyes - we would have your problems! Visiting London in the first half of the century, provincials complained that the streets smelled worse than the stables. But "worse than a stable" applies more to the main streets, the back streets of the East End smelled even more disgusting.
Take livestock, for example. Londoners did not have to travel to the provinces to listen to grunts and grunts and clucks. The urban poor have kept pigs for centuries. The pig was an excellent investment, and the liquid manure remaining after it was poured into the street out of the simplicity of their soul. In 1873 alone, there were 1,500 private slaughterhouses in London - cattle were driven there right along the boulevards, so that passers-by had to step aside.
The stench was also added by factories - tanneries, candles, cement - which poured waste into local water bodies. Old cemeteries, filled to the brim with rotting bodies, also tormented the sense of smell, and journalists, grimacing, called them "hallowed cesspools." In graveyards like St. Olaf in London's Bermondsey, skulls were lying on the ground, so that all London troupes, including training ones, could be provided with props for the performances of Hamlet. But the British were especially horrified by the unsolved problem of sewerage.
Toilets similar to modern ones began to appear in the 1850s. Until that time, they used either a chamber pot, or a latrine in the backyard, or an earthen toilet, where earth was used to drain instead of water. The chamber pot was kept under the bed or in a separate room, and during the morning cleaning it was the servant's duty to empty it. Many housewives insisted that there were no sinks on the floor where the nursery was located, so that the servants would not be tempted to pour the contents of the pot there without bringing it to the basement.
In the 19th century, many wealthy citizens moved to the suburbs for fresh air, and turned their houses in the center into profitable ones, renting them out to several families at once. Thus, in a house designed for one family, dozens of families lived - a sort of communal Victorian apartment. And they all went to the same lavatory, which quickly overflowed. But what to do with its contents? That was the problem.
Those who had the conscience not to throw the pots out of the window poured them into cesspools, which were located in the basements of houses or in the backyard. For example, in the 1870s, in the town of Stockport near Manchester, workers' dwellings were surrounded by fetid swamps, through which locals swam on boards and broken doors. Cities literally drowned in lakes of sewage. In the middle of the 19th century, there were more than 200 thousand cesspools in London. They were cleaned by the goldsmiths, but since the services cost money, neither the landlords nor the tenants themselves were in a hurry to hire them. The result was incredible dirt and stench. In 1832, fearing cholera, the Leeds city government forked out and paid to clean the cesspools. It took 75 carts to remove the contents of just one pit!
Backyards in London slums. Drawing by Gustave Dore from The Pilgrimage. 1877
As we have already said, not only the poor suffered from the stench, but also the cream of society. The basements of Windsor Castle, the residence of the English kings, contained 53 cesspools in the 1850s, all overflowing to the brim. Manure heaps were an alternative to pits, but if the former polluted the soil, the latter poisoned the air. The enterprising English took advantage of their troubles and sold sewage to farmers for manure (some cities even organized sewage auctions). But there was so much waste that the farmers did not have time to buy it.
In the middle of the century, the British breathed a sigh of relief - flush toilets began to come into use. In the 1860s and 1870s, the most popular were toilets made by the company of Thomas Krapper, a man with a surname surprisingly suited to his occupation. At the beginning of their career, toilets were hidden in a wooden case, but since the end of the 1870s, there has been a fashion for toilets of all shapes and colors, in the Empire and Renaissance style, painted and richly decorated with stucco. Despite the fact that the appearance of the toilet bowls was amazing, toilet paper was handled in the old-fashioned way - any paper, for example, old envelopes or bags, was suitable for these needs.
Since the toilets were no longer filled with disgusting odors, they did not need to be installed in distant rooms. The most popular location for the toilet was the closet under the stairs, closer to the living room and hall. However, when flushed, the toilet made such a loud sound that it could be heard in the living room, and this embarrassed the propriety-obsessed Victorians. This is what Agatha Christie wrote in her autobiography: “In those days we were extremely shy about the restroom. It was inconceivable even to imagine that someone noticed how you enter or leave from there, unless a close family member. In our house, this caused great difficulties, since the toilet was located exactly halfway between the floors, in full view. The worst thing was, of course, being inside and hearing voices coming from outside. Leaving is unthinkable. I had to sit locked up in four walls and wait until the path was cleared ".
In addition to household toilets, public latrines have become common. During the 1851 World's Fair, visitors were able to use the latrines, where flush toilets were installed. In the same year, a public lavatory for men appeared on Fleet Street. A year later, the first women's restroom was opened. Women's latrines were less common than men's ones - the townspeople were worried that prostitutes would gather there. It's funny, but it was the men's restrooms that often became the meeting place for homosexuals. Hence the English slang expression "cottaging", meaning anonymous, non-binding sex in a public restroom. The fact is that the first latrines really resembled cozy rural cottages.
Paradoxically, toilets only added problems to cities. They were poured into all the same cesspools, which, due to water, were filled much faster, or into a primitive London sewer. A legacy of the past centuries, the sewerage system was not at all intended for collecting sewage, only for drainage of rainwater, which fell through sewage pipes into underground canals, and from there into the Thames. Until 1815, homeowners were prohibited from connecting their cesspools to sewers or pouring household waste into them. Once upon a time, salmon frolicked in the transparent Thames. But in 1815 the idyll came to an end, and sewage poured into the river. When five years later, at his coronation, George IV wanted to eat salmon from the Thames, he could not buy a fish even for 30 shillings - the salmon left the river.
Michael Faraday hands his business card to the Dirty Thames. Caricature from "Punch" magazine. 1855
The pollution continued for years and decades. In 1855, physicist Michael Faraday went for a steamer ride on the Thames, but instead of water he saw "a muddy, brownish slurry." His contemporary Captain Mangles said at a meeting of the House of Commons: "God gave us the most beautiful of the rivers, but we turned it into a disgusting cesspool."... But the "Great Stench" of 1858 made Londoners understand that it was impossible to live like this any longer. In the same year, a decision was made to build a new sewerage system, and Joseph Baselgett was appointed chief engineer of the projects. He got down to business with enthusiasm. Between 1859 and 1875, 134 km of underground brick collectors and 800 km of street drains were built. In addition, Londoners owe Baselgett to two new embankments, Chelsea and Victoria, which were built on the banks of the Thames, where sewage from sewers used to fall.
The London Sewerage was launched in 1864. The inauguration was attended by the Prince of Wales, the nobility and the city authorities, while ordinary Londoners rejoiced to learn that salmon had returned to the Thames shortly after its launch. It would seem that one can put an end to this in the history of the Great Stench. But the caustic reader will ask the question: "And where did the sewage that got into the sewage system go?" Alas, in all the same tormentor Thames (although it would be more correct to call her "sufferer", because the British addressed the river "Father Thames"). Wastewater was carried through pipes to pumping stations, and through them fell into the river, however, already far from London. Pumping stations (Abbey Mills, Crossness, Beckton) were built in sparsely populated areas, but residents there began to complain about the stench almost immediately.
It took another disaster to get the attention of the authorities. On a moonlit night on September 3, 1878, the paddle steamer Princess Alice was returning from Gravesend to London. Londoners loved driving on the Thames, and there was no end to those willing to pay 2 shillings for a ticket. And then there was such a beautiful night! The deck was not crowded with tourists. But the happy chatter was replaced by screams of horror when the passengers noticed that the Bywell Castle freighter was heading straight for them. Both captains made a mistake and the 900-ton ship collided with the steamer. "Princess Alice" cracked and sank in a matter of minutes, the night plunged into chaos.
To top it all off, an hour before the crash, the Barking and Crossness pumping stations poured a daily stream of sewage into the Thames, and the drowning people were wallowing in the stinking slurry. They would have died like this: there were no life jackets, almost no one knew how to swim, bulky dresses got wet and pulled women to the bottom. The Bywell Castle's crew threw chairs and barrels to the drowning people to grab onto, lowered ropes, but out of 900 passengers they managed to save about 130. The bodies lying in the sewage were in such a state that their relatives could not identify them and 120 unidentified victims had to be buried in a common grave. It was then that the public remembered about the ill-fated pumping stations. Then, in the 1880s, Baselgett changed the way they worked: sewage was treated, and solid waste was taken out to the North Sea. The original London stench has come to an end.
Cholera - the plague of the 19th century
The plague that ravaged England in the 17th century seemed like a scary tale during Queen Victoria's time. In memory of her, there were "plague stones" on which the inhabitants of the infected villages put money rinsed with vinegar in exchange for goods. But, as it turned out, not all troubles were left behind for the Victorians. In the 19th century, a new scourge came from Asia to Europe - cholera. But the worst thing was that the fight against epidemics hardly advanced further than the same "plague stones". People died in thousands. During his first visit in 1831-1832. cholera claimed 32 thousand lives, and its subsequent attacks were no less destructive: 62 thousand in 1848-1849, 20 thousand in 1853-1854, 14 thousand in 1866-1867. Not only London suffered, but also Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and many other cities in England and Scotland.
