Gerry
This phrase has mixed origins. It is suggested that the phrase first emerged in the 16th or 17th century implying that as lords were wealthy and could therefore indulge in drink, to be ’drunk as a Lord’ was based on the idea that aristocracy could indulge in drunkenness more than commoners, presumably because they could afford to. Nevertheless, if we look back to the Dark Ages, mainly those years between the 5th and 10th centuries, water was considered to be dangerous to drink. This is hardly surprising, as the water was frequently polluted with human or animal waste, and unless you had the privilege of living in the country and had access to a spring of fresh water, your liquid staple would have been some form of alcohol.
The wealthy had access to wine as wine was often imported, was expensive and tasted better than the liquid drunk by the poor. Paradoxically, ale and beer were crudely made and often had very high alcohol contents. Cider was also common and then as now is known for its vigorous fermentation and subsequent effects. Mead on the other hand was probably the drink of choice for the poor as it required only honey left to ferment in water. Mead was also fearsomely toxic and likely to cause grievous damage to the sensitivities. To return to our phrase, we have to acknowledge the intent but to be drunk as a peasant was probably more accurate.
We find an early use of being ‘Drunk as a Lord’ in 1651 with John English citing the phrase in his writing “ A Character of England” and clearly directing the expression at the wealthy. More recently we come across the phrase as drunk as a skunk. This derives from America in probably the 1920s and became popular simply because of the rhyme.
Both cliches have survived the demise of numerous other similes, among them as drunk as an ape (from Chaucer’s time), tinker, fish, goat, owl, piper and fiddler, presumably because musicians were plied with alcohol at wakes or fairs or similar feasts. We also have as drunk as the devil, blazes and of all things David’s Sow* based on the ancient anecdote explained in Francis Grose’s classical dictionary and current from the 17th century.
Possibly the expression as drunk as a Lord derives more from jealousy than fact as it is certain in the Middle Ages and even into the 19th century that drunkenness was simply a side effect of drinking alcohol in preference to water.
I recall that in the refectory of my school was a picture of the boys at their meal in the mid 19th century with each one clutching in a small hand a pewter pot containing light beer. Light beer was ale watered down to reduce the effects of alcohol while at the same time the latter was thought to somewhat disinfect the water. Water at that time was considered so bad that to be sentenced to so many days bread and water was also to be very likely sentenced to contract a waterborne disease. Not a pleasant fate, coping with dysentery in a medieval dungeon.
*As drunk as David’s sow; a common saying, which took its rise from the following circumstance: One David Lloyd, a Welshman, who kept an alehouse at Hereford, had a living sow with six legs, which was greatly resorted to by the curious; he had also a wife much addicted to drunkenness, for which he used sometimes to give her due correction. One day David’s wife having taken a cup too much, and being fearful of the consequences, turned out the sow, and lay down to sleep herself sober in the stye. A company coming in to see the sow, David ushered them into the stye, exclaiming, there is a sow for you! did any of you ever see such another? all the while supposing the sow had really been there; to which some of the company, seeing the state the woman was in, replied, it was the drunkenest sow they had ever beheld; whence the woman was ever after called David’s sow.
Definition taken from the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose
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