From the History Channel's website:
LIFE IN ENGLAND IN THE 1500'S

Most people got married in June because, by custom, they took their yearly baths in May and were still smelling pretty good by June. However, some were beginning to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the b.o.  The custom prevailed.

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Families took baths in turn in one large tub of hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of bathing first, followed by the sons,  then the wife and daughters and then the small children under 5 years of age. Last of all came the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actualy lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".

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Houses had thatched roofs---thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets... dogs, cats and other small creatures---mice, rats, bugs lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the anmals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs."

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Loose thatch on the roofs sometimes allowed a variety of things to fall   into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. So, they found if they made beds with tall posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem. Hence began those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopes.

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The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door the thresh would start spilling outside. To stop this, a piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a "threshhold".

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Most of the cooking was done in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. If they had a stew for dinner, leftovers would remain in the pot to cool overnight. The next day, additional vegetables might be added and the fire restarted. Sometimes the pot had food in it that had been in there for extended periods. Hence the rhyme:
Peas porridge hot,
peas porridge cold,
peas porridge in the pot
nine days old."

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Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came calling, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and showed that the man of the house could "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

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Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. This happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes... for 400 years.

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Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trenchers were never washed and often worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get "trench mouth."

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Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust".

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Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake  up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake".

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Since England was a smallish country, people became concerned that they would run out of space to bury the dead. So, they would dig up coffins and would take the deceased's bones into the house so the grave could be reused. In opening these coffins, they found that a goodly number of them had scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they began tying a string to the wrist of the "deceased" and leading it through the coffin and up through the ground and tying it to a bell. Someone was selected to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer"