CHAPTER XIV
THE FEAST OF FOOLS (_continued_)
The history of the Feast of Fools has been so imperfectly written, that it is perhaps worth while to bring together the records of its occurrence, elsewhere than in Troyes and Sens, from the fourteenth century onwards. They could probably be somewhat increased by an exhaustive research amongst French local histories, archives, and the transactions of learned societies. Of the feast in Notre-Dame at Paris nothing is heard after the reformation carried out in 1198 by Eudes de Sully[1058]. The _bourgeois_ of Tournai were, indeed, able to quote a Paris precedent for the feast of their own city in 1499; but this may have been merely the feast of some minor collegiate body, such as that founded in 1303 by cardinal Le Moine[1059]; or of the scholars of the University, or of the _compagnie joyeuse_ of the _Enfants-sans-Souci_. At Beauvais, too, there are only the faintest traces of the feast outside the actual twelfth-and thirteenth-century service-books[1060]. But there are several other towns in the provinces immediately north and east of the capital, Île de France, Picardy, Champagne, where it is recorded. The provision made for it in the Amiens _Ordinarium_ of 1291 has been already quoted. Shortly after this, bishop William de Macon, who died in 1303, left his own _pontificalia_ for the use of the ‘bishop of Fools[1061].’ When, however, the feast reappears in the fifteenth century the _dominus festi_ is no longer a ‘bishop,’ but a ‘pope.’ In 1438 there was an endowment consisting of a share in the profits of some lead left by one John le Caron, who had himself been ‘pope[1062].’ In 1520 the feast was held, but no bells were to be jangled[1063]. It was repeated in 1538. Later in the year the customary election of the ‘pope’ on the anniversary of Easter was forbidden, but the canons afterwards repented of their severity[1064]. In 1540 the chapter paid a subsidy towards the amusements of the ‘pope’ and his ‘cardinals’ on the Sunday called _brioris_[1065]. In 1548 the feast was suppressed[1066]. At Noyon the vicars chose a ‘king of Fools’ on Epiphany eve. The custom is mentioned in 1366 as ‘_le gieu des roys_.’ By 1419 it was forbidden, and canon John de Gribauval was punished for an attempt to renew it by taking the sceptre off the high altar at Compline on Epiphany. In 1497, 1499, and 1505 it was permitted again, with certain restrictions. The cavalcade must be over before Nones; there must be no licentious or scurrilous _chansons_, no dance before the great doors; the ‘king’ must wear ecclesiastical dress in the choir. In 1520, however, he was allowed to wear his crown _more antiquo_. The feast finally perished in 1721, owing to _la cherté des vivres_[1067]. At Soissons, the feast was held on January 1, with masquing[1068]. At Senlis, the _dominus festi_ was a ‘pope.’ In 1403 there was much division of opinion amongst the chapter as to the continuance of the feast, and it was finally decided that it must take place outside the church. In 1523 it came to an end. The vicars of the chapter of Saint-Rieul had in 1501 their separate feast on January 1, with a ‘prelate of Fools’ and _jeux_ in the churchyard[1069]. From Laon fuller records are available[1070]. A ‘patriarch of Fools’ was chosen with his ‘consorts’ on Epiphany eve after Prime, by the vicars, chaplains and choir-clerks. There was a cavalcade through the city and a procession called the _Rabardiaux_, of which the nature is not stated[1071]. The chapter bore the expenses of the banquet and the masks. The first notice is about 1280. In 1307 one Pierre Caput was ‘patriarch.’ In 1454 the bishop upheld the feast against the dean, but it was decided that it should take place outside the church. A similar regulation was made in 1455, 1456, 1459. In 1462 the _servitium_ was allowed, and the _jeu_ was to be submitted to censorship. In 1464 and 1465 mysteries were acted before the _Rabardiaux_. In 1486 the _jeu_ was given before the church of St.-Martin-au-Parvis. In 1490 the _jeux_ and cavalcade were forbidden, and the banquet only allowed. In 1500 a chaplain, Jean Hubreland, was fined for not taking part in the ceremony. In 1518 the worse fate of imprisonment befell Albert Gosselin, another chaplain, who flung fire from above the porch upon the ‘patriarch’ and his ‘consorts.’ By 1521 the _servitium_ seems to have been conducted by the _curés_ of the Laon churches, and the vicars and chaplains merely assisted. The expense now fell on the _curés_, and the chapter subsidy was cut down. In 1522 and 1525 the perquisites of the ‘patriarch’ were still further reduced by the refusal of a donation from the chapter as well as of the fines formerly imposed on absentees. In 1527 a protest of Laurent Brayart, ‘patriarch,’ demanding either leave to celebrate the feast _more antiquo_ or a dispensation from assisting at the election of his successor, was referred to the ex-‘patriarch.’ In this same year canons, vicars, chaplains and _habitués_ of the cathedral were forbidden to appear at the farces of the _fête des ânes_[1072]. In 1531 the ‘patriarch’ Théobald Bucquet, recovered the right to play comedies and _jeux_ and to take the absentee fines; but in 1541 Absalon Bourgeois was refused leave _pour faire semblant de dire la messe à liesse_. The feast was cut down to the bare election of the ‘patriarch’ in 1560, and seems to have passed into the hands of a _confrérie_; all that was retained in the cathedral being the _Primes folles_ on Epiphany eve, in which the laity occupied the high stalls, and all present wore crowns of green leaves.
At Rheims, a Feast of Fools in 1490 was the occasion for a satirical attack by the vicars and choir-boys on the fashion of the hoods worn by the _bourgeoises_. This led to reprisals in the form of some anti-ecclesiastical farces played on the following _dimanche des Brandons_ by the law clerks of the Rheims _Basoche_[1073]. At Châlons-sur-Marne a detailed and curious account is preserved of the way in which the Feast of Fools was celebrated in 1570[1074]. It took place on St. Stephen’s day. The chapter provided a banquet on a theatre in front of the great porch. To this the ‘bishop of Fools’ was conducted in procession from the _maîtrise des fous_, with bells and music upon a gaily trapped ass. He was then vested in cope, mitre, pectoral cross, gloves and crozier, and enjoyed a banquet with the canons who formed his ‘household.’ Meanwhile some of the inferior clergy entered the cathedral, sang gibberish, grimaced and made contortions. After the banquet, Vespers were precipitately sung, followed by a _motet_[1075]. Then came a musical cavalcade round the cathedral and through the streets. A game of _la paume_ took place in the market; then dancing and further cavalcades. Finally a band gathered before the cathedral, howled and clanged kettles and saucepans, while the bells were rung and the clergy appeared in grotesque costumes.
Flanders also had its Feasts of Fools. That of St. Omer, which existed in the twelfth century, lasted to the sixteenth[1076]. An attempt was made to stop it in 1407, when the chapter forbade any one to take the name of ‘bishop’ or ‘abbot’ of Fools. But Seraphin Cotinet was ‘bishop’ of Fools in 1431, and led the _gaude_ on St. Nicholas’ eve[1077]. The ‘bishop’ is again mentioned in 1490, but in 1515 the feast was suppressed by Francis de Melun, bishop of Arras and provost of St. Omer[1078]. Some payments made by the chapter of Béthune in 1445 and 1474 leave it doubtful how far the feast was really established in that cathedral[1079]. At Lille the feast was forbidden by the chapter statutes of 1323 and 1328[1080]. But at the end of the fourteenth century it was in full swing, lasting under its ‘bishop’ or ‘prelate’ from the vigil to the octave of Epiphany. Amongst the payments made by the chapter on account of it is one to replace a tin can (_kanne stannee_) lost at the banquet. The ‘bishop’ was chosen, as elsewhere, by the inferior clergy of the cathedral; but he also stood in some relation to the municipality of Lille, and superintended the miracle plays performed at the procession of the Holy Sacrament and upon other occasions. In 1393 he received a payment from the duke of Burgundy for the _fête_ of the _Trois Rois_. Municipal subsidies were paid to him in the fifteenth century; he collected additional funds from private sources and offered prizes, by proclamation _soubz nostre seel de fatuité_, for pageants and _histoires de la Sainte Escripture_; was, in fact, a sort of Master of the Revels for Lille. He was active in 1468, but in 1469 the town itself gave the prizes, in place _de l’evesque des folz, qui à présent est rué jus_. The chapter accounts show that he was reappointed in 1485 _hoc anno, de gratia speciali_. In 1492 and 1493 the chapter payments were not to him but _sociis domus clericorum_, and from this year onwards he appears neither in the chapter accounts nor in those of the municipality[1081]. Nevertheless, he did not yet cease to exist, for a statute was passed by the chapter for his extinction, together with that of the _ludus, quem Deposuit vocant_, in 1531[1082]. Five years before this the canons and vicars were still wearing masks and playing comedies in public[1083]. The history of the feast at Tournai is only known to me through certain legal proceedings which took place before the _Parlement_ of Paris in 1499. It appears that the young _bourgeois_ of Tournai were accustomed to require the vicars of Notre-Dame to choose an _évesque des sotz_ from amongst themselves on Innocents’ day. In 1489 they took one Matthieu de Porta and insulted him in the church itself. The chapter brought an action in the local court against the _prévost et jurez_ of the town; and in the meantime obtained provisional letters inhibitory from Charles VIII, forbidding the vicars to hold the feast or the _bourgeois_ to enforce it. All went well for some years, but in 1497 the _bourgeois_ grumbled greatly, and in 1498, with the connivance of the municipal authorities themselves, they broke out. On the eve of the Holy Innocents, between nine and ten o’clock, Jacques de l’Arcq, mayor of the _Edwardeurs_, and others got into the house of Messire Pasquier le Pâme, a chaplain, and dragged him half naked, through snow and frost, to a _cabaret_. Seven or eight other vicars, one of whom was found saying his Hours in a churchyard, were similarly treated, and as none of them would be made _évesque des sotz_ they were all kept prisoners. The chapter protested to the _prévost et jurez_, but in vain. On the following day the _bourgeois_ chose one of the vicars _évesque_, baptized him by torchlight with three buckets of water at a fountain, led him about for three days in a surplice, and played scurrilous farces. They then dismissed the vicar, and elected as _évesque_ a clerk from the diocese of Cambrai, who defied the chapter. They drove Jean Parisiz, the _curé_ of La Madeleine, who had displeased them, from his church in the midst of Vespers, and on Epiphany day made him too a prisoner. In the following March the chapter and Messire Jean Parisiz brought a joint action before the High Court at Paris against the delinquents and the municipal authorities, who had backed them up. The case came on for hearing in November, when it was pleaded that the custom of electing an _évesque des sotz_ upon Innocents’ day was an ancient one. The ceremony took place upon a scaffold near the church door; there were _jeux_ in the streets for seven or eight days, and a final _convici_ in which the canons and others of the town were satirized. The chapter and some of the citizens sent bread and wine. The same thing was done in many dioceses of Picardy, and even in Paris. It was all _ad solacium populi_, and divine service was not disturbed, for nobody entered the church. The vicar who had been chosen _évesque_ thought it a great and unexpected honour. There would have been no trouble had not the _évesque_ when distributing hoods with ears at the end of the _jeux_ unfortunately included certain persons who would rather have been left out, and who consequently stirred up the chapter to take action. The court adjourned the case, and ultimately it appears to have been settled, for one of the documents preserved is endorsed with a note of a _concordat_ between the chapter and the town, by which the feast was abolished in 1500[1084].
