THE FEAST OF FOOLS
[_Bibliographical Note._--The best recent accounts of the Feast
of Fools as a whole are those of G. M. Dreves in _Stimmen aus
Maria-Laach_ (1894), xlvii. 571, and Heuser in Wetzer and
Welte, _Kirchenlexicon_ (ed. 2), iv. 1402, s. v. _Feste_ (2),
and an article in _Zeitschrift für Philosophie und katholische
Theologie_ (Bonn, 1850), N. F. xi. 2. 161. There is also a
summary by F. Loliée in _Revue des Revues_, xxv (1898), 400.
The articles by L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud in _Superstitions et
Survivances_ (1896), vol. iv, and in _La Tradition_, viii.
153; ix. 1 are unscholarly compilations. A pamphlet by J. X.
Carré de Busserolle, published in 1859, I have not been able
to see; another, or a reprint of the same, was promised in his
series of _Usages singuliers de Touraine_, but as far as I know
never appeared. Of the older learning the interest is mainly
polemical in J. Deslyons, _Traitez singuliers et nouveaux contre
le Paganisme du Roy-boit_ (1670); J. B. Thiers, _De Festorum
Dierum Imminutione_ (1668), c. 48; _Traité des Jeux et des
Divertissemens_ (1686), c. 33; and historical in Du Tilliot,
_Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire de la Fête des Foux_ (1741 and
1751); F. Douce, in _Archaeologia_, xv. 225; M. J. R[igollot] et
C. L[eber], _Monnaies inconnues des Évêques des Innocens, des
Fous, &c._ (1837). Vols. ix and x of C. Leber, _Collection des
meilleurs Dissertations, &c., relatifs à l’Histoire de France_
(1826 and 1838), contain various treatises on the subject, some
of them, by the Abbé Lebeuf and others, from the _Mercure de
France_. A. de Martonne, _La Piété du Moyen Âge_ (1855), 202,
gives a useful bibliographical list. The collection of material
in Ducange’s _Glossary_, s.vv. _Deposuit_, _Festum Asini_,
_Kalendae_, &c., is invaluable. Authorities of less general range
are quoted in the footnotes to this chapter: the most important
is A. Chérest’s account of the Sens feast in _Bulletin de la
Soc. des Sciences de l’Yonne_ (1853), vol. vii. Chérest used a
collection of notes by E. Baluze (1630-1718) which are in _MS.
Bibl. Nat._ 1351 (cf. _Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, xxxv.
267). Dom. Grenier (1725-89) wrote an account of the Picardy
feasts, in his _Introduction à l’Histoire de Picardie_ (_Soc. des
Antiquaires de Picardie, Documens inédits_ (1856), iii. 352). But
many of his _probata_ remain in his _MSS. Picardie_ in the _Bibl.
Nat._ (cf. _Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, xxxii. 275). Some of
this material was used by Rigollot for the book named above.]
The New Year customs, all too briefly summed up in the last chapter,
are essentially folk customs. They belong to the ritual of that village
community whose primitive organization still, though obscurely,
underlies the complex society of western Europe. The remaining
chapters of the present volume will deal with certain modifications
and developments introduced into those customs by new social classes
which gradually differentiated themselves during the Middle Ages
from the village folk. The churchman, the _bourgeois_, the courtier,
celebrated the New Year, even as the peasant did. But they put their
own temper into the observances; and it is worth while to accord a
separate treatment to the shapes which these took in such hands, and to
the resulting influence upon the dramatic conditions of the sixteenth
century.
The discussion must begin with the somewhat startling New Year revels
held by the inferior clergy in mediaeval cathedrals and collegiate
churches, which may be known generically as the ‘Feast of Fools.’
Actually, the feast has different names in different localities. Most
commonly it is the _festum stultorum_, _fatuorum_ or _follorum_; but
it is also called the _festum subdiaconorum_ from the highest of the
_minores ordines_ who, originally at least, conducted it, and the
_festum baculi_ from one of its most characteristic and symbolical
ceremonies; while it shares with certain other rites the suggestive
title of the ‘Feast of Asses,’ _asinaria festa_.