The symptoms of exotic ailment caused awe: for several days the patient suffered from abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, his limbs froze, his skin dried out, and death inspired no longer fear, but hope for getting rid of the torment. It was rumored that the sick fell into a coma, so they were buried while still alive. No one knew exactly what caused the disease and how to treat it, and ignorance, as you know, only whips up panic. As in Russia in the 1830s, cholera riots began in England, although less bloody. As usual, it got to the doctors who allegedly finish off the victims of cholera in order to then study the anatomy of their corpses. The country was seized by "cholerophobia".
In her monumental work on home economics, Isabella Beaton wrote: “The surest remedies for fighting cholera are cleanliness, sobriety and timely airing. Where there is dirt, there is room for cholera; where the doors are tightly closed, cholera will still find a loophole; and those who gluttony on hot autumn days are actually flirting with death. ".
Have you already guessed what is missing from Mrs Beaton's sound advice? That's right, the mention of water. But infection with cholera occurs when drinking water or eating food infected with cholera vibrio. Vibrio cholerae enters the water through excrement, and considering how sad things were with the cesspools, one can only wonder that there were so few victims of the epidemic. Lovers of alcoholic drinks and hot tea, for which, at least, boiled water had the greatest chances of survival. On the contrary, a glass of water from a street pump was worse than a bowl of hemlock.
Advice, as varied as useless, poured on the English from all sides. The clergy called for repentance and fasting. The Aesculapians advised to give up fatty meat in favor of roast beef, boiled potatoes and dry bread, washed down with wine. True, the wine should have been diluted with water, and again, no one mentioned boiling. The centuries-proven remedies were also used: leeches, warm baths, a mixture of castor oil and opium tincture and mustard plasters with hot turpentine. And the medical journal "Lancet" in 1831 reported with enthusiasm that Jews from Eastern Europe were rubbed with a mixture of wine, vinegar, camphor powder, mustard, crushed pepper, garlic, and spanish fly as a preventive measure.
The main problem was that the source of the disease was still a mystery. In medicine, the "theory of miasms" reigned supreme, according to which infection occurs through a fetid odor. Although the theory was wrong, it was very useful. Thanks to her, it became necessary to remove garbage from the streets and solve the sewage problem - any stench was considered dangerous. Alas, many townspeople were quite satisfied with the taste and smell of water from contaminated wells. And when a person was found who opened the veil of secrecy over the source of the infection, the theory of miasms played a cruel joke on him.
The name of the talented researcher was Dr. Jon Snow. Back in 1849, he came to the conclusion that cholera spreads through water, and in 1854 he recognized the source of the disease in the London area of Soho. The source turned out to be an ordinary street pump, from where all 500 victims of the disease took water. After Dr. Snow persuaded the local authorities to break the handle on the pump, the infection stopped. In 1855, he presented his data to his colleagues for trial, but they vehemently dismissed it. Snow's theory did not come to court, as it contradicted speculation about miasms. If the disease is really waterborne and the smell has nothing to do with it, why bother cleaning the streets at all? It turns out that Snow even harmed the cause of public health. His findings were ignored. But the discoveries of Pasteur in the 1860s and Koch in the 1880s proved him right, and the name of the quick-witted doctor entered the annals of medical history. Although he would probably prefer that the British simply not drink dirty water, rather than praise him after the fact.
Children play at the city pump. Drawing from the magazine "Punch". 1860
After 1848, when the Public Health Act was passed through the efforts of Edwin Chadwick, reforms were made in the field of health care. In cities, sewers were laid and public latrines were opened, sanitary inspectors paid more attention to water quality, old cemeteries were closed, and new ones were built outside the city limits. The struggle was also waged against epidemics of typhus, scarlet fever, diphtheria. In 1853 smallpox vaccinations became free and compulsory, and another disease that disfigured the British is a thing of the past.
New disease control measures spawned new professions. If patients with infectious diseases were quarantined at home, after recovery or, much more likely, death of the patient, a team of disinfectants, dressed in white pants and jackets, visited his room. Disinfectants collected personal belongings and any items where the infection could nest. The things were put into a cart and taken to a disinfection oven, where they were subjected to heat treatment. Photographer John Thompson gives a chilling story about a girl who died of scarlet fever. She was left with a wax doll in a woolen dress. The parents did not give the doll for disinfection, because the wax would have melted in the oven, and 3 years later they allowed their niece to play with it. Having received the fatal gift, she died a week later.
From potatoes to tea: the menu of ordinary Englishmen
It is sad but true: in the 19th century, English workers were interrupted from bread to water. More precisely - from potatoes to tea. Because of the Bread Laws, which from 1815 to 1846 kept the value of English grain high, bread was expensive. Of course, not so much that workers could not afford it, but the potato still remained a serious competitor. The meager diets of urban workers were taking their toll on health. Due to the lack of vitamins C and D, the children developed rickets. Rickety girls grew into women with crooked bones and too narrow a pelvis, which in turn led to difficult childbirth - another reason why maternal mortality was high. Historian Anthony Wahl argues that an average high school student from modern England would be head and shoulders above a Victorian worker.
Fast forward to the countryside. Already here a generous treat awaits us - and a green salad straight from the garden, and mouth-watering asparagus shoots, and golden apples, not to mention puddings and meat pies. Alas, the gifts of nature settled on the tables of wealthy townspeople, and the peasants for the most part were content with the same bread, potatoes, cheese, tea, beer and bacon. In the 1820s, the traveler William Cobbett resented: “On the farm alone, I saw four times the food required for the entire parish ... but while these unfortunate people grow wheat and barley, make cheese, produce beef and lamb, they themselves have to live on only one potato.”... Boiled cow cheeks and lamb offal were considered a delicacy. However, his own vegetable garden was still a good help, and rosemary was green on the windowsills of rural cottages, giving a piquant taste to baked lard.
Butter, like milk, was expensive, so they spread it on bread with a transparent layer. Margarine became the real salvation. At first, the workers grumbled that they had to eat "wheel grease", but over time they got a taste, especially since the margarine was deliciously cheap. In the 1890s, a woman blacksmith - yes, there were some! - said in an interview that her dreams do not rush further than margarine, and even then when there is work. The oil seemed like something fabulous and transcendental even for those who knocked on the anvil all day.
While the overall diet of workers and peasants was bleak, it cannot be said that common workers throughout the country ate the same food. Southerners could pamper their families with wheat bread, while the inhabitants of harsh Scotland leaned on oat cakes. The seasons also affected the diet. With the arrival of winter, the lives of not only farmers slowed down, but also those who were interrupted by seasonal work, for example, bricklayers. They had to tighten their belts tighter. Henry Mayhew tells about a girl who bought the finest and most expensive chops in the summer - "Daddy won't stand the price, he's a bricklayer." But in winter, the same little girl would agree to any piece of meat, if only it was cheaper - "Dad has no job, he's a bricklayer." It is likely that the caring daughter, even in summer, tried meat on Sundays at best. Until the grown-up children began to earn money, their parents did not spoil them with plentiful meals. Not out of greed: all the fats and proteins rightfully went to my father, who worked 12-15 hours a day. After feeding her husband, the wife poured tea for herself and the children and cut off a thin slice of bread.
The meat hurt my pocket. The Suffolk farm laborers would snare the sparrows, pluck the birds, and the puny carcasses were boiled or baked in a pie, whatever they wanted to taste the meat. The urban poor ate controversial delicacies such as stillborn calves or sick sheep. It is unlikely that these goodies added health to someone. If the meat in the butcher's shop looked so unappetizing that even the poor would not have encroached on it, they still had a chance to taste it, but already in the form of sausage: the butchers sold the stale goods to the sausage shops.
The starving townspeople could try their luck in the free cafeteria. Philanthropists opened soup kitchens, although the porridge would have to be consumed with sermons and prayers. In the 1870s, free school meals were introduced for underprivileged children. At the same time, deaths from starvation were by no means uncommon. In the 1880s, about 45 Londoners died of hunger every year: someone fell from exhaustion in the street and could no longer get up, someone quietly faded away behind a closed door, ashamed to call for help. In 1886, 46-year-old Londoner Sophia Nation, an impoverished lady turned lacemaker, died of starvation. By the time the exhausted woman was taken to the Benthal Green Workhouse Hospital, it was already too late. Shame and fear of the workhouse overpowered the gnawing hunger.
Nowadays, it is customary to complain about harmful food additives, all kinds of thickeners, flavor enhancers, flavors. “But in the blessed past, food was environmentally friendly,” we sometimes sigh. But if you disperse the haze of nostalgia, it becomes clear that then, as now, buyers were looking at food with suspicion. Why are cucumbers so green that you just pluck out your eye? They added a poisonous dye. And why should bread be white and dense? Well, of course, aluminum alum was mixed into the flour. And sugar crunches suspiciously on the teeth. Obviously, ordinary sand is poured! In general, the cooks did not have to be bored, just know if you catch the hand of unscrupulous traders.
Back in the Middle Ages, bakers and brewers used to enjoy themselves in a similar way, either by underweighing bread or by diluting the beer. In 1327, several London bakers invented a new type of fraud, taking advantage of the fact that the ovens in the houses were rare, and the townspeople brought their dough to the bakery next door. Fraudsters put the dough in a special form with holes on the bottom, through which they managed to steal it at least a little. The villains were sentenced to standing at the pillory, and for added morality, dough was hung around their necks. But in the Victorian era, crooks were no longer punished so colorfully, and, thanks to new technologies, food fraud became catastrophic. In a large, impersonal city, it was quite easy to sell spoiled goods.
Conversation at the grocery: "Please sir, give me a quarter pound of your best tea for Mom to kill the rats and an ounce of cockroach chocolate." Caricature of food additives. Punch Magazine, 1858
They diluted everything that was possible. Not only potato starch and crushed peas were added to the flour for volume, but also chalk and gypsum. Sleeping tea leaves were bought cheaply, dried, tinted and sold again. In Indian and Chinese teas, English vegetation could be found, such as crushed ash or elderberry leaves. Well, so even patriotic! But why dilute the coffee? Well, if only with chicory, and much worse if with fodder beets, acorns or earth. The red lead gave the crust of Gloucester cheese a mouth-watering look, copper the delicate color of the cognac.
In the middle of the century, about 74% of milk throughout England was diluted with water, with water content ranging from a modest 10 to 50%. It is unlikely that the water was boiled, but the milk itself was a breeding ground for infection. In addition to flies, it contained some worse things, in particular tuberculosis bacteria. Between 1896 and 1907, they contaminated a tenth of the milk sold in Manchester. In the second half of the century, the British grocery stores were replenished with ice cream, which was sold in London alone by two thousand Italians. But sanitary inspectors were horrified when they found E. coli, bacilli, cotton fibers, lice, bedbugs, fleas, straw, human and dog hair in the ice cream samples.
Some Englishmen turned a blind eye to the counterfeiting of food. Journalist J.A. Sala was indignant: “Food is a gift from heaven, so why look a gift horse in the mouth? They may turn out to be fake. We all, of course, have to thank those impartial pundits who have strayed into the sanitary commission and are now examining our dinners under a microscope, finding that it is half poison, half trash. As for me, I prefer the anchovies to be red and pickles green. "... Others fought with presumptuous swindlers. In 1872, following reports published in the medical journal The Lancet, Parliament passed the Food Counterfeiting Act, tightening control over food quality.
London street food
To find at least some variety on the menu, let's leave the province and head back to the capital. Street food in London, like in other big cities, was in great demand. She was satisfying, varied and, most importantly, irreplaceable. The thing is that in the cramped apartments there were simply no stoves. They had to cook directly in the fireplace over an open fire: this way you can brown toast or bake a potato, but making a stew would be a long and expensive business, given the cost of fuel. Isn't it easier to have a snack on the street? If they managed to earn an extra penny, they did not spend it on clothes or coal, but immediately ran to buy food.
Where did Victorian Londoners get their groceries? Taking the basket, they went to the market, to the butcher and greengrocer, to the grocery store. No less often food was sold directly on city streets or brought home. Let's look at the last two options, since they seem the most exotic to us.
Londoners bought meat in markets or in butchers' shops. However, there was also a street trade in meat. In this way, both poultry and game were sold. Until 1831, street game trade was prohibited. The implication was that traders hunted their snipe or rabbits in an unrighteous way, poaching in other people's forests. The legal owner of the forest hunts for pleasure and will certainly not get involved with the despicable trade. Poachers were not stopped by harsh laws, although the production had to be sold in the strictest secrecy. Poachers' regular customers were innkeepers and wealthy merchants who wanted to feast on the food of the aristocrats.
Since the 1830s, it has become possible to obtain a license to sell game. They turned to the foresters for certificates, and questions of catching and selling game could be settled with the owner of the forest. So the trade in game, which was formerly carried out from under the floor, has become more lively. However, the merchants were wary of selling their wares in the West End. Otherwise, knock on a mansion and bump into a judge, and he will immediately demand to present a certificate (which may not be there!).
The game traders could be identified by their spacious canvas shirts with large pockets, into which it was convenient to tuck the carcasses of rabbits. They tied their goods to poles and carried them on their shoulders. The most diverse game dangled on the poles: black grouse, partridges, pheasants, snipe, wild ducks. Sometimes poultry, geese, chickens, turkeys, even pigeons, which were great for pie, were carried home in the same way. The rabbit trade was very profitable. The merchants skinned them, the meat was sold to the cooks, and the skins to the furriers.
Londoners bought meat not only for themselves, but also for their pets. Meat for cats and dogs was in great demand and brought a lot of income to street peddlers. This meat was horse meat from a knackery. Horse meat was boiled for several hours and cut into pieces, then hawkers bought it and sent it to London courtyards. The meat was sold both by weight (2.5 pennies per pound) and in small pieces, which were strung on skewers in the manner of a shish kebab.
The competition was fierce. Noticing which houses their rivals were supplying meat to, merchants knocked on the same doors and offered the goods at a reduced price.
Among the clients came across eccentric personalities. In the middle of the century, a woman spent 16 pence every day on meat, after which she climbed onto the roof of a house and threw treats to courtyard cats. Hordes of street cats flocked to her house, their screams terribly annoying neighbors. To drive away the hungry vagrants, the neighbors acquired dogs, and the traders were only happy - after all, dogs also need meat!
Even the poor did not take meat from the knackery for themselves, but they could feast on another budget delicacy - sheep's legs (that is, sheep's hooves, cut off below the shin). At the beginning of the 19th century, glue was cooked from them, but later other, cheaper materials began to be used for its manufacture. It was a pity to throw away the lytki, so they were sold. The lyts were scalded with boiling water, the hooves were removed, the hair was scraped off, but carefully so as not to damage the skin, they were boiled for about four hours and sent for sale. A large and juicy leg could cost a penny, less attractive bones were cheaper.
Thanks to the development of railways, it has become much easier to deliver fish to the capital of the British Empire. Already in the middle of the 19th century, both wealthy Londoners and poor people could feast on fish. Moreover, the smell of fried fish, especially herring, was strongly associated with the dwellings of the urban poor. It seemed that it saturates the walls and furniture, and no matter how much you ventilate the room, it will not go anywhere.
The fish was delivered to London without interruption, regardless of the season - if there was no herring, they brought halibut, mackerel, and flounder. The center of the fish trade was the market in Billingsgate. Along with fish, they sold seafood. A half pint (about 250 grams) of shrimp was one penny. However, shrimp was still an overkill, because the same penny could be spent on bread. Oysters were bought on the street, however, of low quality, because expensive oysters are difficult to sell in the East End. Oysters are considered a delicacy these days, but in Victorian England they were a popular meal of the poor. As Sam Weller of The Pickwick Papers used to say, "Poverty and oysters always go hand in hand"... The purchased oysters were taken home to enjoy with their family, or they were feasted on without leaving the counter. The oysters were seized with bread, which was thickly smeared with butter. You had to pay extra for bread, but pepper and vinegar were offered as a free supplement.
While we are talking about oysters, let's talk about other delicacies from the shell. Coastal snails (Littorina littorea) were in great demand. They are called periwinkle in English, but cockney traders abbreviated them to winks (it is worth mentioning that the English name for asparagus, “asparagus,” sounded like “sparrowgrass” in their mouths). The shore snail season lasted from March to October. The snail trade was especially brisk in the summer, when the weekly earnings of the merchants amounted to 12 shillings of net income. Snail lovers included merchants and maids, both of whom considered snails to be a good addition to tea. In addition, treating his girlfriend to snails was a touching act of affection among the young people of the East End.
Oyster merchant. Drawing from the book "Workers and the Poor of London" by Henry Mayhew. 1861-1862
Although “fish and chips” (fried fish and potatoes) is now associated with English food by many, it was not until the second half of the 19th century that this fast food was sold on the streets. In the middle of the century, when Henry Mayhew was writing his notes on London laborers, bread was not served with fried fish. One could recognize about the approach of a fish carrier by a drawn-out cry - "Fish and bread, just a penny!" Fried, as usual, herring, mackerel, haddock, flounder. For frying, they took rapeseed oil, and some merchants mixed lamp oil with it. Needless to say, the fried fish had a specific taste, but in chilly weather it perfectly satisfied hunger.
A certain peddler of fish told Henry Mayhew about the dangers in this difficult craft. Best of all, fried fish was sold in pubs, as a snack for beer, but there you had to keep your ears open. Several times the tray was knocked out of his hands, the fish scattered on the floor, and the nimble drunks immediately grabbed and ate it. As a result, the poor man was left without profit. Once, graphite powder was thrown in his face, which was used to polish the fireplace grates. While the merchant was rubbing his eyes with his apron, the pub patrons took his stall away. The merchant returned home to the touch, and for several more days his face itched terribly. But nothing can be done - I had to acquire a new tray and continue trading.
On the streets of the capital, amid the dominance of fish and boiled sheep's legs, a vegetarian would also find something to profit from. Street peddlers sold cabbage, common and cauliflower, turnips, carrots, potatoes, onions, celery, lettuce, asparagus, etc. Little girls bought watercress in the markets and then went from house to house trying to sell it at a higher price. The principle of “trust but verify” dominated in buying greens. At the end of the market day, businessmen bought up unsold greens, already withered and yellowed. Lettuce and cabbage leaves were carefully sorted and soaked in dirty water. Having thus restored the presentation of the greenery, it was sold cheaply. Is it any wonder that cholera was a frequent guest in the capital?