Of the Feast of Fools in central France I can say but little. At Chartres, the _Papi-Fol_ and his cardinals committed many insolences during the first four days of the year, and exacted _droits_ from passers-by. They were suppressed in 1479 and again in 1504[1085]. At Tours a _Ritual_ of the fourteenth century contains elaborate directions for the _festum novi anni, quod non debet remanere, nisi corpora sint humi_. This is clearly a reformed feast, of which the chief features are the dramatic procession of the _Prophetae_, including doubtless Balaam on his ass, in church, and a _miraculum_ in the cloister[1086]. The ‘Boy Bishop’ gives the benediction at Tierce, and before Vespers there are _chori_ (carols, I suppose) also in the cloisters. At Vespers _Deposuit_ is sung three times, and the _baculus_ may be taken. If so, the _thesaurarius_ is beaten with _baculi_ by the clergy at Compline, and the new _cantor_ is led home with beating of _baculi_ on the walls[1087]. At Bourges, the use of the ‘Prose of the Ass’ in Notre-Dame de Sales seems to imply the existence of the feast, but I know no details[1088]. At Avallon the _dominus festi_ seems to have been, as at Laon, a ‘patriarch,’ and to have officiated on Innocents’ day. A chapter statute regulated the proceedings in 1453, and another abolished them in 1510[1089]. At Auxerre, full accounts of a long chapter wrangle are preserved in the register[1090]. It began in 1395 with an order requiring the decent performance of the _servitium_, and imposing a fee upon newly admitted canons towards the feast. In 1396 the feast was not held, owing to the recent defeat of Sigismund of Hungary and the count of Nevers by Bajazet and his Ottomans at Nicopolis[1091]. In 1398 the dean entered a protest against a grant of wine made by the chapter to the thirsty revellers. In 1400 a further order was passed to check various abuses, the excessive ringing of bells, the licence of the _sermones fatui_, the impounding of copes in pledge for contributions, the beating of men and women through the streets, and all _derisiones_ likely to bring discredit on the church[1092]. In the following January, the bishop of Auxerre, Michel de Crency, intervened, forbidding the _fatui_ to form a ‘chapter,’ or to appoint ‘proctors,’ or _clamare la fête aux fous_ after the singing of the Hours in the church. This led to a storm. The bishop brought an action in the secular court, and the chapter appealed to the ecclesiastical court of the Sens province. In June, however, it was agreed as part of a general _concordat_ between the parties, that all these proceedings should be _non avenu_[1093]. It seems, however, to have been understood that the chapter would reform the feast. On December 2, the abbot of Pontigny preached a sermon before the chapter in favour of the abolition of the feast, and on the following day the dean came down and warned the canons that it was the intention of the University of Paris to take action, even if necessary, by calling in the secular arm[1094]. It was better to reform themselves than to be reformed. It was then agreed to suppress the abuses of the feast, the sermons and the wearing of unecclesiastical garb, and to hold nothing but a _festum subdiaconorum_ on the day of the Circumcision. Outside the church, however, the clergy might dance and promenade (_chorizare ... et ... spatiare_) on the _place_ of St. Stephen’s. These regulations were disregarded, on the plea that they were intended to apply only to the year in which they were made. In 1407 the chapter declared that they were to be permanent, but strong opposition was offered to this decision by three canons, Jean Piqueron, himself a sub-deacon, Jean Bonat, and Jean Berthome, who maintained that the _concordat_ with the bishop was for reform, not for abolition. The matter was before the chapter for the last time, so far as the extant documents go, in 1411. On January 2, the dean reported that in spite of the prohibition certain _canonici tortrarii_[1095], chaplains and choir-clerks had held the feast. A committee of investigation was appointed, and in December the prohibition was renewed. Jean Piqueron was once more a protestant, and on this occasion obtained the support of five colleagues[1096]. It may be added that in the sixteenth century an _abbas stultorum_ was still annually elected on July 18, beneath a great elm at the porch of Auxerre cathedral. He was charged with the maintenance of certain small points of choir discipline[1097].
In Franche Comté and Burgundy, the Feast of Fools is also found. At Besançon it was celebrated by all the four great churches. In the cathedrals of St. John and St. Stephen, ‘cardinals’ were chosen on St. Stephen’s day by the deacons and sub-deacons, on St. John’s day by the priests, on the Holy Innocents’ day by the choir-clerks and choir-boys. In the collegiate churches of St. Paul and St. Mary Magdalen, ‘bishops’ or ‘abbots’ were similarly chosen. All these _domini festorum_ seem to have had the generic title of _rois des fous_, and on the choir-feast four cavalcades went about the streets and exchanged railleries (_se chantaient pouille_) when they met. In 1387 the _Statutes_ of cardinal Thomas of Naples ordered that the feasts should be held jointly in each church in turn; and in 1518 the cavalcades were suppressed, owing to a conflict upon the bridge which had a fatal ending. Up to 1710, however, _reges_ were still elected in St. Mary Magdalen’s; not, indeed, those for the three feasts of Christmas week, but a _rex capellanorum_ and a _rex canonicorum_, who officiated respectively on the Circumcision and on Epiphany[1098]. At Autun the feast of the _baculus_ in the thirteenth century has already been recorded. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries some interesting notices are available in the chapter registers[1099]. In 1411 the feast required reforming. The canons were ordered to attend in decent clothes as on the Nativity; and the custom of leading an ass in procession and singing a _cantilena_ thereon was suppressed[1100]. In 1412 the abolition of the feast was decreed[1101]. But in 1484 it was sanctioned again, and licence was given to punish those who failed to put in an appearance at the Hours by burning at the well[1102]. This custom, however, was forbidden in 1498[1103]. Nothing more is heard of the _asinus_, but it is possible that he figured in the play of _Herod_ which was undoubtedly performed at the feast, and which gave a name to the _dominus festi_[1104]. Under the general name of _festa fatuorum_ was included at Autun, besides the feast of the Circumcision, also that of the ‘bishop’ and ‘dean’ of Innocents, and a _missa fatuorum_ was sung _ex ore infantium_ from the Innocents’ day to Epiphany[1105]. In 1499 Jean Rolin, abbot of St. Martin’s and dean of Autun, led a renewed attack upon the feast. He had armed himself with a letter from Louis XI, and induced the chapter, in virtue of the Basle decree, to suppress both Herod and the ‘bishop’ of Innocents[1106]. In 1514 and 1515 the play of _Herod_ was performed; but in 1518, when application was made to the chapter to sanction the election of both a ‘Herod’ and the ‘bishop’ and ‘dean’ of Innocents, they applied to the king’s official for leave, and failed to get it. Finally in 1535 the chapter recurred to the Basle decree, and again forbade the feast, particularly specifying under the name of _Gaigizons_ the obnoxious ceremony of ‘ducking.[1107]’ The feast held in the ducal, afterwards royal chapel of Dijon yields documents which are unique, because they are in French verse. The first is a _mandement_ of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, in 1454, confirming, on the request of the _haut-Bâtonnier_, the privilege of the fête, against those who would abolish it. He declares
‘Que cette Fête célébrée Soit à jamais un jour l’année, Le premier du mois de Janvier; Et que joyeux Fous sans dangier, De l’habit de notre Chapelle, Fassent la Fête bonne et belle, Sans outrage ni derision.’
