So, we have about a dozen of pilgrims from different parts of England and of different social standing. They decide to travel together for more safety, but they hardly know each other. So, to break the ice, the innkeeper suggests that each of the travellers shall tell a story
en route to Canterbury, and the best story will be rewarded with a feast by the very landlord who came up with the idea of storytelling. Now, among the pilgrims there is a courtier who is also a bit of a poet. His name is Geoffrey Chaucer, and he sees the chance to compile all those folktales in verse.
A certain London lawyer tells, when his turn comes, a story of the green-eyed monster, miscommunication, war, beer, stupid husbands and a trophy wife with as little willpower as a rag doll:
On one of those days that seem completely ordinary, the young ruler of Northumbria (Northumberland) saves a foreign young woman from being harassed by one of his vassals (This woman, Custance, has already got a criminal record: she comes from a Syrian harem, but she was condemned to exile due to the slanders of jealous co-wives and in-laws). Quite obviously, they take to each other and marry. But then, war breaks out and separates them. So her consort goes forth to fight the Scots and leaves her in her alcove, waiting for his return.
Now this may appear to be a normal "love-and-war" plot, if it weren't for the messenger that conveys letters between the royal court and the war front. For unknown reasons (there might be no caves in the area and all inns may be fully booked), he spends the rainy nights at the retired Queen Mother's chateau. Now this clever and determined old lady (demonized by Chaucer and the Man of Law for being clever and determined!), to make her son break up with her daughter-in-law (Custance's Muslim attire and dark features may have aroused her suspicions), she exchanges the messenger's letters with forgeries of her own. To do so, she encourages the messenger not only to quench his thirst before having a rest, but to get him dead drunk. And the letters are swapped while he is unconscious.
For example: "Dear Allan, I am glad to inform you that our baby has survived. It's a rather cute boy! Would you like to call him Maurice?" is exchanged for "Dear Allan, the little monster should rather be dead! I wonder if the creature can be called my child, or even a human child at all!"
As a result, Allan has Custance set adrift in a boat. But then, he regrets and both have a lot of adventures until they meet again.
However, it was the messenger's intoxication that inspired me to write this article on the subject. The Custance story is one out of many folktales that exist in more than one version. And there is always the part when a malevolent third party drugs the messenger before the letter swap. In Part One of this article cycle, I will look at Chaucer's retelling of this part of the story.
First things first: humans must have known the narcotic effect of ethanol since the Stone Age, when fermented fruit and fruit juice were first consumed.
And now, to Chaucer. The messenger had drunk so much ale (lager) when he collapsed that "he slept like a swine". That's a pig. A fat, lazy, filthy pig. He is closer to one than to a human, for being unconscious and intoxicated.
With an oink here and some slurred words there, we skip a few verses until our messenger is once more inebriated. 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.