If in chilly weather Londoners did not want raw vegetables, they could warm their stomachs with soup - pea or fish. Hot eels cost half a penny for 5-7 slices plus broth, pea soup cost half a penny for half a pint. The soup was poured into bowls that the merchants carried with them. Although ordinary people did not disdain to eat from such a container, many were suspicious of eels. Street vendors themselves claimed that fishmongers sell dead, stale fish instead of still alive. However, they admitted that aristocrats also eat eels in this form (but for aristocrats, after all, no matter what nasty thing they put on, they will still eat it).
In the early 19th century, baked apples were sold in large quantities on the streets, but baked potatoes pushed them out of the market. It is not surprising, because potatoes are easier to fill than apples. Traders baked potatoes in a bakery and transported them around town in metal containers fitted with a mini-boiler to keep the potatoes hot. The containers were polished or painted bright red. Before eating the potato, the cold workers held it in their hands to keep warm. Pleasant warmth spread through the glove over the palms, and only then the hot crumbly potatoes warmed the eaters from the inside. Even well-dressed gentlemen carried potatoes in their pockets to dine at home. But, of course, the main buyers were workers and artisans. The boys and girls who worked day and day on the street also spent half a penny on potatoes. The Irish so simply adored the product familiar from childhood, however, according to the traders, they were the worst buyers - they tried to choose the larger potato!
Baked potato merchant. Drawing from the book "Workers and the Poor of London" by Henry Mayhew. 1861-1862
Along with vegetables, one could eat nuts, as well as baked chestnuts, which were cooked right on the street. Henry Mayhew interviewed a little girl who carried nuts to pubs - nuts went well with beer. There was no question of gnawing the nuts myself. If the girl did not bring her mother 6 pence, she was expected to be thrashed. Her family ate bread and potatoes, although, from time to time, they could afford the luxury of herring or tea. Mayhew emphasized that this girl's mother got drunk "only" once a week, so such a meager diet is not surprising.
In the summer, street vendors sold fresh fruit, and when they were out of stock, dried fruit. The selection of fruits and berries was quite large - strawberries, raspberries, cherries, gooseberries, oranges, apricots, plums, apples, pears and pineapples. Like vegetables, fruits were bought in Covent Garden, Farrington or Spitalfields markets and then resold on the streets. The street trading of fruits, especially oranges, was often carried out by the Irish, whom Londoners - both ordinary people and journalists - regarded with contempt.
In the first half of the 19th century, pineapples appeared on the wide market and made a splash. Taking advantage of the excitement, street vendors bought up cheap pineapples, tainted with sea water in the hold, and sold them at exorbitant prices. A pineapple, bought for only 4 pennies, could have cost a shilling or even a shilling and a half. Those who could not spend a whole shilling bought a slice for one penny. The pineapple traders were making incredible money - 22 shillings a day! They were mostly bought by middle-class people to pamper the children at home, although cabbies, chimney sweeps and scavengers were also eager to take a penny slice to find out what the fuss was about.
The cunning fruit traders, like other sellers, did not miss the opportunity to fool the simpletons. You could boil small oranges to make them swell, and then sell them to inexperienced dealers. Very soon the goods, so beautiful, turned black and shriveled. Other crooks punctured the oranges and squeezed out some juice, which was then sold separately. It was more difficult to cheat with apples, but it was also possible. Cheap sour apples were rubbed with a woolen cloth to make them shine and softer to the touch. Then they were mixed with apples of the best quality and sold to gullible persons.
There was little trade in bread on the streets of mid-19th century London. And why? Wouldn't it be easier to go to a bakery and buy a crispy loaf with crumb that melts in your mouth? However, this luxury was not affordable for everyone. Some poor people could afford nothing but a crust of stale bread - they were just sold on the streets. At the end of the working day, hawkers visited the bakeries and bought up all the unsold pastries on the cheap. The bakers were only too happy to get rid of it, and the merchants carried it around Whitechapel the very next day. Some carried baskets on their heads, filled to the brim with dried, but completely edible buns. Others were pushing a wheelbarrow in front of them, praising their goods in a hoarse voice - if you shout day after day, you can get hoarse, or even lose your voice! The merchants' jackets and trousers were dusted with flour, which made them appear dusty.
Vendors of ham sandwiches were on duty at the doors of the theaters. Depending on the size, the sandwiches cost a penny or half a penny. But sandwiches are not stale bread that can no longer be spoiled. Even if it gets moldy, the poor will eat and not choke, just to be cheaper. The theatrical audience, on the other hand, was distinguished by refined taste. Serve her bread and fresh, and ham without green spots. So the sandwich merchants had a hard time. It was necessary to calculate exactly how many sandwiches they would buy up that evening, and sell them all to one, because no one would take them the next day. All bakery vendors were hurt by the damp weather, which is not uncommon in London. In the rain, the bread quickly soaked, so it was not possible to hand it to passers-by.
Although the East End Londoners' menu was not rife with gourmet food, even the lumpen had a taste bud from time to time. Who would refuse to diversify the diet, consisting mainly of potatoes and herring? An extra penny can be spent on a pie. On the streets there were meat and fish pies, boiled puddings with fat and kidneys, as well as sweet pastries of all sorts - open pies stuffed with rhubarb, currants, gooseberries, cherries, apples or cranberries, puddings with dried fruits, crumpets and muffins, buns "Iz Chelsea "(Chealsea buns) with cinnamon, lemon zest and raisins, gingerbread and so on and so forth.
Since the bakers became the bakers who were left without work, either they themselves or their households were engaged in baking. Minced meat for meat pies was made from beef or lamb; for fish pies, chimes were suitable. Needless to say, the meat was not of the best quality? For the filling, they took not a whole piece of meat, but scraps that a decent person would not even covet. On the other hand, it takes a masochist to scrutinize the filling of a penny pie. The traditional mince-pies were in high demand. Now they are associated with the Christmas season, but in the 19th century, the townspeople ate them every day. The pies were stuffed with a mixture of minced meat, bacon, apples, sugar, molasses, raisins and spices. The pastries carried a butter dish with gravy. The buyer poked the crust of the pie with his finger and poured the gravy into its bowels until the crust rose. Experienced traders assured that thanks to the gravy, you can shake off a cake even four days ago!
The famous musical about a barber-maniac and pies made of human flesh did not appear out of nowhere. In London, there were stories about the barber Sweeney Todd, who slaughtered his clients, and his mistress, Mrs. Lovett, let them mince. Seeing the pastry, the wits began to meow and bark, but sellers are used to such jokes. However, Londoners did not offend the cakes and often played toss with them. Yes, you didn't always have to pay for the pie. Many relied on luck and tried to ... win! "Eaglet with Pastry" was so popular fun that some Londoners, especially young people, flatly refused to buy pastries without first throwing a coin. If the merchant won, he would take a penny for himself without giving back the pie. If the customer was lucky, he received the pie for free.
Autumn was the season of boiled meat puddings that lasted all winter, when nothing warms the soul more than rancid fat treats. On the streets, one often saw such a picture - boys bought hot pudding and, oozing, threw it from hand to hand, torn between the desire to eat it right away and the fear of burning their tongues. Another favorite was the plum dough pudding. The recipe for this delicacy is given in the cookbook of 1897: mix a glass of butter, one and a half glasses of sugar, a glass of milk, three glasses of flour, a glass of raisins, three eggs and two teaspoons of baking powder. Steam the resulting mass for three hours. There were also original sweets - for example, the so-called "Coventry godcakes". The birthplace of triangular jam puffs is the city of Coventry. Traditionally, godparents gave them to their godchildren for New Year or Easter. Three incisions were made on each pie, symbolizing the Trinity. In the 19th century, the regional delicacy made its way to London.
On Good Friday, England traditionally baked "cross buns" - buns decorated with the sign of the cross. Traditional medicine prescribed to store such a bun for a whole year until next Good Friday. The cross bun, albeit stale, was considered a universal remedy for any disease, including gastrointestinal disorders. And if it is covered with cobwebs ... well, cobwebs perfectly heal cuts and stop bleeding! Also useful on the farm. Every Good Friday, the city streets were filled with cries of "Cross buns, two for a penny!" Trade was going very briskly, only the Irish remained on the sidelines, because a strict fast was prescribed for Catholics on Good Friday.
Like their Russian peers, the English kids loved gingerbread. Gingerbread was given a wide variety of shapes - horses, sheep, dogs, etc. Everywhere they sold "a rooster in trousers" - the trousers on an impressive-looking gingerbread bird were made of gold leaf, and after the coronation of George IV, English children gnawed "King George on a horse" ...
Back in the 18th century, milkmaids, often from Wales, were busily scurrying about London streets. On her shoulders, the milkmaid held a yoke, from which hung milk pans full of milk. Carrying buckets all day long is not an easy task, so hefty aunts sold milk. Every day they visited the homes of regular customers, and on occasion they could pour a mug for a passer-by. On the first of May, milkmaids took part in the parade and danced dashingly, holding milk bags hung with polished table silver on their heads. But in the middle of the 19th century, men zealously took up the sale of milk. “Milk-oh-oh! Half a pint for a halfpenny! " They shouted.
