Did you know?

[Mercy]

I thought it might be fun to have a thread to point out weird, random and essentially useless facts (that will never be used) about the 17th century just to add a bit of colour.

For example, did you know …

To curtsey a lady would point both knees outwards then sink down. The whole one leg demurely tucked behind the other is a Victorian invention. Nice exercise for the thigh muscles though.

[Delphi]

The Ladies Dictionary, published in 1694, had a remedy to shed pounds quickly. It said to bathe in claret wine, infused with wormwood, calamint, camomile, sage and squinanth. Wine bath...talk about decadent.

[Hope]

- The European practise of ladies keeping puppies for the purpose of drinking their urine, which was purposed to enhance their skins youthful glow.

[Charles Blount]

- The European practise of ladies keeping puppies for the purpose of drinking their urine, which was purposed to enhance their skins youthful glow.

EWWW!

And I thought having lapdogs to attract the fleas from ones clothing was gross

[Gwendolyn Llywelyn]

'Nice' in this time period actually meant 'simple'.

Yep, that's all I've got.

[James Winchester]

'Female Hysteria' was a 'hold all' diagnosis for many complaints in women, including faintness, nervousness, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and "a tendency to cause trouble".'

The prescription in medieval and renaissance medicine was intercourse if married, marriage if single, or vaginal massage (pelvic massage) by a midwife or physician as a last recourse.

So we all know why doctors make better lovers!

Other cures for female hysteria included bed rest, bland food, seclusion, refraining from mentally taxing tasks (for example, reading) and sensory deprivation.

Personally, I'd prefer the 'more sex' cure myself.

[Charles Blount]

Sort of gives a different meaning to "Take two and call me in the morning"

[Owen Langland]

The first hackney-carriage licences date from 1662, and applied literally to horse-drawn carriages, later modernised as hansom cabs (1834), that operated as vehicles for hire

. Wikipedia entry.

Hackney was a hired mode of transport in two and four wheel variations.

[Mercy]

And Taxi's in London are still called Hackney's to this day.

[Salvador Ramos de Cortez]

Okay, I didn't know this until I knew it Not about the 17th century per se, but interesting and useless all the same

English longbowmen back in the day were apparently super hard-core and awesome. So, when the French captured them, they would cut off their middle fingers so they could not draw the bowstring. Anyways, bowmen got into the habit of demonstrating the presence of their middle fingers to the French during the Hundred Years War, accompanied by the phrase 'Pluck you', and I can't remember if that was before the battle of Agincourt that they did this, or just if they did it in general. Just a tidbit I found interesting.

[Guest]

I was searching the internet tubes for some info on how young men went about the busy of lady hunting and found some pages online from a book titlesd "The Mysteries of Love & Eloquence" it's got some pages of pick up lines that are so cute and funny! It's great to see how similar things are...ha ha.

"Let me rest my head upon the white pillows of your breast." Is a personal favourite and I wonder why guys have dropped this from their repertoire. Enjoy!

http://www.folger.edu/eduPrimSrcDtl.cfm?psid=71

http://www.folger.edu/eduLesPlanDtl.cfm?lpid=602

[Henry Edward Gray]

the areola was almost never depicted in paintings (in which women's breasts were bared) before the 19th century.

Occasionally the nipple was depicted as a minute pink blob, or where the subject of the painting required the nippple's projecting quality to be emphasized the artist would show the nipple as protruding but of the palest rose color...but what was most usual was the depiction of the breast simply as a round, white, nippleless featureless swelling.

one explanation for this is that artists in the renaissance who began to study ancient sculpture learned from these that the ideal beauty in the human body did not include pigmentation or body hair.

Also, due to the nature of clothing at the time, people rarely saw each other naked. (this also contributed to the popularity of having sex while standing (as ladies had no underwear it was easier to lift skirts up and aside)) Even lovers or married couples. (In Renaissance painting then, the nudity is supposed to be idealised and symbolic rather than erotic) Upper class women were literally unable to dress and undress themselves without the help of a maid and it was a custom, when preparing for bed, either to retain one's undergarments or to replace them with a shift of similar cut, though perhaps longer.

[all of the factual information in this is paraphrased from Sex in Georgian England by A.D Harvey 1994 Pheonix Press, London]

I would just like to say though, that this book was a gift. I did not go out and purchase Sex in Georgian England. Although I think it probably came from one of the 2 pound bookstores in Greenwich, London. : D

[Hope]

*wonders who purchased Sex in Georgian England as a stocking stuffer for Henry?*

I'd be too shy to ask santa for that.

