INTRODUCTION

Following are summaries of two subjects beginning with the letter C, the time-wasting research of my assistant, Cindi Barton There’s no reason to read it unless you’re into words.

CODPIECE

Codpiece is not named for a fish, though it may appear to hold one. “Cod” in Middle English meant bag or scrotum. “Hosenbeutel” is codpiece in German. “Beutel” means bag. “Braguette” is the French. In Middle French, “boulge” means leather bag or curved part.

Leather leggings, the antecedents of Renaissance hosiery, were tubes of animal skin joined perfunctorily at the top. The crotch was left open for “privy” functions. Protection from exposure was the tunic. By the 14th century, taut hose had replaced leggings, but the fit still required splitting the front, and the privates still hung loosely under the doublet.

To appear taller, one lowered the doublet skirt waistline, while raising the hemline. From the 1340s to the 1360s, hems rose to mid-thigh. When a man sat down or mounted his horse, there was a clear view up his hose. The Parson in “Canterbury Tales” criticizes these garments for just that reason:

The codpiece, a triangular piece of fabric tied at the three corners, or stitched at the bottom and tied at the top, was invented to fill up the gap, evolving into a pouch, a padded pouch, and then into a very padded pouch. During the 15th and 16th centuries, it often doubled as a pocket for money and a handkerchief.

The codpiece attained loaf-shaped prominence, thanks to Henry VIII, whose doublets were slit to show his accessory, elaborately decorated with tufts and bows and stuffed in later years.

Several reasons are proposed.

1) Outdoing the Italians. Queen Anne Boleyn reportedly remarked to the visiting Duke Fabrizio of Bologna, “Be that thine codling, or art thou glad to see me?” King Henry assumed Fabrizo’s bulge to be the latest Continental fashions and ordered his codpieces padded, as “My codpieces must compare favorably to Bologna.”

2) Medical. The Boleyn sisters, Mary and Anne were his second and sixth wives. Anne lost her head, accused of fornicating with her brother in hope of an offspring that would fool Henry. Mary is incorrectly blamed for Henry’s royal case of syphilis, diagnosed by some modern medical sleuths from what may have been bandages to contain the oozes.

3) Procreative Projection. So much did his inability to beget a male heir weigh on his mind, that Henry changed the English religion. His exaggerated codpiece bespoke that his Tudor equipment could not be at fault.

4) Warrior Dreams. Edward III needed every advantage in the Hundred Years’ War. Legend had it that Edward had the codpiece of his armor enlarged because military prowess was correlated with endowment.

As Elizabeth I’s silk-stockinged dance partner could snag royal attention with an attractive oval poking from the folds of their puffy trousers.

The codpiece became less bombast and by the late 1500s disappeared into the ever-more voluminous folds of trunk hose. In the 17th century, the term referred to the front fastening of the breeches. “Churning the codpiece” remains a reference to masturbation.

Shakespearian codpieces.

Cupid, “King of codpieces.” - Love’s Labor’s Lost: 3:1.

Hercules’ “Codpiece seems as messy as his club...” - Much Ado about Nothing: 3:3.

“What fashion, madam shall I make your breeches? You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam,” Two Gentlemen of Verona: 2:7.

That a man should be put to death for fornication, “Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man.” - Measure for Measure: 3:2.

“Here’s grace and a codpiece, that’s a wise man and a fool.” - King Lear: 3:2.

To tell somebody off in Elizabethan English, say “Thou,” then an adjective from List A, then a hyphenated adjective from List B, and end it with “codpiece.”

List A: Bawdy, Bootless, Clouted, Craven, Currish, Dankish, Dissembling, Droning, Fawning, Fobbing, Gleeking, Gorbellied, Impertinent, Mammering, Mewling, Paunchy, Pribbling, Qualling, Ruttish, Saucy, Spleeny, Surly, Tottering, Venomed, Villainous, Wayward, Weedy, Yeasty.

List B; Base-Court, Bat-Fowling, Beef-Witted, Beetle-Headed, Boil-Brained, Clapper-Clawed, Clay-Brained, Crook-Pated, Dismal-Dreaming, Dog-Hearted, Dread-Bolted, Earth-Vexing, Elf-Skinned, Fat-Kidneyed, Flap-Mouthed, Fly-Bitten, Folly-Fallen, Hedge-Born, Ill-Breeding, Knotty-Pated, Milk-Livered, Motley-Minded, Onion-Eyed, Plume-Plucked, Pox-Marked, Shard-Borne, Sheep-Biting, Spur-Galled, Swag-Bellied, Tardy-Gaited, Tickle-Brained, Toad-Spotted, Unchin-Snouted.

Example: “Thou Mammering Toad-Spotted Codpiece”

A Joke

There’s this knight who gets chronic migraine headaches. One day his barber/surgeon offers, “I can cure thy headaches, sir, but must cut off thy testicles to do so.”