In 1477 Louis XI seized Burgundy, and in 1482 his representatives, Jean d’Amboise, bishop and duke of Langres, lieutenant of the duchy, and Baudricourt the governor, accorded to Guy Baroset
‘Protonotaire et Procureur des Foux,’
a fresh confirmation for the privilege of the feast held by
‘Le Bâtonnier et tous ses vrais suppôts[1108].’
There was a second feast in Dijon at the church of St. Stephen. In 1494 it was the custom here, as at Sens, to shave the ‘precentor’ of Fools upon a stage before the church. In 1621 the vicars still paraded the streets with music and lanterns in honour of their ‘precentor[1109].’ In 1552, however, the Feasts of Fools throughout Burgundy had been prohibited by an _arrêt_ of the _Parlement_ of Dijon. This was immediately provoked by the desire of the chapter of St. Vincent’s at Châlons-sur-Saône to end the scandal of the feast under their jurisdiction. It was, however, general in its terms, and probably put an end to the _Chapelle_ feast at Dijon, since to about this period may be traced the origin of the famous _compagnie_ of the _Mère-Folle_ in that city[1110].
In Dauphiné there was a _rex et festum fatuorum_ at St. Apollinaire’s in Valence, but I cannot give the date[1111]. At Vienne the _Statutes_ of St. Maurice, passed in 1385, forbid the _abbas stultorum seu sociorum_, but apparently allow _rois_ on the Circumcision and Epiphany, as well as in the three post-Nativity feasts. They also forbid certain _ludibria_. No _pasquinades_ are to be recited, and no one is to be carried _in Rost_ or to have his property put in pawn[1112]. More can be said of the feast at Viviers. A _Ceremonial_ of 1365 contains minute directions for its conduct[1113]. On December 17 the _sclafardi et clericuli_ chose an _abbas stultus_ to be responsible, as at Auxerre, for the decorum of the choir throughout the year. He was shouldered and borne to a place of honour at a drinking-bout. Here even the bishop, if present, must do him honour. After the drinking, the company divided into two parts, one composed of inferior clergy, the other of dignitaries, and sang a doggerel song, each endeavouring to sing its rival down. They shouted, hissed, howled, cackled, jeered and gesticulated; and the victors mocked and flouted the vanquished. Then the door-keeper made a proclamation on behalf of the ‘abbot,’ calling on all to follow him, on pain of having their breeches slit, and the whole crew rushed violently out of the church. A progress through the town followed, which was repeated daily until Christmas eve[1114]. On the three post-Nativity feasts, a distinct _dominus festi_, the _episcopus stultus_, apparently elected the previous year, took the place of the _abbas_. On each of these days he presided at Matins, Mass, and Vespers, sat in full pontificals on the bishop’s throne, attended by his ‘chaplain,’ and gave the Benedictions. Both on St. Stephen’s and St. John’s days these were followed by the recitation of a burlesque formula of indulgence[1115]. The whole festivity seems to have concluded on Innocents’ day with the election of a new _episcopus_, who, after the shouldering and the drinking-bout, took his stand at a window of the great hall of the bishop’s palace, and blessed the people of the city[1116]. The _episcopus_ was bound to give a supper to his fellows. In 1406 one William Raynoard attempted to evade this obligation. An action was brought against him in the court of the bishop’s official, by the then _abbas_ and his predecessor. It was referred to the arbitration of three canons, who decided that Raynoard must give the supper on St. Bartholomew’s next, August 24, at the accustomed place (a tavern, one fears) in the little village of Gras, near Viviers[1117].
Finally, there are examples of the Feast of Fools in Provence. At Arles it was held in the church of St. Trophime, and is said to have been presented, out of its due season, it may be supposed, for the amusement of the Emperor Charles IV at his coronation in 1365, to have scandalized him and so to have met its end[1118]. Nevertheless in the fifteenth century an ‘archbishop of Innocents,’ _alias stultus_, still sang the ‘_O_’ on St. Thomas’s day, officiated on the days of St. John and the Innocents, and on St. Trophime’s day (Dec. 29) paid a visit to the _abadesse fole_ of the convent of Saint-Césaire. The real abbess of this convent was bound to provide chicken, bread and wine for his regaling[1119]. At Fréjus in 1558 an attempt to put down the feast led to a riot. The bishop, Léon des Ursins, was threatened with murder, and had to hide while his palace was stormed[1120]. At Aix the chapter of St. Saviour’s chose on St. Thomas’s day, an _episcopus fatuus vel Innocentium_ from the choir-boys. He officiated on Innocents’ day, and boys and canons exchanged stalls. The custom lasted until at least 1585[1121]. Antibes, as late as 1645, affords a rare example of the feast held by a religious house. It was on Innocents’ day in the church of the Franciscans. The choir and office were left to the lay-brothers, the _quêteurs_, cooks and gardeners. These put on the vestments inside out, held the books upside down, and wore spectacles with rounds of orange peel instead of glasses. They blew the ashes from the censers upon each other’s faces and heads, and instead of the proper liturgy chanted confused and inarticulate gibberish. All this is recorded by the contemporary free-thinker Mathurin de Neuré in a letter to his leader and inspirer, Gassendi[1122].