The main area of the feast is in France, and it is in France that it
must first of all be considered. I do not find a clear notice of it
until the end of the twelfth century[980]. It is mentioned, however,
in the _Rationale Divinorum Officium_ (†1182-90) of Joannes Belethus,
rector of Theology at Paris, and afterwards a cathedral dignitary
at Amiens. ‘There are four _tripudia_’ Belethus tells us, ‘after
Christmas. They are those of the deacons, priests, and choir-children,
and finally that of the sub-deacons, _quod vocamus stultorum_, which is
held according to varying uses, on the Circumcision, or on Epiphany,
or on the octave of Epiphany[981].’ Almost simultaneously the feast
can be traced in the cathedral of Notre-Dame at Paris, through an
epigram written by one Leonius, a canon of the cathedral, to a friend
who was about to pay him a visit for the _festum baculi_ at the New
Year[982]. The _baculus_ was the staff used by the precentor of a
cathedral, or whoever might be conducting the choir in his place[983].
Its function in the Feast of Fools may be illustrated from an order for
the reformation of the Notre-Dame ceremony issued in 1199. This order
was made by Eudes de Sully, bishop of Paris, together with the dean
and other chapter officers[984]. It recites a mandate sent to them by
cardinal Peter of Capua, then legate in France. The legate had been
informed of the improprieties and disorders, even to shedding of blood,
which had given to the feast of the Circumcision in the cathedral
the appropriate name of the _festum fatuorum_. It was not a time for
mirth, for the fourth crusade had failed, and Pope Innocent III was
preaching the fifth. Nor could such _spurcitia_ be allowed in the
sanctuary of God. The bishop and his fellows must at once take order
for the pruning of the feast. In obedience to the legate they decree as
follows. The bells for first Vespers on the eve of the Circumcision are
to be rung in the usual way. There are to be no _chansons_, no masks,
and no hearse lights, except on the iron wheels or on the _penna_ at
the will of the functionary who is to surrender the cope[985]. The lord
of the feast is not to be led in procession or with singing to the
cathedral or back to his house. He is to put on his cope in the choir,
and with the precentor’s _baculus_ in his hand to start the singing of
the prose _Laetemur gaudiis_[986]. Vespers, Compline, Matins and Mass
are to be sung in the usual festal manner. Certain small functions
are reserved for the sub-deacons, and the Epistle at Mass is to be
‘farced[987].’ At second Vespers _Laetemur gaudiis_ is to be again
sung, and also _Laetabundus_[988]. Then comes an interesting direction.
_Deposuit_ is to be sung where it occurs five times at most, and ‘if
the _baculus_ has been taken,’ Vespers are to be closed by the ordinary
officiant after a _Te Deum_. Throughout the feast canons and clerks
are to remain properly in their stalls[989]. The abuses which it was
intended to eliminate from the feast are implied rather than stated;
but the general character of the ceremony is clear. It consisted in the
predominance throughout the services, for this one day in the year, of
the despised sub-deacons. Probably they had been accustomed to take the
canons’ stalls. This Eudes de Sully forbids, but even, in the feast
as he left it the importance of the _dominus festi_, the sub-deacons’
representative, is marked by the transfer to him of the _baculus_,
and with it the precentor’s control. _Deposuit potentes de sede:
et exaltavit humiles_ occurs in the _Magnificat_, which is sung at
Vespers; and the symbolical phrase, during which probably the _baculus_
was handed over from the _dominus_ of one year to the _dominus_ of the
next, became the keynote of the feast, and was hailed with inordinate
repetition by the delighted throng of inferior clergy[990].
Shortly after the Paris reformation a greater than Eudes de Sully and a
greater than Peter de Capua was stirred into action by the scandal of
the Feast of Fools and the cognate _tripudia_. In 1207, Pope Innocent
III issued a decretal to the archbishop and bishops of the province of
Gnesen in Poland, in which he called attention to the introduction,
especially during the Christmas feasts held by deacons, priests and
sub-deacons, of _larvae_ or masks and _theatrales ludi_ into churches,
and directed the discontinuance of the practice[991]. This decretal
was included as part of the permanent canon law in the _Decretales_ of
Gregory IX in 1234[992]. But some years before this it found support,
so far as France was concerned, in a national council held at Paris by
the legate Robert de Courcon in 1212, at which both regular and secular
clergy were directed to abstain from the _festa follorum, ubi baculus
accipitur_[993].