The most scrupulous people preferred fresh milk, directly from under the cow. The main point of sale for the freshest milk was St. James's Park. In winter and summer, several cows were found there, which were milked at the first request of buyers. Intermittent milking led to the fact that the park cows produced less milk, but this did not stop the milkmaids. Milk was bought by soldiers, nannies who took their pupils out for a walk, as well as slender girls who were prescribed it to improve their health.
Such a grumbler milkmaid complained to Henry Mayhew about the spoiled audience. These are the finicky things - they got into the habit of coming with their own mugs, and even porcelain ones. Her circles, you see, disdain! And the maids have nothing to wander around in the park on the day off and whip milk there. They would be under lock and key, so that money would not be wasted and the soldiers would not wink at each other! And where are the owners looking? It's amazing how such a quarrelsome old woman does not have sour milk. However, it can also be understood - if you spend every day, from morning to evening, in the company of a sad cow, then you will not be embittered for long.
Thrush. Drawing by Gustave Dore from The Pilgrimage. 1877
In addition to raw milk, Londoners loved the sweetened cottage cheese sold in mugs and rice milk. To prepare this drink, four liters of milk was boiled for an hour with half a kilo of pre-boiled rice. The rice swelled, so that the coveted drink became even more. At the request of the sweetheart, sugar was added to a mug of rice milk, albeit in moderation, because you can't get enough sugar at all.
What about the other vital drink? But when it comes to street trading, alcohol has no place. To fill your eyes, you will have to go to a pub or to the "gin's palace" - the same pub, only with more decent furnishings. However, alcohol was still sold on the streets, but it was rather a tribute to traditions. In winter, they sold hot elderberry wine. According to popular beliefs, elderberry scares away evil spirits, so drinking wine is not only pleasant, but also soul-saving. Some sly ones sold mint lemonade, and they carried two barrels with them. One contained sweetened and mint-flavored water, the other contained liquor. The smell of peppermint overpowered the smell of alcohol, so you could trade right in front of the police.
But if street vendors refrained from selling alcohol, their brethren on the river sold it with might and main. The entrepreneurs who cut through the Thames in their fragile boats were called purl sellers. In ancient times, in England, purl was brewed - ale made from wormwood. The Victorians have lost any interest in this hot drink, especially since a completely bohemian drink has appeared - absinthe. However, the word has survived. This was the name given to hot beer with gin, sugar and ginger. Punch warmed the sailors and workers on the cargo ships sailing along the Thames. To engage in this trade, it was required first of all to obtain a license, and then to acquire a boat, equipment for making cocktails and an impressive bell. It was easy for the river merchant to get lost in the fog, so he rang the bell, informing the sailors of his approach. If the crew wished to warm up, cheers were heard in response and the merchant swam closer.
Street drinks, like street food, evolved rapidly in the 19th century. Old favorites were replaced by new ones. Take, for example, sbiten-salup, which brightened up the existence of Londoners in the 18th century. It was made from milk with the addition of sugar, spices and the bark of the Orchis mascula orchid or sassafras (there are references to both plants). In the 1820s, the essayist Charles Lam wrote a whole eulogy to the favorite drink of young chimney sweeps:
“There is a certain mixture, the basis of which, as I understand it, is a sweetish tree, 'recommended by sassafras.' Its wood, boiled to the likeness of tea and flavored with the addition of milk and sugar, tastes of some, undoubtedly, more refined than the sumptuous gift of China. I don’t know what the peculiarities of the structure of the mouth of a young chimney sweep are due to, but I have always noticed that this food delights his palate in an amazing way - either because the oil particles (slightly oily sassafras) loosen and dissolve the hardened accumulations of soot, which, as it was sometimes found (during autopsies), they adhere to the vault of the mouth of these fledgling laborers, or because nature, sensing that she had added too much bitterness to the share of these unhardened victims, ordered sassafras to grow out of the ground as a sweet consolation - but one way or another, there is no other taste or smell that would cause such an exquisite excitement of the senses in a young chimney sweep as this mixture ".
But by 1840 the salup had disappeared from the streets of London and already seemed something exotic. It was replaced by lemonade, soda water, and “ginger beer,” or sparkling ginger lemonade. The ginger beer vendors made it themselves, mixing water, ginger, citric acid, clove essence, yeast, and sugar. Lemonade was bottled or, especially in the summer heat, sold carbonated from a siphon. It was rumored that unscrupulous traders were mixing sulfuric acid into lemonade to save money on lemon juice.
Finally, let's talk about coffee. Coffee houses appeared in London at the end of the 17th century, but sometimes it happens that there is simply no time to sit in a coffee house. In such cases, Londoners relied on street stalls. In the 1820s, duties on coffee fell, prices fell and, as a result, trade increased. The coffee on the streets was of poor quality, with a touch of chicory and dried carrots. However, it was by no means gourmets who bought it.
The mobile coffee shop was a cart, sometimes with a tarpaulin canopy. On the cart were 3-4 tin cans of tea, coffee, cocoa and hot milk. Burners were placed under them to keep the contents warm. Bread and butter, muffins, ham sandwiches, watercress and boiled eggs were sold along with the drinks. Coffee was poured into mugs, which were then washed in a tub under the cart (water, as usual, was from a nearby pump). A mug of coffee, tea or cocoa in the middle of the century cost a penny, a slice of bread and butter or muffin - half a penny, a sandwich - 2p, a boiled egg - a penny, a bunch of watercress - half a penny.
Income depended entirely on the location of the stall. The busier the street, the greater the demand for coffee. The tidbit was the corner of Duke Street and Oxford Street. There was a large four-wheeled cart, painted bright green. Its lucky owner, according to Henry Mayhew, earned at least 30 shillings every day! The busiest trading period was in the morning, when clerks and workers went to work. Many stalls worked at night, but served a different contingent - prostitutes and their clients.
Street coffee shop. Drawing from the book "Workers and the Poor of London" by Henry Mayhew. 1861-1862
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In the Victorian era, coins with different denominations were in use: half-farting, farthing (1/4 penny), half-penny, penny, two-pence, three-pence, four-pence, six-pence, shilling (12 pence), florin (2 shillings), half-crown (2.5 shilling), crown (5 shillings), half sovereign (10 shillings), sovereign (20 shillings). 21 shilling was equal to one guinea. A parish is the lowest administrative district with a self-government system. However, the verb to crap - "to defecate" - appeared much earlier and has nothing to do with the inventor. Most likely, his surname comes from the word cropper - an old designation for a farmer.
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Chapters from the book "Unkind Old England" by Katey Kate http://www.e-reading.club/book.php?book=1021395 2017-08-22
They do not know how and do not want to work. Therefore, it is not surprising that most of them, having spent their lives in wandering, hunger, poverty, sink to theft and end their days on the gallows.
In January 1700, the London Society of the Poor, deciding to somehow alleviate the plight of homeless and abandoned children, picked up a handful of ragamuffins from the city streets. After washing and changing their clothes, they were placed in a new workhouse on Half Moon Elley near Wmshopsgate. It was an attempt to introduce disadvantaged children to the human way of life: to a permanent home, to work that is feasible, to teaching to read and write, to a profession and, finally, to God. The public, as was evident from newspaper publications, considered it a shame that in such a venerable Christian city as London was, no attention was paid to the fact that potential criminals were brought up in villainy, ignorance, idleness, foul language and dependence from the very cradle. And numerous petty bureaucrats and district judges, tasked with stopping the growing evil, are inactive.
The city lived at a frantic pace, people were very practical, everyone was busy with their own business, so they had no time to stop near the beggar, sympathize with him or help with something. Moreover,
Women vagabonds wandered from shelter to shelter, and some of them engaged in theft to feed their children, busy and prosperous merchants irritated the crowds of the poor on the street. In addition to all other troubles, these hooligans and vagabonds threatened the tranquility of the capital, breaking the laws. There have been heated debates in parliament for some time about what to do with them. Petty officials also racked their brains. But nothing changed.
Many believed that mass unemployment was to blame for the spread of vice and crime. "Do not lead me to poverty, and I will not steal," - said the hero of the work of Defoe. These words may well have referred to Eleanor Gravens, who was sentenced to death for stealing 6 yards of lace from a store in Covent Garden. As she herself admitted to the priest, the great need and inability to get bread for herself and her four children pushed her to a crime.
Many believed that social problems were not the only cause of poverty. The poor were blamed for an innate lack of morality, and therefore considered the only salvation to make them work, to submit to strict discipline. And then a cure for the vice was invented - workhouses.
So, Thomas Fermin in 1670 founded a workhouse on Little Britn Street, where "the poor were engaged in the production of linen. Children 5-6 years old earned 2 pence a day, and who are older - and all 4 pence." Children of the poor, brought up on the street, he argued, harm society and ourselves. How long can you let them huddle and roam the city, frightening horses, throwing dirt into carriages and insulting passers-by? We need to give them work, and by this help them themselves, without allowing them to get used to messing around, and the society for whose benefit they will work. " and so on, the children should work, and they should also study the Bible, "and learn to write and count."