It will be noticed that the range of the Feast of Fools in France, so far as I have come across it, seems markedly to exclude the west and south-west of the country. I have not been able to verify an alleged exception at Bordeaux[1123]. Possibly there is some ethnographical reason for this. But on the whole, I am inclined to think that it is an accident, and that a more complete investigation would disclose a sufficiency of examples in this area. Outside France, the Feast of Fools is of much less importance. The Spanish disciplinary councils appear to make no specific mention of it, although they know the cognate feast of the Boy Bishop, and more than once prohibit _ludi_, _choreae_, and so forth, in general terms[1124]. In Germany, again, I do not know of a case in which the term ‘Fools’ is used. But the feast itself occurs sporadically. As early as the twelfth century, Herrad von Landsberg, abbess of Hohenburg, complained that miracle-plays, such as that of the _Magi_, instituted on Epiphany and its octave by the Fathers of the Church, had given place to licence, buffoonery and quarrelling. The priests came into the churches dressed as knights, to drink and play in the company of courtesans[1125]. A Mosburg _Gradual_ of 1360 contains a series of _cantiones_ compiled and partly written by the dean John von Perchausen for use when the _scholarium episcopus_ was chosen at the Nativity[1126]. Some of these, however, are shown by their headings or by internal evidence to belong rather to a New Year’s day feast, than to one on Innocents’ day[1127]. A _festum baculi_ is mentioned and an _episcopus_ or _praesul_ who is chosen and enthroned. One carol has the following refrain[1128]:
‘gaudeamus et psallamus novo praesuli ad honorem et decorem sumpti baculi.’
Another is so interesting, for its classical turn, and for the names which it gives to the ‘bishop’ and his crew that I quote it in full[1129].
1. Gregis pastor Tityrus, asinorum dominus, noster est episcopus.
R^o. eia, eia, eia, vocant nos ad gaudia Tityri cibaria.
2. ad honorem Tityri, festum colant baculi satrapae et asini.
R^o. eia, eia, eia, vocant nos ad gaudia; Tityri cibaria.
3. applaudamus Tityro cum melodis organo, cum chordis et tympano.
4. veneremur Tityrum, qui nos propter baculum invitat ad epulum.
The reforms of the council of Basle were adopted for Germany by the Emperor Albrecht II in the _Instrumentum Acceptationis_ of Mainz in 1439. In 1536 the council of Cologne, quoting the decretal of Innocent III, condemned _theatrales ludi_ in churches. A Cologne _Ritual_ preserves an account of the sub-deacons’ feast upon the octave of Epiphany[1130]. The sub-deacons were _hederaceo serto coronati_. Tapers were lit, and a _rex_ chosen, who acted as _hebdomarius_ from first to second Vespers. Carols were sung, as at Mosburg[1131].
John Huss, early in the fifteenth century, describes the Feast of Fools as it existed in far-off Bohemia[1132]. The revellers, of whom, to his remorse, Huss had himself been one as a lad, wore masks. A clerk, grotesquely vested, was dubbed ‘bishop,’ set on an ass with his face to the tail, and led to mass in the church. He was regaled on a platter of broth and a bowl of beer, and Huss recalls the unseemly revel which took place[1133]. Torches were borne instead of candles, and the clergy turned their garments inside out, and danced. These _ludi_ had been forbidden by one archbishop John of holy memory.
It would be surprising, in view of the close political and ecclesiastical relations between mediaeval France and England, if the Feast of Fools had not found its way across the channel. It did; but apparently it never became so inveterate as successfully to resist the disciplinary zeal of reforming bishops, and the few notices of it are all previous to the end of the fourteenth century. It seems to have lasted longest at Lincoln, and at Beverley. Of Lincoln, it will be remembered, Pierre de Corbeil, the probable compiler of the Sens _Officium_, was at one time coadjutor bishop. Robert Grosseteste, whose attack upon the _Inductio Maii_ and other village festivals served as a starting-point for this discussion, was no less intolerant of the Feast of Fools. In 1236 he forbade it to be held either in the cathedral or elsewhere in the diocese[1134]; and two years later he included the prohibition in his formal _Constitutions_[1135]. But after another century and a half, when William Courtney, archbishop of Canterbury, made a visitation of Lincoln in 1390, he found that the vicars were still in the habit of disturbing divine service on January 1, in the name of the feast[1136]. Probably his strict mandate put a stop to the custom[1137]. At almost precisely the same date the Feast of Fools was forbidden by the statutes of Beverley minster, although the sub-deacons and other inferior clergy were still to receive a special commons on the day of the Circumcision[1138]. Outside Lincoln and Beverley, the feast is only known in England by the mention of paraphernalia for it in thirteenth-century inventories of St. Paul’s[1139], and Salisbury[1140], and by a doubtful allusion in a sophisticated version of the St. George play[1141].