It was now time for other cathedral chapters besides that of Paris
to set their houses in order, and good fortune has preserved to us
a singular monument of the attempts which they made to do so. The
so-called _Missel des Fous_ of Sens may be seen in the municipal
library of that city[994]. It is enshrined in a Byzantine ivory diptych
of much older date than itself[995]. It is not a missal at all. It is
headed _Officium Circumcisionis in usum urbis Senonensis_, and is a
choir-book containing the words and music of the _Propria_ or special
chants used in the Hours and Mass at the feast[996]. Local tradition
at Sens, as far back as the early sixteenth century, ascribed the
compilation of this office to that very Petrus de Corbolio who was
associated with Eudes de Sully in the Paris reformation[997]. Pierre
de Corbeil, whom scholastics called _doctor opinatissimus_ and his
epitaph _flos et honor cleri_, had a varied ecclesiastical career.
As canon of Notre-Dame and reader in the Paris School of Theology he
counted amongst his pupils one no less distinguished than the future
Pope Innocent III himself. He became archdeacon of Evreux, coadjutor
of Lincoln (a fact of some interest in connexion with the scanty
traces of the Feast of Fools in England), bishop of Cambrai, and
finally archbishop of Sens, where he died in 1222. There is really no
reason to doubt his connexion with the _Officium_. The handwriting of
the manuscript and the character of the music are consistent with a
date early in the thirteenth century[998]. Elaborate and interpolated
offices were then still in vogue, and the good bishop enjoyed some
reputation for literature as well as for learning. He composed an
office for the Assumption, and is even suspected of contributions in
his youth to goliardic song[999]. It is unlikely that he actually wrote
much of the text of the _Officium Circumcisionis_, very little of which
is peculiar to Sens. But he may well have compiled or revised it for
his own cathedral, with the intention of pruning the abuses of the
feast; and, in so doing, he evidently admitted proses and _farsurae_
with a far more liberal hand than did Eudes de Sully. The whole office,
which is quite serious and not in the least burlesque, well repays
study. I can only dwell on those parts of it which throw light on the
general character of the celebration for which it was intended.
The first Vespers on the eve of the Circumcision are preceded by four
lines sung _in ianuis ecclesiae_:
‘Lux hodie, lux laetitiae, me iudice tristis
quisquis erit, removendus erit solemnibus istis,
sint hodie procul invidiae, procul omnia maesta,
laeta volunt, quicunque colunt asinaria festa.’
These lines are interesting, because they show that the
thirteenth-century name for the feast at Sens was the _asinaria festa_,
the ‘Feast of the Ass.’ They are followed by what is popularly known
as the ‘Prose of the Ass,’ but is headed in the manuscript _Conductas
ad tabulam_. A _conductus_ is a chant sung while the officiant is
conducted from one station to another in the church[1000], and the
_tabula_ is the _rota_ of names and duties _pro cantu et lectura_, with
the reading of which the Vespers began[1001]. The text of the Prose of
the Ass, as used at Sens and elsewhere, is given in an appendix[1002].
Next come a trope and a farsed Alleluia, a long interpolation dividing
‘Alle-’ and ‘-luia,’ and then another passage which has given a wrong
impression of the nature of the office:
‘_Quatuor vel quinque in falso retro altare_:
Haec est clara dies, clararum clara dierum,
haec est festa dies, festarum festa dierum,
nobile nobilium rutilans diadema dierum.
_Duo vel tres in voce retro altare_:
Salve festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo,
qua Deus est ortus virginis ex utero[1003].’
The phrase _in falso_ does not really mean ‘out of tune.’ It means,
‘with the harmonized accompaniment known as _en faux bourdon_’, and is
opposed to _in voce_, ‘in unison[1004].’ The Vespers, with many further
interpolations, then continue, and after them follow Compline, Matins,
Lauds[1005], Prime, Tierce, the Mass, Sext, and second Vespers. These
end with three further pieces of particular interest from our point of
view. The first is a _Conductus ad Bacularium_, the name _Bacularius_
being doubtless that given at Sens to the _dominus festi_[1006]. This
opens in a marked festal strain:
‘Novus annus hodie
monet nos laetitiae
laudes inchoare,
felix est principium,
finem cuius gaudium
solet terminare.
celebremus igitur
festum annuale,
quo peccati solvitur
vinculum mortale
et infirmis proponitur
poculum vitale;
adhuc sanat aegrotantes
hoc medicinale,
unde psallimus laetantes
ad memoriale.
ha, ha, ha,
qui vult vere psallere,
trino psallat munere,
corde, ore, opere
debet laborare,
ut sic Deum colere
possit et placare.’
