Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
A guide to hicstorical drinking...
16th century tips on art of boozing
BOOZING, drinking games and bar brawls are not a modern phenomenon – young European men have been doing it for nearly five centuries.
A new translation of a 1536 guide to alcohol reveals the widespread raucous behaviour.
How to Drink: A Classical Guide to the Art of Imbibing was written by Vincent Obsopoeus, a humanist scholar in Ansbach in Bavaria.
His Latin poem offers advice on sensible drinking and avoiding saying something you will regret.
The last section includes tips for games. Players gulped wine until they passed out or gave up and used dice in the contests.
These Renaissance games were said to include novelty vessels such as a “peasant’s shoe”, or a potty.
The poet advises readers to drink as little and as slowly as possible and to take loo breaks to miss a turn or tipping the waiter to water down their wine.
Obsopoeus said: “When your opponent is… shouting abuse at the waiters for giving him bigger drinks than others; slurring and leaving words unfinished; sick and repeatedly asking the barmaids for help; and cleverly dumping his wine out: those are the signs of a drinker on the ropes.”
Prof Michael Fontaine, of Cornell University, New York, translated the work, which was banned by the Catholic church.
He said it suggests binge drinking began in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries when warfare and jousts were in decline. He told the Times: “You had a bunch of highly trained, hyper-masculine young or middle-aged men, but not much use for them.
“What outlet can channel their competitive energies – and cope with their job losses and crummy pay? To judge from Obsopoeus’s poem, their solution was booze.”