[Henry Edward Gray]

ahahaha! that isn't how it happened! ; D

When I first moved to London, two of my other flatmates were Americans as well. One of them had a birthday soon after we moved in, and a couple of Swedish acquaintances came to the party we had for her. They didn't yet know us well enough to remember which of us (all being American) was having the birthday so they brought three wrapped books and gave us one each. The Sex book was the one I ended up with. O.o

It is actually a really interesting book, though not all that useful (save for odd little tidbits like that.) For the purposes of this game we are of course still quite pre-Georgian.

[Fluff]

Oh, but how wickedly Swedish of them to gift Americans with a book about sex, even if it was a bit of oldfashioned sex *giggles*

[Marion_Ferguson]

Since there has been so much talk of Scotland and France I had to be wicked and post this. Straight from the wiki on the Kingdom of Scotland.

In 1512 under a treaty extending the Auld Alliance, all nationals of Scotland and France also became nationals of each other's countries, a status not repealed in France until 1903 and which may never have been repealed in Scotland.

[Elizabeth Charity Camrose]

Here’s a subject close to my own heart and an interesting snippet for all you modern thinkers. The last executions for witchcraft in England took place in 1682 but the last women to be imprisoned for witchcraft was in 1944.

[Charles Whitehurst]

Want to know more about how horrible living conditions were in London in the 18th Century? Warning: it will likely ruin your glowing image of London in this game.

http://forums.canadiancontent.net/history/48176-18th-century-london-its-daily.html

[Hope]

Which reminds me that I have wondered if they use a potpouri to mask the scent of the chamberpot in peoples bedrooms, such as at saint marks. It might discourage visitors for a certainty otherwise. And, how often do they empty the chamberpots, and how? Do they have some great trolley wheeling down the halls? And what do they do when they get to the stairs? Decant the pots there and then? Do they wash the chamberpots out, you'd hope so. It's all rather nasty. Now wonder people prefer to live at their own houses, where their number ones and twos is a far more private affair.

Gossip: "I heard the Baron of ____ had his pot emptied thrice the other day. While Lady ____ has not passed stools for ten days."

[Owen Langland]

Not to worry about such things as chamberpots. That is what servants are for. And no, they did not trolley the pots down the hall like a tea cart. That is what servants are for. And gossip upon a master's health, well, yes, that is what servants are for.

[Adam James MacGregor]

Robert II of Scotland, the found of Stewart royal line supposedly managed to father 21 legitimate children from two marriages. They were all married to Scottish nobility thus creating a chaos in the line of inheritance two generations later since their children too followed that practice.

Now, King's virility is not so surprising after you know what kind of genes he had.

[Hope]

In 1676

Ole Christensen Rømer, a Danish astronomer, made the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light.

A plaque at the Observatory of Paris, where the Danish astronomer happened to be working, commemorates what was, in effect, the first measurement of a universal quantity made on this planet. The Paris Observatory was observed to be 10 minutes late, on November 9th.

[Owen Langland]

for Killington's enlightenment on maintaining a ship, this could prove an expensive 'gesture':

17th c. wages sampler:

Sailors
15-24 pounds per year (various skills)
60 pounds per year (mates)
500 pounds per year (captain of small packet)
3500 pounds per year (captain large vessel)

Ship maintenance about 5% of value but not considering storms, tropical worms, etc. ... ship of the line about 1000-4000 pounds per year.

Food: varies on crew size (biggest warship 30-40k tons) several hundred men

Also accrued overhaul costs: +++ per age of ship

There are also the 'non-serving' officers to pay. Often a noble's child of age 2-15 who have never seen the ship, or even the sea, but get paid for their officership. Worth 300 pounds (ensign) to 3500 pounds lieutenant. Varies.

[Salvador Ramos de Cortez]

I got bored and looked up the history of Rock, Paper, Scissors, and there are many theories that would support its existence within our 100 years rule! Yay! And yes, I was reeeeeeeally bored.

Here's one link to a site with some stuff about it

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1936/whats-the-origin-of-rock-paper-scissors

[Delphi]

Bated Breath:

The earliest citation of the phrase is from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, 1596:

"With bated breath, and whispring humblenesse."

Bated is just a shortened form of abated (meaning - to bring down, lower or depress). So, 'abated breath' makes sense and that's where the phrase comes from.