The _Bacularius_ is then, one may assume, led out of the church, with
the _Conductus ad Poculum_, which begins,
‘Kalendas Ianuarias
solemnes, Christe, facias,
et nos ad tuas nuptias
vocatus rex suscipias.’
The manuscript ends, so far as the Feast of the Circumcision is
concerned, with some _Versus ad Prandium_, to be sung in the refectory,
taken from a hymn of Prudentius[1007].
The Sens _Missel des Fous_ has been described again and again. Less
well known, however, is the very similar _Officium_ of Beauvais,
and for the simple reason that although recent writers on the Feast
of Fools have been aware of its existence, they have not been aware
of its _habitat_. I have been fortunate enough to find it in the
British Museum, and only regret that I am not sufficiently acquainted
with textual and musical palaeography to print it _in extenso_ as
an appendix to this chapter[1008]. The date of the manuscript is
probably 1227-34[1009]. Like that of Sens it contains the _Propria_
for the Feast of the Circumcision from Vespers to Vespers. Unluckily,
there is a lacuna of several pages in the middle[1010]. The office
resembles that of Sens in general character, but is much longer.
There are two lines of opening rubric, of which all that remains
legible is ... _medio stantes incipit cantor_. Then comes the quatrain
_Lux hodie_ similarly used at Sens, but with the notable variant of
_praesentia festa_ for _asinaria festa_. Then, under the rubric, also
barely legible, _Conductus, quando asinus adducitur_[1011], comes
the ‘Prose of the Ass.’ At the end of Lauds is the following rubric:
_Postea omnes eant ante ianuas ecclesiae clausas. Et quatuor stent
foris tenentes singli urnas vino plenas cum cyfis vitreis. Quorum unus
canonicus incipiat_ Kalendas Ianuarias. _Tunc aperiantur ianuae._ Here
comes the lacuna in the manuscript, which begins again in the Mass.
Shortly before the prayer for the pope is a rubric _Quod dicitur, ubi
apponatur baculus_, which appears to be a direction for a ceremony
not fully described in the _Officium_. The ‘Prose of the Ass’ occurs
a second time as the _Conductus Subdiaconi ad Epistolam_, and on this
occasion the musical accompaniment is harmonized in three parts[1012].
I can find nothing about a _Bacularius_ at second Vespers, but the
office ends with a series of _conductus_ and hymns, some of which are
also harmonized in parts. The _Officium_ is followed in the manuscript
by a Latin cloister play of _Daniel_[1013].
An earlier manuscript than that just described was formerly preserved
in the Beauvais cathedral library. It dated from 1160-80[1014]. It
was known to Pierre Louvet, the seventeenth-century historian of
Beauvais[1015], and apparently to Dom Grenier, who died in 1789[1016].
According to Grenier’s account it must have closely resembled that in
the British Museum.
‘Aux premières vêpres, le chantre commençait par entonner au milieu
de la nef: _Lux hodie, lux laetitiae_, etc.... À laudes rien de
particulier que le _Benedictus_ et son répons farcis. Les laudes
finies on sortait de l’église pour aller trouver l’âne qui attendait
à la grande porte. Elle était fermée. Là, chacun des chanoines s’y
trouvant la bouteille et le verre à la main, le chantre entonnait
la prose: _Kalendas ianuarias solemne Christe facias_. Voici ce que
porte l’ancien cérémonial: _dominus cantor et canonici ante ianuas
ecclesiae clausas stent foris tenentes singuli urnas vini plenas cum
cyfis vitreis, quorum unus cantor incipiat: Kalendas ianuarias_, etc.
