Fascinating History

Tiberius The Emperor Tiberius is not known for his support of democratic values. However, Suetonius has an interesting, if not amusing account of his attitude to people who said bad things about him or his family. He was, moreover, quite unperturbed by abuse, slander, or lampoons on himself and his family and would often say that liberty to speak and think as one pleases is the test of a free country. When the Senate asked that those who had offended in this way should be brought to book, he replied: 'We cannot spare the time to undertake any such new enterprise. Open that window and you will let in such a rush of denunciations as to waste your whole working day; everyone will take this opportunity of airing some private feud.' A remarkably modest statement of his is recorded in the 'Proceedings of the Senate': 'If So-and-so challenges me, I shall lay before you a careful account of what I have said and done; if that does not satisfy him, I shall reciprocate his dis

The Elizabethans liked to give secret meanings to their salads. Therefore, each vegetable / ingredient, was used to convey a specific message. Here is a list of the most common meanings associated with some of the most widely used ingredients: Asparagus: Renewing of love Borage: You make me glad Bugloss: I am pleased with you Scallion: I love you not Cabbage lettuce: Your love feedeth me Bitter lettuce: I love you not Olives: Your love annoyeth me Rosemary flowers: I accept your love Winter savory: I offer you my love Radish: Pardon me Strawberries: I am altogether yous Raspberries: Come again

"Withdraw into yourself. Our master-reason asks no more than to act justly and thereby to achieve calm." "Do away with all fancies. Cease to be passion's puppet. Limit time to the present. Learn to recognize every experienec for what it is, whether it be your own or another's. Divide and classify the objects of sense into cause and matter. Meditate upon your last hour. Leave your neighbour's wrong-doing to rest with him who initiated it." "Fix your thought closely on what is being said and let your mind enter fully into what is being done and into what is doing it." "Vex not thy spirit at the course of things; They heed not thy vexation."

Friedrich Engels To live in Victorian London was very grim indeed, but to die there was a pretty nasty business too. Friedrich Engels, in his The Condition of the Working Class in England wrote about this in horrific detail, based on his experiences between November 1842 and August 1844. "The corpses of the poor have no better fate than the carcases of animals. The pauper burial ground at St. Bride's is a piece of open marshland which has been used since Charles II's day and there are heaps of bones all over the place. Every Wednesday the remains of dead paupers are thrown into a hole which is 14 feet deep. A clergyman gabbles through the burial service and then the grave is filled with loose soil. On the following Wednesday the ground is opened again and this goes on until it is completely full. The whole neighbourhood is infected by the dreadful stench from this burial ground."

Alexandre Dumas fils On February 5th 1847 Marie Duplessis, the notorious Parisian courtesan, inspiration for Dumas’s Camille and Verdi’s La Traviata, died of tuberculosis. She was only 23 years old. Most of fashionable Paris showed up at her funeral. Charles Dickens was amongst the crowd who attended the funeral. He commented: “One could have believed that Marie was Jeanne d’Arc or some other national heroine, so profound was the general sadness.” A year later, Alexandre Dumas the younger, wrote La Dame aux Camelias. Dumas had had an affair with Marie, between 1844 and 1845 and much of the story is based on this experience, so when the novel was published people read it as fact and not fiction. Their affair had been a subject of gossip amongst Parisian high society. The novel of course became extremely successful . Of course the novel was rather far way from the truth. Marie Duplessis (borne Alphonsine Plessis) had a very unpleasant life. She did not die in the arms of her lover but al

As I have been asked about the invention of the seven-day week and when that was (the Assyrian's invented it by the way), please see link below, which provides lots of information on that and related issues. http://www.wfu.edu/~moran/planets_y_powers.html

The followng links offer a rich variety of original, Medieval recipes. http://members.tripod.com/BlackTauna/recipes.html http://www.bitwise.net/~ken-bill/med-p1.htm (these have been 'adapted for the modern cook'.) Enjoy!

In 45 BC Julius Caesar decreed a new calendar, based on the 365-da year as calculated by Sosigenes of Alexandria. However, Sosigenes's year had an extra quarter of a day to it so he cleverly added an extra day in the end of February for every fourth year, which was called bis-secto-kalendae . Caesar, via the Senate, also changed the name of the month of Quintilis to 'July' (in later years the month of Sextilis was renamed 'August' in order to honour Augustus). In the 4th century AD Constantine the Great added the seven-day week to the calendar (he was inspired by the book of Genesis), while in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII adjusted the calendar, so it was from then on known as the Gregorian calendar.

A Dickensian Life - Oliver Twist epitomizes the life of an abandoned child in Victorian London A wealth of information on the lives of London's poor during the Victorian era, can be found in Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. Contraception was not really understood or practiced in those days, so inevitably the poor would have children which many times they were not able to look after. Some were so poor they could not let their children out to play because they had no clothes for them. Thus we have the story of one mother, whose kids got out onto the street wearing nothing but some bits from an old sack. Parents were many times in prison, in the workhouse or dead. The 'baby-farmer' was sort of like a baby-sitter but with a more sinister twist. While the parents or single mother worked, the children would be entrusted to the 'baby-farmer' to be looked after, for a fee of course. One tragic story tells of a mother who earning 6s and 3s a week making paper

The Victorian City of London 9s a week was a milk-woman's wage 10s 6d was what a dentist charged for 2 fillings 16s was the top wage of a woman operating a sewing machine £1 per week was what the average coffee-stall keeper, general labourer or female copy clerk in the City earned With £4 being the minimum cost of a funeral, life cannot have been easy for the above. A live-in maid would earn £6 a year while a general servant would make £16 annually. A full set of false teeth cost £21, which probably meant that all the above went about toothless... A buttler would make £42 per annum while a clerk at the Post Office took home £90 a year. Now, an Anglican parson could probably get his false teeth as he got £140 a year, whereas teh Governor of the Bank of England, with an annual income of £400 could afford a twelve coffin vault in Highgate Cemetary for £136 10s, if he saved enough. A box in the The Royal Opera House was out of reach for most people as it cost £8,000, except for people