GIRDLE, CRAVAT, WAISTCOAT, BUFF COAT

Followers of this blog may recall my tribute to the messenger in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale.
For those who do not remember or have not read those posts, here is the excerpt that I want to discuss:
 "Chaucer says that he "underpinned his girdle". Now, quite obviously, lager makes you fat. But here, the reference to a "girdle" (that's a belt) refers to ingestion as much as to waist enlargement.
 To say it in modern English, he has this quantity of ale/lager under his belt. There are similar idioms in languages other than English: consumed ethylic fluids go into one's buff doublet (a leather jacket worn in the seventeenth century) in Spanish, into one's waistcoat in Swedish, and behind one's cravat (necktie) in French and German."
And behind one's heart in Flemish (a Germanic language spoken in Belgium). Though Jean t'Serclaes, otherwise known as Tilly, was both sworn to temperance and too posh to speak Flemish. Surely, it applies to present-day ligne claire comic artists...