Les battants de la porte ouverts, on introduisait l’âne dans l’église,
en chantant la prose: _Orientis partibus_. Ici est une lacune dans le
manuscrit jusque vers le milieu du _Gloria in excelsis_.... On chantait
la litanie: _Christus vincit_, _Christus regnat_, dans laquelle on
priait pour le pape Alexandre III, pour Henri de France, évêque de
Beauvais, pour le roi Louis VII et pour Alixe ou Adèle de Champagne
qui était devenue reine en 1160; par quoi on peut juger de l’antiquité
de ce cérémonial. L’Évangile était précédé d’une prose et suivi d’une
autre. Il est marqué dans le cérémonial de cinq cents ans que les
encensements du jour de cette fête se feront avec le boudin et la
saucisse: _hac die incensabitur cum boudino et saucita_.’
Dom Grenier gives as the authority for his last sentence, not the
_Officium_, but the _Glossary_ of Ducange, or rather the additions
thereto made by certain Benedictine editors in 1733-6. They quote the
pudding and sausage rubric together with that as to the drinking-bout,
which occurs in both the _Officia_, as from a Beauvais manuscript. This
they describe as a _codex ann. circiter_ 500[1017]. It seems probable
that this was not an _Officium_ at all, but something of the nature of
a Processional, and that it was identical with the _codex 500 annorum_
from which the same Benedictines derived their amazing account of a
Beauvais ceremony which took place not on January 1 but on January
14[1018]. A pretty girl, with a child in her arms, was set upon an ass,
to represent the Flight into Egypt. There was a procession from the
cathedral to the church of St. Stephen. The ass and its riders were
stationed on the gospel side of the altar. A solemn mass was sung, in
which _Introit_, _Kyrie_, _Gloria_ and _Credo_ ended with a bray. To
crown all, the rubrics direct that the celebrant, instead of saying
_Ite_, _missa est_, shall bray three times (_ter hinhannabit_) and
that the people shall respond in similar fashion. At this ceremony
also the ‘Prose of the Ass’ was used, and the version preserved in the
_Glossary_ is longer and more ludicrous than that of either the Sens or
the Beauvais _Officium_.
On a review of all the facts it would seem that the Beauvais documents
represent a stage of the feast unaffected by any such reform as that
carried out by Pierre de Corbeil at Sens. And the nature of that
reform is fairly clear. Pierre de Corbeil provided a text of the
_Officium_ based either on that of Beauvais or on an earlier version
already existing at Sens. He probably added very little of his own,
for the Sens manuscript only contains a few short passages not to
be found in that of Beauvais. And as the twelfth-century Beauvais
manuscript seems to have closely resembled the thirteenth-century one
still extant, Beauvais cannot well have borrowed from him. At the same
time he doubtless suppressed whatever burlesque ceremonies, similar
to the Beauvais drinking-bout in the porch and censing with pudding
and sausage, may have been in use at Sens. One of these was possibly
the actual introduction of an ass into the church. But it must be
remembered that the most extravagant of such ceremonies would not be
likely at either place to get into the formal service-books[1019].
As the Sens _Officium_ only includes the actual service of January 1
itself, it is impossible to compare the way in which the semi-dramatic
extension of the feast was treated in the two neighbouring cathedrals.
But Sens probably had this extension, for as late as 1634 there was an
annual procession, in which the leading figures were the Virgin Mary
mounted on an ass and a _cortège_ of the twelve Apostles. This did not,
however, at that time take part in the Mass[1020].
The full records of the Feast of Fools at Sens do not begin until the
best part of a century after the probable date of its _Officium_. But
one isolated notice breaks the interval, and shows that the efforts of
Pierre de Corbeil were not for long successful in purging the revel of
its abuses. This is a letter written to the chapter in 1245 by Odo,
cardinal of Tusculum, who was then papal legate in France. He calls
attention to the _antiqua ludibria_ of the feasts of Christmas week and
of the Circumcision, and requires these to be celebrated, not _iuxta
pristinum modum_, but with the proper ecclesiastical ceremonies. He
specifically reprobates the use of unclerical dress and the wearing of
wreaths of flowers[1021].
A little later in date than either the Sens or the Beauvais _Officium_
is a _Ritual_ of St. Omer, which throws some light on the Feast of
Fools as it was celebrated in the northern town on the day of the
Circumcision about 1264. It was the feast of the vicars and the choir.