Firmin's workhouse did not last long due to lack of funds, but his idea was used in London at the end of the 17th century, when the city was experiencing difficulties due to the war with France. The workhouses allowed the local taxpayers, who supported these establishments, to combine their debt to the poor with their desire to divide the latter into those who deserved help and who did not. The workhouse on Bishopsgate, which opened in December 1699, housed 100 children to "save them from death." The noble task was set - "to teach them to work in order to provide them with a dignified existence and help them become useful members of society."
Keeping a child in a workhouse cost £ 8 a year. The wards of all kinds added 12p a week for each child in their district. Getting up at 6 am on the call, having prayed and having breakfast, the children spun, sewed, knitted - from seven to noon and from one in the afternoon to six in the evening. Two hours each day were devoted to religious education, teaching to read and write, and "moralizing." Meals were three times a day. For breakfast, the children greedily devoured bread and beer once a week, beef broth twice a week, and on the other days they were given bread with butter and cheese. For lunch, one of the following dishes could be: beef broth, pea porridge, rice milk porridge, dumplings, barley stew. Bread and butter or damp "M" was a common meal. Peas, beans, herbs and roots were included in the diet according to the season.
The workhouse on Bishopsgate was divided into two halves. Children lived in one, adults lived in the other. It was believed that young workers should not go to the other half, where they can get, as adults. And in that adult half lived very dangerous inhabitants. "Tramps, beggars, thieves and other rabble lived, worked and got what they needed for life."
But life in workhouses was not to everyone's liking. Some of the inmates fled, such as one beggar who was taken to a workhouse on Clarkenwell, where “she was starved and exhausted to the point that she decided to join other“ prisoners ”who were about to flee. and slipped away with the others. "
The idea of using the workhouse to persuade the poor to give up living on welfare or alms was slowly catching on. "Be independent" - they called now. It was believed that if it was possible to remove vagrants from the street somewhere, then only to workhouses, where they would work productively and not be an eyesore to decent people.
Sir Josiah Child went even further, offering to send the poor to work overseas on the plantations, of course, with their consent. And, imagine, there were such desperate simpletons who volunteered for hard work in Virginia for several years, pecking at the offer to take them there on a steamer for free. Not all beggars and homeless people wanted to get into the workhouse. In addition to decrepit old people, there were also such fellows among them who were interrupted by odd jobs, but expected more help from the parishes.
General rule. The dishes served on the tables of gentlemen: aristocrats, landowners, people exposed to power, both spiritual and secular, were very different from what ordinary people who worked on their lands and depended on them ate.
However, when in the XIII century, the boundaries between the estates began to blur, the powers that be concerned about how to keep workers, and decided to play on the love of the "home", allowing the peasants to feast on food from their table.
Bread
In the Middle Ages, white bread, which is made from wheat flour of the highest grinding, was intended exclusively for noble and princely tables. The peasants ate black, primarily rye bread.
In the Middle Ages, this often fatal disease grew to the size of an epidemic, especially in lean and hungry years. After all, it was then that everything that more or less fell under the definition of cereal was collected from the fields, often ahead of schedule, that is, just at the very time when ergot is most poisonous. Ergot poisoning affected the nervous system and was fatal in most cases.
It was only in the early Baroque era that a Dutch physician discovered the relationship between ergot and the "fire of St. Anthony." Chlorine was used as a means of spreading the disease, although in spite of it, if not thanks to it, the epidemic raged even more.
But the use of chlorine was not widespread and was more likely determined by the type of bread: some cunning bakers bleached their rye and oat bread with chlorine, and then sold it profitably, passing it off as white (for the same purposes, chalk and crushed bone were willingly used).
And since, in addition to these very unhealthy bleaching agents, dried flies were often baked into bread as "raisins", the extremely cruel punishments with which fraudulent bakers were punished appear in a new light.
Those who wanted to make easy money on bread often had to break the law. And almost everywhere this was punishable by significant monetary fines.
In Switzerland, rogue bakers were hung in a crate above a manure pit. Accordingly, those who wanted to get out of it had to jump straight into the fetid mess.
To stop bullying, to prevent the spread of ill fame about their profession, as well as in order to control themselves, the bakers united in the first industrial association - the guild. Thanks to her, that is, thanks to the fact that the representatives of this profession took care of their membership in the guild, real masters of bakery appeared.
Pasta
There are many legends about cuisine and recipes. The fairest of them has been described Marco Polo, who in 1295 brought from his trip to Asia a recipe for making dumplings and "threads" from dough.
This story is believed to have been heard by a Venetian chef who tirelessly began mixing water, flour, eggs, sunflower oil and salt until he achieved the best consistency for the noodle dough. It is not known whether this is true or whether the noodles came to Europe from the Arab countries thanks to the crusaders and merchants. But the fact that European cuisine soon became inconceivable without noodles is a fact.
However, in the 15th century, there were still bans on the preparation of pasta, since in the event of a particularly unsuccessful harvest, flour was necessary for baking bread. But since the Renaissance, the triumphant march of pasta across Europe could no longer be stopped.
Porridge and thick soup
Until the era of the Roman Empire, porridge was present in the diet of all sectors of society, and only then it turned into food for the poor. However, with them it was very popular, they ate it three or even four times a day, and in some houses they ate exclusively on it alone. This state of affairs continued until the 18th century, when potatoes replaced porridge.
It should be noted that the porridge of that time differs significantly from our present ideas about this product: medieval porridge cannot be called “mushy”, in the sense that we today attach to this word. It was ... hard, and hard enough to cut it.
In one Irish law of the 8th century, it is clearly stated which strata of the population were supposed to eat what kind of porridge: “For the lower class, oatmeal cooked in buttermilk and old butter are enough for it; representatives of the middle class are supposed to eat porridge made from pearl barley and fresh milk, and put fresh butter in it; and the royal offspring should be served a honey-sweetened porridge made from wheat flour and fresh milk. "
Along with porridge, since ancient times, mankind has known "a one-course lunch": a thick soup that replaces the first and second. It is eaten in cuisines of a wide variety of cultures (Arabs and Chinese use a double pot for cooking it - meat and various vegetables are boiled in the lower compartment, and rice "comes out" on the steaming rising from it) and, like porridge, it was food for the poor until expensive ingredients were not used for its preparation.
There is also a practical explanation for the special love for this dish: in medieval cuisine (both princely and peasant), food was cooked in a cauldron suspended from rotating mechanisms over an open fire (later in a fireplace). And what could be easier than throwing all the ingredients that you can get into such a cauldron and making a rich soup out of them. That being said, the flavor of the brew is very easy to change by simply changing the ingredients.
Meat, lard, oil
Having read books about the life of aristocrats, impressed by the colorful descriptions of feasts, modern man firmly believed that representatives of this class ate exclusively game. In fact, game was no more than five percent in their diet.
Pheasants, swans, wild ducks, wood grouses, deer ... Sounds magical. But in fact, chickens, geese, sheep and goats were usually served at the table. Roast took a special place in medieval cuisine.
When discussing or reading about meat cooked on a spit or wire rack, we forget about the more than insignificant development of dentistry at that time. But what about chewing tough meat with a toothless jaw?
Savvy came to the rescue: the meat was kneaded in a mortar until mushy, thickened with the addition of eggs and flour, and the resulting mass was fried on a skewer in the shape of an ox or sheep.
The same was sometimes done with fish, the peculiarity of this variation of the dish was that the "porridge" was pushed into the skin skillfully pulled from the fish, and then boiled or fried.
It seems strange to us now that fried meat in the Middle Ages was often also cooked in broth, and cooked chicken, rolled in flour, was added to the soup. With this double processing, the meat lost not only its crispness, but also its taste.
As for the fat content of food and ways to make it such, the aristocrats used sunflower and later butter for these purposes, while the peasants were content with lard.
Canning
Drying, smoking and salting as methods of food preservation were already known in the Middle Ages.
Dried fruits: pears, apples, cherries, and vegetables. Air-dried or oven-dried, they survived for a long time and were often used in cooking: they were especially loved to be added to wine. Fruit was also used to prepare compote (fruit, ginger). However, the resulting liquid was not consumed immediately, but thickened and then cut: it turned out something like candy.
They smoked meat, fish and sausage. This was due to the seasonality of livestock slaughter, which took place in October-November, since, firstly, in early November it was necessary to pay a tax in kind, and secondly, this made it possible not to spend money on animal feed in winter.
Saltwater fish imported for consumption during the fast was preferred to be salted. Many types of vegetables, such as beans and peas, were also salted. As for the cabbage, it was fermented.
Condiments
Spices were an integral part of medieval cuisine. Moreover, it makes no sense to distinguish between seasonings for the poor and seasonings for the rich, because only the rich could afford to have spices.
The easiest and cheapest way to buy pepper was. The import of pepper made a lot of people rich, but also many, namely those who cheated and mixed dried berries into peppers, brought them to the gallows. Along with pepper, the favorite seasonings in the Middle Ages were cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and nutmeg.
Saffron deserves a special mention: it even cost several times more than a rather expensive nutmeg (in the 20s of the 15th century, when nutmeg was sold for 48 crucians, saffron cost about one hundred and eighty, which corresponded to the price of a horse).