A brief summary of the data concerning the Feast of Fools presented in this and the preceding chapter is inevitable. It may be combined with some indication of the relation in which the feast stands with regard to the other feasts dealt with in the present volume. If we look back to Belethus in the twelfth century we find him speaking of the Feast of Fools as held on the Circumcision, on Epiphany or on the octave of Epiphany, and as being specifically a feast of sub-deacons. Later records bear out on the whole the first of these statements. As a rule the feast focussed on the Circumcision, although the rejoicings were often prolonged, and the election of the _dominus festi_ in some instances gave rise to a minor celebration on an earlier day. Occasionally (Noyon, Laon) the Epiphany, once at least (Cologne) the octave of the Epiphany, takes the place of the Circumcision. But we also find the term Feast of Fools extended to cover one or more of three feasts, distinguished from it by Belethus, which immediately follow Christmas. Sometimes it includes them all three (Besançon, Viviers, Vienne), sometimes the feast of the Innocents alone (Autun, Avallon, Aix, Antibes, Arles), once the feast of St. Stephen (Châlons-sur-Marne)[1142]. On the other hand, the definition of the feast as a sub-deacons’ feast is not fully applicable to its later developments. Traces of a connexion with the sub-deacons appear more than once (Amiens, Sens, Auxerre, Beverley); but as a rule the feast is held by the inferior clergy known as vicars, chaplains, and choir-clerks, all of whom are grouped at Viviers and Romans under the general term of _esclaffardi_. At Laon a part is taken in it by the _curés_ of the various parishes in the city. The explanation is, I think, fairly obvious. Originally, perhaps, the sub-deacons held the feast, just as the deacons, priests, and boys held theirs in Christmas week. But it had its vogue mainly in the great cathedrals served by secular canons[1143], and in these the distinction between the canons in different orders--for a sub-deacon might be a full canon[1144]--was of less importance than the difference between the canons as a whole and the minor clergy who made up the rest of the cathedral body, the hired choir-clerks, the vicars choral who, originally at least, supplied the place in the choir of absent canons, and the chaplains who served the chantries or small foundations attached to the cathedral[1145]. The status of spiritual dignity gave way to the status of material preferment. And so, as the vicars gradually coalesced into a corporation of their own, the Feast of Fools passed into their hands, and became a celebration of the annual election of the head of their body[1146]. The vicars and their associates were probably an ill-educated and an ill-paid class. Certainly they were difficult to discipline[1147]; and it is not surprising that their rare holiday, of which the expenses were met partly by the chapter, partly by dues levied upon themselves or upon the bystanders[1148], was an occasion for popular rather than refined merry-making[1149]. That it should perpetuate or absorb folk-customs was also, considering the peasant or small _bourgeois_ extraction of such men, quite natural.
The simple psychology of the last two sentences really gives the key to the nature of the feast. It was largely an ebullition of the natural lout beneath the cassock. The vicars hooted and sang improper ditties, and played dice upon the altar, in a reaction from the wonted restraints of choir discipline. Familiarity breeds contempt, and it was almost an obvious sport to burlesque the sacred and tedious ceremonies with which they were only too painfully familiar. Indeed, the reverend founders and reformers of the feast had given a lead to this apishness by the introduction of the symbolical transference of the _baculus_ at the _Deposuit_ in the _Magnificat_. The ruling idea of the feast is the inversion of status, and the performance, inevitably burlesque, by the inferior clergy of functions properly belonging to their betters. The fools jangle the bells (Paris, Amiens, Auxerre), they take the higher stalls (Paris), sing dissonantly (Sens), repeat meaningless words (Châlons, Antibes), say the _messe liesse_ (Laon) or the _missa fatuorum_ (Autun), preach the _sermones fatui_ (Auxerre), cense _praepostere_ (St. Omer) with pudding and sausage (Beauvais) or with old shoes (Paris theologians). They have their chapter and their proctors (Auxerre, Dijon). They install their _dominus festi_ with a ceremony of _sacre_ (Troyes), or shaving (Sens, Dijon). He is vested in full pontificals, goes in procession, as at the _Rabardiaux_ of Laon, gives the benedictions, issues indulgences (Viviers), has his seal (Lille), perhaps his right of coining (Laon). Much in all these proceedings was doubtless the merest horseplay; such ingenuity and humour as they required may have been provided by the wicked wit of the _goliardi_[1150].
Now I would point out that this inversion of status so characteristic of the Feast of Fools is equally characteristic of folk-festivals. What is Dr. Frazer’s mock king but one of the meanest of the people chosen out to represent the real king as the priest victim of a divine sacrifice, and surrounded, for the period of the feast, in a naïve attempt to outwit heaven, with all the paraphernalia and luxury of kingship? Precisely such a mock king is the _dominus festi_ with whom we have to do. His actual titles, indeed, are generally ecclesiastical. Most often he is a ‘bishop,’ or ‘prelate’ (Senlis); in metropolitan churches an ‘archbishop,’ in churches exempt from other authority than that of the Holy See, a ‘pope’ (Amiens, Senlis, Chartres). More rarely he is a ‘patriarch’ (Laon, Avallon), a ‘cardinal’ (Paris, Besançon), an ‘abbot’ (Vienne, Viviers, Romans, Auxerre)[1151], or is even content with the humbler dignity of ‘precentor,’ ‘_bacularius_’ or ‘_bâtonnier_’ (Sens, Dijon). At Autun he is, quite exceptionally, ‘Herod.’ Nevertheless the term ‘king’ is not unknown. It is found at Noyon, at Vienne, at Besançon, at Beverley, and the council of Basle testifies to its use, as well as that of ‘duke.’ Nor is it, after all, of much importance what the _dominus festi_ is called. The point is that his existence and functions in the ecclesiastical festivals afford precise parallels to his existence and functions in folk-festivals all Europe over.