A ‘bishop’ and a ‘dean’ of Fools took part in the services. The latter
was censed in burlesque fashion, and the whole office was recited at
the pitch of the voice, and even with howls. There cannot have been
much of a reformation here[1022].
A few other scattered notices of thirteenth-century Feasts of Fools may
be gathered together. The _Roman de Renard_ is witness to the existence
of such a feast, with _jeux_ and tippling, at Bayeux, about 1200[1023].
At Autun, the chapter forbade the _baculus anni novi_ in 1230[1024].
Feasts of Fools on Innocents’ and New Year’s days are forbidden by the
statutes of Nevers cathedral in 1246[1025]. At Romans, in Dauphiné, an
agreement was come to in 1274 between the chapter, the archbishop of
Vienne and the municipal authorities, that the choice of an abbot by
the cathedral clerks known as _esclaffardi_ should cease, on account
of the disturbances and scandals to which it had given rise[1026]. The
earliest mention of the feast at Laon is about 1280[1027]; while it is
provided for as the sub-deacons’ feast by an Amiens _Ordinarium_ of
1291[1028]. Nor are the ecclesiastical writers oblivious of it. William
of Auxerre opens an era of learned speculation in his _De Officiis
Ecclesiasticis_, by explaining it as a Christian substitute for the
_Parentalia_ of the pagans[1029]. Towards the end of the century,
Durandus, bishop of Mende, who drew upon both William of Auxerre and
Belethus for his _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_, gave an account of
it which agrees closely with that of Belethus[1030]. Neither William of
Auxerre nor Durandus shows himself hostile to the Feast of Fools. Its
abuses are, however, condemned in more than one contemporary collection
of sermons[1031].
With the fourteenth century the records of the Feast of Fools
become more frequent. In particular, the account-books of the
chapter of Sens throw some light on the organization of the feast
in that cathedral[1032]. The _Compotus Camerarii_ has, from 1345
onwards, a yearly entry _pro vino praesentato vicariis ecclesiae die
Circumcisionis Domini_. Sometimes the formula is varied to _die festi
fatuorum_. In course of time the whole expenses of the feast come
to be a charge on the chapter, and in particular, it would appear,
upon the sub-deacon canons[1033]. In 1376 is mentioned, for the first
time, the _dominus festi_, to whom under the title of _precentor et
provisor festi stultorum_ a payment is made. The _Compotus Nemorum_
shows that by 1374 a prebend in the chapter woods had been appropriated
to the vicars _pro festo fatuorum_. Similar entries occur to the
end of the fourteenth century and during the first quarter of the
fifteenth[1034]. Then came the war to disturb everything, and from
1420 the account-books rarely show any traces of the feast. Nor were
civil commotions alone against it. As in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, so in the fourteenth and fifteenth the abuses which clung
about the Feasts of Fools rendered them everywhere a mark for the
eloquence of ecclesiastical reformers. About 1400 the famous theologian
and rector of Paris University, Jean-Charlier de Gerson, put himself at
the head of a crusade against the _ritus ille impiissimus et insanus
qui regnat per totam Franciam_, and denounced it roundly in sermons and
_conclusiones_. The indecencies of the feast, he declares, would shame
a kitchen or a tavern. The chapters will do nothing to stop them, and
if the bishops protest, they are flouted and defied. The scandal can
only be ended by the interposition of royal authority[1035]. According
to Gerson, Charles the Sixth did on one occasion issue letters against
the feast; and the view of the reformers found support in the diocesan
council of Langres in 1404[1036], and the provincial council of Tours,
held at Nantes in 1431[1037]. It was a more serious matter when, some
years after Gerson’s death, the great council of Basle included a
prohibition of the feast in its reformatory decrees of 1435[1038].