Most cookbooks of that period do not indicate the proportions of spices, but based on books of a later period, we can conclude that these proportions did not correspond to our today's tastes, and dishes seasoned, as it was done in the Middle Ages, might seem very sharp and even burn the palate.
Spices were not only used to show off wealth, they also overpowered the smell of meat and other foods. Meat and fish stocks in the Middle Ages were often salted so that they would not deteriorate as long as possible and would not cause illness. And, consequently, spices were designed to drown out not only smells, but also taste - the taste of salt. Or sour.
Sour wine was sweetened with spices, honey and rose water so that it could be served on the table for gentlemen. Some modern authors, referring to the length of the journey from Asia to Europe, believe that during transportation the spices lost their taste and smell and essential oils were added to them to return them.
Greens
Herbs were prized for their healing power; healing without herbs was unthinkable. But they also held a special place in cooking. Southern herbs, namely: marjoram, basil and thyme - familiar to modern people, were not in the Middle Ages in the northern countries. But such herbs were used that we will not even remember today.
But we, as before, know and appreciate the magical properties of parsley, mint, dill, caraway seeds, sage, lovage, fennel; nettles and calendula are still battling for space in the sun and in the pot.
Almond milk and marzipan
In every medieval cuisine of the mighty of this world, almonds were always present. They especially liked to make almond milk from it (crushed almonds, wine, water), which was then used as a basis for preparing various dishes and sauces, and during the fast they were replaced with real milk.
Also made from almonds (grated almonds with sugar syrup), marzipan was a luxury in the Middle Ages. This dish is considered a Greco-Roman invention.
Researchers conclude that the small almond cakes that the Romans sacrificed to their gods were the predecessors of the sweet almond dough (pane Martius (spring bread) - Marzipan).
Honey and sugar
In the Middle Ages, food was sweetened exclusively with honey. Although cane sugar was already known in southern Italy as early as the 8th century, the rest of Europe learned the secret of its production only during the Crusades. But even then sugar continued to be a luxury: at the beginning of the 15th century, six kilograms of sugar cost the same as a horse.
Only in 1747, Andreas Sigismund Margrave discovered the secret of producing sugar from sugar beets, but this did not particularly affect the state of affairs. Industrial and, accordingly, mass production of sugar began only in the 19th century, and only then did sugar become a product “for everyone”.
These facts allow us to look at medieval feasts with new eyes: only those who possessed excessive wealth could afford to arrange them, because most of the dishes consisted of sugar, and many dishes were intended only to be admired and admired, but in no way eaten.
Feasts
We are amazed to read about the carcasses of hazel dormouse, storks, eagles, bears and beaver tails, which were served at the table in those days. We ponder how tough the meat of storks and beavers should taste, and how rare animals such as the push dormouse and the hazel dormouse are.
At the same time, we forget that numerous changes in dishes were intended, first of all, not to satisfy hunger, but to demonstrate wealth. Who could be left indifferent by the sight of such a dish as a peacock "spewing out" a flame?
And fried bear paws flaunted on the table definitely not in order to glorify the hunting abilities of the owner of the house, belonging to the upper circles of society and hardly earning his food by hunting.
Sweet baked works of art were served alongside the astonishing hot dishes at the feasts; dishes made of sugar, gypsum, salt as tall as a human being and even more. All this was intended mainly for visual perception.
Especially for these purposes, festivals were arranged, at which the prince and princess, in public on a dais, tasted dishes of meat, poultry, cakes, and pastries.
Colorful food
Multicolored food in the Middle Ages was extremely popular and at the same time easy to prepare.
Coats of arms, family colors and even whole pictures were depicted on pies and cakes; Many sweet foods, such as almond milk jelly, were given a wide variety of colors (in medieval cookbooks, you can find a recipe for this tricolor jelly). Meat, fish, chicken were also painted.
The most common coloring agents are: parsley or spinach (green); grated black bread or gingerbread, clove powder, black cherry juice (black), vegetable or berry juice, beets (red); saffron or egg yolk with flour (yellow); bulbous husk (brown).
They also liked to gilding and silvering dishes, but, of course, this could only be done by the chefs of the gentlemen who were able to provide them with the appropriate means. And although the addition of coloring agents changed the taste of the dish, they turned a blind eye to this in order to obtain a beautiful "picture".
However, with colored food, sometimes funny and not so incidents happened. So at one holiday in Florence, guests were almost poisoned by the colorful creation of an inventor-chef who used chlorine to get white color and yar-copperhead to get green.
Fast
Medieval chefs also showed their resourcefulness and skill during fasting: when preparing fish dishes, they seasoned them in a special way so that they tasted like
meat, invented pseudo-eggs and tried in every way to bypass the strict rules of fasting.
The clergy and their cooks did their best. So, for example, they expanded the concept of "aquatic animals", including the beaver (its tail passed under the category "fish scales"). After all, the posts then lasted a third of the year.
Four meals a day
The day began with the first breakfast, limited to a glass of wine. At about 9 o'clock in the morning there was a second breakfast, which consisted of several changes of dishes.
It should be clarified that these are not modern "first, second and compote". Each change of dishes consisted of a large number of dishes, which the servants served at the table. This led to the fact that everyone who threw a banquet - whether on the occasion of christenings, weddings or funerals - tried not to lose face and serve as many goodies as possible to the table, not paying attention to their capabilities, and therefore often going into debt.
To put an end to this state of affairs, numerous regulations were introduced that regulated the number of dishes and even the number of guests. For example, in 1279 the French king Philip III issued a decree stating that “not a single duke, count, baron, prelate, knight, cleric, etc. has no right to eat in more than three modest meal changes (cheeses and vegetables, as opposed to cakes and pastries, were not taken into account). " The modern tradition of serving one dish at a time comes to Europe from Russia only in the 18th century.
At lunchtime, only a glass of wine was again allowed, biting it with a piece of bread soaked in wine. And only for dinner, which took place from 3 to 6 pm, an incredible amount of food was again served. Naturally, this is a "timetable" for the upper strata of society.
The peasants were busy with business and could not devote as much time to eating as the aristocrats (often they only managed to have a modest snack once during the day), and their income did not allow them to do so.
Cutlery and crockery
Two tableware was difficult to gain acceptance in the Middle Ages: a fork and a plate for individual use. Yes, there were wooden plates for the lower strata and silver or even gold plates for the higher ones, but they ate mainly from common dishes. Moreover, instead of a plate, stale bread was sometimes used for these purposes, which slowly absorbed and did not allow the table to be stained.
Fork also "suffered" from the prejudices that existed in society: for its form, it earned a reputation as a devilish creation, and for its Byzantine origin - a suspicious attitude. Therefore, she was able to "break through" to the table only as a device for meat. It was only in the Baroque era that controversy over the merits and demerits of the fork became fierce. On the contrary, everyone had their own knife, even women wore it on their belts.
On the tables were also spoons, salt shakers, rock crystal glasses and drinking vessels - often richly decorated, gilded, or even silver. However, the latter were not individual, even in rich houses they were shared with neighbors. Utensils and cutlery for ordinary people were made of wood and clay.
Many peasants in the house had only one spoon for the whole family, and if someone did not want to wait until it reaches him in a circle, he could use a piece of bread instead of this cutlery.
Table behavior
Chicken legs and meatballs were thrown in all directions, dirty hands were wiped on a shirt and trousers, food was torn to pieces, and then swallowed without chewing. ... So, or something like this, we, having read the records of cunning innkeepers or their adventurous visitors, imagine today the behavior of the knights at the table.
In reality, everything was not so extravagant, although there were some curious moments that amaze us. Many satyrs, table rules and descriptions of eating habits reflect that morality did not always take a place at the table with its owner.
For example, the prohibition on blowing your nose into the tablecloth would not occur so often, if this bad habit would not be very common.
How to clear the table
Tables in their modern form (that is, when the table top is attached to the legs) did not exist in the Middle Ages. The table was erected when it was necessary: wooden stands were installed, and a wooden board was placed on them. Therefore, in the Middle Ages, they did not clean the table - they removed the table ...
Chef: honor and respect
Powerful medieval Europe highly valued its chefs. In Germany, since 1291, the chef was one of the four most important figures at court. In France, only noble people became chefs of the highest ranks.
The position of chief winemaker in France was the third most important after the positions of chamberlain and chief equestrian. Then came the bread manager, the chief butler, the chef, the restaurant managers closest to the courtyard, and only then the marshals and admirals.
As for the kitchen hierarchy - and it employed a huge number (up to 800 people) of interdependent workers - the first place was given to the main one in meat. A position characterized by the honor and trust of the king, for no one was immune from the poison. He had six people at his disposal who selected and prepared meat for the royal family every day.
Teilevant, the famous chef of King Charles the Sixth, had 150 people under his command.
And in England, for example, at the court of Richard II there were 1000 cooks, 300 lackeys, who served 10,000 people at court every day. A dizzying figure demonstrating that it was important not so much to feed as to demonstrate wealth.
Middle Ages Cookbooks
In the Middle Ages, along with spiritual literature, it was cookbooks that were most often and willingly copied. The earliest cookbook of this time, Buoch von guoter spise (The Book of Good Food), was written between about 1345 and 1352. The author is considered to be the notary of the Bishop of Würzburg, Michael de Leon, who, along with his duties to note budget expenditures, was engaged in collecting recipes.