Besides the ‘king’ many other features of the folk-festivals may readily be traced at the Feast of Fools. Some here, some there, they jot up in the records. There are dance and _chanson_, _tripudium_ and _cantilena_ (Noyon, Châlons-sur-Marne, Paris theologians, council of Basle). There is eating and drinking, not merely in the refectory, but within or at the doors of the church itself (Paris theologians, Beauvais, Prague). There is ball-playing (Châlons-sur-Marne). There is the procession or cavalcade through the streets (Laon, Châlons-sur-Marne, &c.). There are torches and lanterns (Sens, Tournai). Men are led _nudi_ (Sens); they are whipped (Tours); they are ceremonially ducked or roasted (Sens, Tournai, Vienne, _les Gaigizons_ at Autun)[1152]. A comparison with earlier chapters of the present volume will establish the significance which these points, taken in bulk, possess. Equally characteristic of folk-festivals is the costume considered proper to the feasts. The riotous clergy wear their vestments inside out (Antibes), or exchange dress with the laity (Lincoln, Paris theologians). But they also wear leaves or flowers (Sens, Laon, Cologne) and women’s dress (Paris theologians); and above all they wear hideous and monstrous masks, _larvae_ or _personae_ (decretal of 1207, Paris theologians, council of Basle, Paris, Soissons, Laon, Lille). These masks, indeed, are perhaps the one feature of the feast which called down the most unqualified condemnation from the ecclesiastical authorities. We shall not be far wrong if we assume them to have been beast-masks, and to have taken the place of the actual skins and heads of sacrificial animals, here, as so often, worn at the feast by the worshippers.
An attempt has been made to find an oriental origin for the Feast of Fools[1153]. Gibbon relates the insults offered to the church at Constantinople by the Emperor Michael III, the ‘Drunkard’ (842-67)[1154]. A noisy crew of courtiers dressed themselves in the sacred vestments. One Theophilus or Grylus, captain of the guard, a mime and buffoon, was chosen as a mock ‘patriarch.’ The rest were his twelve ‘metropolitans,’ Michael himself being entitled ‘metropolitan of Cologne.’ The ‘divine mysteries’ were burlesqued with vinegar and mustard in a golden cup set with gems. Theophilus rode about the streets of the city on a white ass, and when he met the real patriarch Ignatius, exposed him to the mockery of the revellers. After the death of Michael, this profanity was solemnly anathematized by the council of Constantinople held under his successor Basil in 869[1155]. Theophilus, though he borrowed the vestments for his mummery, seems to have carried it on in the streets and the palace, not in the church. In the tenth century, however, the patriarch Theophylactus won an unenviable reputation by admitting dances and profane songs into the ecclesiastical festivals[1156]; while in the twelfth, the patriarch Balsamon describes his own unavailing struggle against proceedings at Christmas and Candlemas, which come uncommonly near the Feast of Fools. The clergy of St. Sophia’s, he says, claim as of ancient custom to wear masks, and to enter the church in the guise of soldiers, or of monks, or of four-footed animals. The superintendents snap their fingers like charioteers, or paint their faces and mimic women. The rustics are moved to laughter by the pouring of wine into pitchers, and are allowed to chant _Kyrie eleison_ in ludicrous iteration at every verse[1157]. Balsamon, who died in 1193, was almost precisely a contemporary of Belethus, and the earlier Byzantine notices considerably ante-date any records that we possess of the Feast of Fools in the West. A slight corroboration of this theory of an eastern origin may be derived from the use of the term ‘patriarch’ for the _dominus festi_ at Laon and Avallon. It would, I think, be far-fetched to find another in the fact that Theophilus, like the western ‘bishops’ of Fools, rode upon an ass, and that the _Prose de l’Âne_ begins:
‘Orientis partibus, adventavit asinus.’
In any case, the oriental example can hardly be responsible for more than the admission of the feast within the doors of the church. One cannot doubt that it was essentially an adaptation of a folk-custom long perfectly well known in the West itself. The question of origin had already presented itself to the learned writers of the thirteenth century. William of Auxerre, by a misunderstanding which I shall hope to explain, traced the Feast of Fools to the Roman _Parentalia_: Durandus, and the Paris theologians after him, to the January Kalends. Certainly Durandus was right. The Kalends, unlike the more specifically Italian feasts, were co-extensive with the Roman empire, and were naturally widespread in Gaul. The date corresponds precisely with that by far the most common for the Feast of Fools. A singular history indeed, that of the ecclesiastical celebration of the First of January. Up to the eighth century a fast, with its mass _pro prohibendo ab idolis_, it gradually took on a festal character, and became ultimately the one feast in the year in which paganism made its most startling and persistent recoil upon Christianity. The attacks upon the Kalends in the disciplinary documents form a catena which extends very nearly to the point at which the notices of the Feast of Fools begin. In each alike the masking, in mimicry of beasts and probably of beast-gods or ‘demons,’ appears to have been a prominent and highly reprobated feature. It is true that we hear nothing of a _dominus festi_ at the Kalends; but much stress must not be laid upon the omission of the disciplinary writers to record any one point in a custom which after all they were not describing as anthropologists, and it would certainly be an exceptional Germano-Keltic folk-feast which had not a _dominus_. As a matter of fact, there is no mention of a _rex_ in the accounts of the pre-Christian Kalends in Italy itself. There was a _rex_ at the _Saturnalia_, and this, together with an allusion of Belethus in a quite different connexion to the _libertas Decembrica_[1158], has led some writers to find in the _Saturnalia_, rather than the Kalends, the origin of the Feast of Fools[1159]. This is, I venture to think, wrong. The _Saturnalia_ were over well before December 25: there is no evidence that they had a vogue outside Italy: the Kalends, like the _Saturnalia_, were an occasion at which slaves met their masters upon equal terms, and I believe that the existence of a Kalends _rex_, both in Italy and in Gaul, may be taken for granted.
