Princess Louise Auguste of Denmark

At the table

Common breakfast foods and habits

Ordinary breakfasts often consisted of ale porridge (øllebrød), porridge, milk, or bread with salted herring. In some households, children drank from bowls, while adults used tea cups.

What people wore

Peasant everyday clothing colors

Ordinary peasant men wore non-dyed homespun clothing that turned grey and muddy with wear, while women's everyday clothes were typically black or dark blue.

Getting around

Slow horse-drawn travel between Danish towns

Travel between towns primarily relied on horse-drawn carriages, and journeys were slow, taking several days for even moderate distances. For example, a carriage leaving Copenhagen on Wednesday afternoon was only expected to reach Aalborg by the following Monday morning in summer.

What it cost

Cost of boys' shoes in Copenhagen

At the Royal Orphanage in Copenhagen, a pair of boy's shoes cost 68 skilling in 1777, 76 skilling in 1792, and 80 skilling in 1798.

Music

Town musician performance fees

Professional town musicians, known as stadsmusikants, were hired for weddings and social gatherings, with fees set for specific ensembles; for example, violin and cello cost 6 daler, while adding trumpet, bassoon, and others increased the price to 16 daler. These musicians also performed in churches and for festive processions.

Daily life

Shared facilities and night men in Nyboder

In Nyboder, apartments had shared kitchens in expanded corridors, and residents had to pay and leave a light for the 'Night men' who emptied the backyard toilet pits to avoid a mess in their kitchen. The toilet was a shared shed in the yard covering a pit.