Sixteenth century teeth

679.

Image by alexandreest from Pixabay. Modern teeth.

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Some people had a terrible time with their teeth, some people didn’t.

I have to say, some people are just lucky and inherit great teeth from a parent — like my children, who all got brilliant teeth from my late husband. Talk about a good legacy. None of them have ever had a filling! I’ve had loads.

So: the Elizabethans and their teeth. Please dismiss any thoughts of terrible decayed teeth in young adults — all that happened later in the 18th 19th and 20th century once sugar had really got going.

What’s interesting is who had teeth problems in the 16th century — generally it was the rich while the peasants, on the whole and with exceptions, didn’t.

This is because the 90% of the population who were peasants ate rough wholemeal bread leavened with ale which was chewy and got stale quickly. In times of dearth (hunger) the bread might have peas or rye or even sawdust in it, but was still the staple food. This meant that their dental arches were larger and had more room — so their teeth were normally straighter. You need a lot of chewing as a child and teenager to have an ideal mouth-shape for teeth.

Then of course most ordinary people never ate sugar at all, except perhaps at Christmastide, so there was much less scope for decay — plus the starch…