But the parallel between Kalends and the Feast of Fools cannot be held to be quite perfect, unless we can trace in the latter feast that most characteristic of all Kalends customs, the _Cervulus_. Is it possible that a representative of the _Cervulus_ is to be found in the Ass, who, whether introduced from Constantinople or not, gave to the Feast of Fools one of its popular names? The Feast of Asses has been the sport of controversialists who had not, and were at no great pains to have, the full facts before them. I do not propose to awake once more these ancient angers[1160]. The facts themselves are briefly these. The ‘Prose of the Ass’ was used at Bourges, at Sens, and at Beauvais. As to the Bourges feast I have no details. At Sens, the use of the Prose by Pierre de Corbeil is indeed no proof that he allowed an ass to appear in the ceremony. But the Prose would not have much point unless it was at least a survival from a time when an ass did appear; the feast was known as the _asinaria festa_; and even now, three centuries after it was abolished, the Sens choir-boys still play at being _âne_ archbishop on Innocents’ day[1161]. At Beauvais the heading _Conductus quando asinus adducitur_ in the thirteenth-century _Officium_ seems to show that there at least the ass appeared, and even entered the church. The document, also of the thirteenth century, quoted by the editors of Ducange, certainly brings him, in the ceremony of January 14, into the church and near the altar. An imitation of his braying is introduced into the service itself. At Autun the leading of an ass _ad processionem_, and the _cantilena super dictum asinum_ were suppressed in 1411. At Châlons-sur-Marne in 1570 an ass bore the ‘bishop’ to the theatre at the church door only. At Prague, on the other hand, towards the end of the fourteenth century, an ass was led, as at Beauvais, right into the church. These, with doubtful references to _fêtes des ânes_ at St. Quentin about 1081, at Béthune in 1474, and at Laon in 1527, and the Mosburg description of the ‘bishop’ as _asinorum dominus_, are all the cases I have found in which an ass has anything to do with the feast. But they are enough to prove that an ass was an early and widespread, though not an invariable feature. I may quote here a curious survival in a _ronde_ from the west of France, said to have been sung at church doors on January 1[1162]. It is called _La Mort de l’Âne_, and begins:
‘Quand le bonhomme s’en va, Quand le bonhomme s’en va, Trouvit la tête à son âne, Que le loup mangit au bois.
_Parlé._ O tête, pauvre tête, Tâ qui chantas si bé _L’Magnificat_ à Vêpres.
Daux matin à quat’ leçons, La sambredondon, bredondaine, Daux matin à quat’ léçons, La sambredondon.’
This, like the Sens choir-boys’ custom of calling their ‘archbishop’ _âne_, would seem to suggest that the _dominus festi_ was himself the ass, with a mask on; and this may have been sometimes the case. But in most of the mediaeval instances the ass was probably used to ride. At Prague, so far as one can judge from Huss’s description, he was a real ass. There is no proof in any of the French examples that he was, or was not, merely a ‘hobby-ass.’ If he was, he came all the nearer to the _Cervulus_.
It has been pointed out, and will, in the next volume, be pointed out again, that the ecclesiastical authorities attempted to sanctify the spirit of play at the Feast of Fools and similar festivities by diverting the energies of the revellers to _ludi_ of the miracle-play order. In such _ludi_ they found a place for the ass. He appears for instance as Balaam’s ass in the later versions from Laon and Rouen of the _Prophetae_, and at Rouen he gave to the whole of this performance the name of the _festum_ or _processio asinorum_[1163]. At Hamburg, by a curious combination, he is at once Balaam’s ass and the finder of the star in a _ludus Trium Regum_[1164]. His use as the mount of the Virgin on January 14 at Beauvais, and on some uncertain day at Sens, seems to suggest another favourite episode in such _ludi_, that of the Flight into Egypt. At Varennes, in Picardy, and at Bayonne, exist carved wooden groups representing this event. That of Varennes is carried in procession; that of Bayonne is the object of pilgrimage on the _fêtes_ of the Virgin[1165].
Not at the Feast of Fools alone, or at the miracle-plays connected with this feast, did the ass make its appearance in Christian worship. It stood with the ox, on the morning of the Nativity, beside the Christmas crib. On Palm Sunday it again formed part of a procession, in the semblance of the beast on which Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem[1166]. A Cambrai _Ordinarium_ quoted by Ducange directs that the _asina picta_ shall remain behind the altar for four days[1167]. Kirchmeyer describes the custom as it existed during the sixteenth century in Germany[1168]; and the stray tourist who drops into the wonderful collection of domestic and ecclesiastical antiquities in the Barfüsserkirche at Basle will find there three specimens of the _Palmesel_, including a thirteenth-century one from Bayern and a seventeenth-century one from Elsass. The third is not labelled with its _provenance_, but it is on wheels and has a hole for the rope by which it was dragged round the church. All three are of painted wood, and upon each is a figure representing Christ[1169].
The affiliation of the ecclesiastical New Year revelries to the pagan Kalends does not explain why those who took part in them were called ‘Fools.’ The obvious thing to say is that they were called ‘Fools’ because they played the fool; and indeed their mediaeval critics were not slow to draw this inference. But it is noteworthy that pagan Rome already had its Feast of Fools, which, indeed, had nothing to do with the Kalends. The _stultorum feriae_ on February 17 was the last day on which the _Fornacalia_ or ritual sacrifice of the _curiae_ was held. Upon it all the _curiae_ sacrificed in common, and it therefore afforded an opportunity for any citizen who did not know which his _curia_ was to partake in the ceremony[1170]. I am not prepared to say that the _stultorum feriae_ gave its name to the Feast of Fools; but the identity of the two names certainly seems to explain some of the statements which mediaeval scholars make about that feast. It explains William of Auxerre’s derivation of it from the _Parentalia_, for the _stultorum feriae_ fell in the midst of the _Parentalia_[1171]. And I think it explains the remark of Belethus, and, following him, of Durandus, about the _ordo subdiaconorum_ being _incertus_. The sub-deacons were a regular _ordo_, the highest of the _ordines minores_ from the third century[1172]. But Belethus seems to be struggling with the notion that the sub-deacons’ feast, closing the series of post-Nativity feasts held by deacons, priests and choir-boys, was in some way parallel to the _feriae_ of the Roman _stulti_ who were _incerti_ as to their _curia_.
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