Fifty years later, the "Alemannische Buchlein von guter Speise" (Alemanni book on good food), by the master Hansen, the Württemberg chef, appears. This was the first cookbook in the Middle Ages to include the name of the author. A collection of recipes by Meter Eberhard, chef of Duke Heinrich III von Bayern Landshut, appeared around 1495.
Pages from the Forme of Cury cookbook. It was created by the chef of King Richard II in 1390 and contains 205 recipes used at court. The book is written in medieval English, and some of the recipes described in this book have long been forgotten by society. For example, "blank mang" (a sweet dish made from meat, milk, sugar and almonds).
Around 1350, the French cookbook "Le Grand Cuisinier de toute Cuisine" was written, and in 1381, the English "Ancient Cookery". 1390 - "The Forme of Cury" by King Richard II's chef. As far as Danish collections of 13th century recipes are concerned, Henrik Harpenstreng's Libellus de Arte Coquinaria is worth mentioning. 1354 - Catalan "Libre de Sent Sovi" by an unknown author.
The most famous cookbook of the Middle Ages was created by the master Guillaume Tyrell, better known by his creative pseudonym Teilivent. He was the cook of King Charles the Sixth, and later even received the title. The book was written between 1373 and 1392, and was published only a century later and included, along with famous dishes, very original recipes, which today a rare gourmet dares to cook.
For Russia and Ukraine throughout the century there was a truthful saying - cabbage soup and porridge are our food. As a matter of fact, for a long time people in our country ate mainly bread, cereals, root crops such as radish and turnip. Porridge is the main food of both the rich and the poor, it is good that even though there is a variety here, they ate millet, millet, semolina, buckwheat. Such a dish as jail was popular - flour diluted with water or milk. Potatoes appeared later. They drank wine only in the south, in the northern regions of Russia they preferred vodka. In general, as you understand, the cuisine largely depended on the climatic factor. The harvest of fresh fruits and vegetables in Russia is limited in time, they did not know how to preserve fruits as they did now, and in general I can hardly believe that in Russia at that time they generally ate fruits and vegetables.
The difference between the rich and the poor was in the amount of meat and pickles. The food served as a division between classes. At the very top were the boyars, under them the clergy and the lowest class were the peasants. But the boyars were also divided into classes, at the very top were the tsar and the feudal lords, despite the higher variety of dishes among the rich townspeople, Russian cuisine at all times retained its national characteristics.
Significant improvements in the variety of dishes began only after the death of Peter the Great. So, for example, the menu of Peter the Great consisted of porridge, jelly, cold pig in sour cream, sour cabbage soup, fried duck with pickles, Limburgsky cheese, ham.
Ordinary people ate bread, porridge and meat on holidays.
In other words, at all times in Russia there was food very low in its biological value, this is what modern nutritionists would say.
How many years did people live before? How long did people live in the Middle Ages?
How long did people live before? Many of us are sure that until the 20th century, people rarely lived to be 59, and sometimes even 30 years. This is really true.
Many examples of how much earlier people lived in Russia can be emphasized from classical literature, as Gogol wrote: "an old woman of about forty opened the door for us." Tolstoy speaks about "Princess Marivanna, an old woman of 36 years." Anna Karenina at the time of her death was 28 years old, Anna Karenina's old husband - 48 years old. The old woman pawnbroker from Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment was 42 years old. And here is a little bit from Pushkin "An old man of about 30 entered the room." Marya Gavrilovna from Pushkin's Blizzard was no longer young: "She was in her twenties." Tynyanov: "Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than all those present. He was 34 years old, the age of extinction."
The life span of the first people according to the Old Testament
Mortality in antiquity. How long did ancient people live?
More interesting phrases from classical literature: "a deep old man entered the room with a stick, 40 years old, he was supported under the arms of young men of 18 years old." Cardinal Richelieu was 42 years old at the time of the siege of the fortress of La Rochelle described in The Three Musketeers.
So, so that you are not dragged on a stretcher by 28 years old guys at the age of 40, it is better to refuse traditional Russian food in the form of bread, porridge, cabbage soup and other things. One can only think, why did people live so little, while all the products were natural, so to speak, people still did not know what GMO was, by the way, in Russia, they are afraid of this GMO like fire, but everything is proof that in the old days there was no this GMO did not lead to an increased life expectancy, in Russian cuisine there was a tradition not to fry, but to cook in the oven in the oven, many products reached, so to speak, on low heat, which, as it were, did not greatly harm the health of a raw foodist?
The answer is that Russian cuisine is very different, for example, from the Mediterranean, if you look at what was eaten in Ancient Greece and in medieval Russia, the difference is obvious.
Ancient greek cuisine
Ancient Greek cuisine had its definite drawback in the form of a limited number of crops grown. Ancient Greek cuisine was based on three staples: wheat, olive oil, and wine. Information about ancient Greek cuisine came to us from literary sources, including from the comedies of Aristophanes. The basis of the food was bread, sometimes soaked in wine and maybe with the addition of dried fruits and olives. The poor and beggars ate grass and root crops. The rich ate lying down and sometimes overdid it in this matter. As we already understood the basis of the diet of the ancient Greeks was bread, wheat was often soaked before making flour from it, in this we can see an analogy with how modern raw food eaters germinate grain. There was no yeast in those days; instead, they used wine leaven. The dough was baked in a clay oven. Barley was considered a simpler grain than wheat, making bread from barley was much more difficult; it was first fried and only then ground into flour.
But we remember that the ancient Greek philosophers lived up to real late old age, meaning the age is not of a very old man like Pushkin's, but really the age of 70-80 years.
Of course, this is thanks to the fruits and vegetables that have grown almost all year round in Greece thanks to the warm Mediterranean climate. In Ancient Greece, cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic, beans, peas, lentils, melons, watermelons, apples, pears, pomegranates, quince, plums, almonds, turnips, radishes, cucumbers, various citrus fruits, olives and grapes were grown.
In ancient Greece, of course, they did not know what sugar was, instead of it, figs, dates and honey were used, these products were available only to the rich and they were generally forbidden to be exported from the country.
Meat in Ancient Greece was eaten again depending on financial capabilities. Fish consumption was also high. Wealthy peasants kept chickens, geese, goats, pigs and sheep. Poor people could be content with small wild animals, such as eating hares or squirrels. Nevertheless, even then the Greeks ate sausages and sausages, of course, this was available only to the rich. In the villages, people ate eggs and drank milk, cooked goat and sheep cheese. The Greeks knew how to make red, rose and white wine. Wine was usually mixed with water. The Greeks rejected Eastern effeminacy in cooking and gastronomic delights, noted the too luxurious table of the Persian kings, unlike the Persians, the Greeks emphasized the simplicity of their cuisine, but in the Hellenistic Roman period, the Greeks abandoned Spartan cuisine and restrictions, of course this applies to the rich. By the way, in Ancient Greece, it is believed that vegetarianism first appeared, this is a voluntary rejection of meat. But what is interesting, vegetarianism was more characteristic of philosophers, people of mental labor, famous Greek athletes were on a meat diet.
Until the age of 80, philosophers, mathematicians and other scientists lived in Greece. Only in the 20th century in the world, the average life expectancy began to approach the indicators of Ancient Greece. Look: Euripides, the playwright lived about 76 years, Archimedes - about 75, Aristarchus, the astronomer - about 80, Philemon, the author of comedies - about 99, Diogenes, the philosopher - 77 or 91. Plato, the philosopher - 81. Xenophon, the writer - 75. Democritus, philosopher - 90 or 100. Hippocrates, doctor - 90 or 100. Socrates (executed) - 70 years old. Euripides, playwright - about 76. Aristides, military leader - about 72. Pythagoras - about 80. Solon, statesman - about 70. Pittacus, tyrant of Mytilene - about 80 years old.
One could become a senator in Sparta or a public judge in Athens only after 60 years. The philosopher Isocrates created his main work, a treatise on education, at the age of 82, and at the age of 98 he committed suicide, starving himself to death.
How long did the Russian tsars live?
But, for example, Peter I lived 52 years, his wife Catherine the first 47 years, Catherine the second 67 years old, Ivan the Terrible 53 years old, Elizaveta Petrovna 52 years old, the father of Peter the first — Alexei Mikhailovich 46 years old. Grandson Peter II is 14 years old, grandson Peter III is 34 years old. Great-grandson Pavel the first is 46 years old, niece Anna Ioannovna is 47 years old, Nicholas the first lived for 58 years, but Alexander the second is 62 years old, Alexander the first is 47 years old. But notice that many European rulers also lived a little: Charles the twelfth is 36 years old, but, for example, Louis the fourteenth is 76 years old.
IN Nikitin "Peter I on his deathbed", dies of kidney stones and pneumonia at the age of 53.
If you look at how long modern British monarchs live, you can come to the conclusion that kings are real centenarians compared to ordinary people. If Russian kings and queens lived for only 40-50 years, then ordinary people, if they could survive their childhood, could live to a ripe old age, namely, somewhere up to 40 years.