By the Pragmatic Sanction issued by Charles VII at the national
council of Bourges in 1438, these decrees became ecclesiastical law in
France[1039], and it was competent for the _Parlements_ to put them
into execution[1040]. But the chapters were obstinate; the feasts
were popular, not only with the inferior clergy themselves, but with
the _spectacle_-loving _bourgeois_ of the cathedral towns; and it
was only gradually that they died out during the course of the next
century and a half. The failure of the Pragmatic Sanction to secure
immediate obedience in this matter roused the University of Paris,
still possessed with the spirit of Gerson, to fresh action. On March
12, 1445, the Faculty of Theology, acting through its dean, Eustace
de Mesnil, addressed to the bishops and chapters of France a letter
which, from the minuteness of its indictment, is perhaps the most
curious of the many curious documents concerning the feast[1041]. It
consists of a preamble and no less than fourteen _conclusiones_, some
of which are further complicated by _qualificationes_. The preamble
sets forth the facts concerning the _festum fatuorum_. It has its clear
origin, say the theologians, in the rites of paganism, amongst which
this Janus-worship of the Kalends has alone been allowed to survive.
They then describe the customs of the feast in a passage which I must
translate:
‘Priests and clerks may be seen wearing masks and monstrous visages at
the hours of office. They dance in the choir dressed as women, panders
or minstrels. They sing wanton songs. They eat black puddings at the
horn of the altar while the celebrant is saying mass. They play at dice
there. They cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes. They
run and leap through the church, without a blush at their own shame.
Finally they drive about the town and its theatres in shabby traps and
carts, and rouse the laughter of their fellows and the bystanders in
infamous performances, with indecent gestures and verses scurrilous and
unchaste[1042].’
There follows a refutation of the argument that such _ludi_ are but
the relaxation of the bent bow in a fashion sanctioned by antiquity.
On the contrary, they are due to original sin, and the snares of
devils. The bishops are besought to follow the example of St. Paul and
St. Augustine, of bishops Martin, Hilarius, Chrysostom, Nicholas and
Germanus of Auxerre, all of whom made war on sacrilegious practices,
not to speak of the canons of popes and general councils, and to stamp
out the _ludibria_. It rests with them, for the clergy will not be so
besotted as to face the Inquisition and the secular arm[1043].
The _conclusiones_ thus introduced yield a few further data as to the
ceremonies of the feast. It seems to be indifferently called _festum
stultorum_ and _festum fatuorum_. It takes place in cathedrals and
collegiate churches, on Innocents’ day, on St. Stephen’s, on the
Circumcision, or on other dates. ‘Bishops’ or ‘archbishops’ of Fools
are chosen, who wear mitres and pastoral staffs, and have crosses borne
before them, as if they were on visitation. They take the Office, and
give Benedictions to the readers of the lessons at Matins, and to
the congregations. In exempt churches, subject only to the Holy See,
a ‘pope’ of Fools is naturally chosen instead of a ‘bishop’ or an
‘archbishop.’ The clergy wear the garments of the laity or of fools,
and the laity put on priestly or monastic robes. _Ludi theatrales_ and
_personagiorum ludi_ are performed.
The manifesto of the Theological Faculty helped in at least one town
to bring matters to a crisis. At Troyes the Feast of Fools appears to
have been celebrated on the Circumcision in the three great collegiate
churches of St. Peter, St. Stephen, and St. Urban, and on Epiphany in
the abbey of St. Loup. The earliest records are from St. Peter’s. In
1372 the chapter forbade the vicars to celebrate the feast without
leave. In 1380 and 1381 there are significant entries of payments for
damage done: in the former year Marie-la-Folle broke a _candelabrum_;
in the latter a cross had to be repaired and gilded. In 1436, the year
after the council of Basle, leave was given to hold the feast without
irreverence. In 1439, the year after the Pragmatic Sanction, it was
forbidden. In 1443, it was again permitted. But it must be outside
the church. The ‘archbishop’ might wear a rochet, but the supper must
take place in the house of one of the canons, and not at a tavern. The
experiment was not altogether a success, for a canon had to be fined
twenty sous _pour les grandes sottises et les gestes extravagants
qu’il s’était permis à la fête des fols_[1044]. Towards the end of
1444, when it was proposed to renew the feast, the bishop of Troyes,
Jean Leguisé, intervened. The clergy of St. Peter’s were apparently
willing to submit, but those of St. Stephen’s stood out. They told the
bishop that they were exempt from his jurisdiction, and subject only to
his metropolitan, the archbishop of Sens; and they held an elaborate
revel with even more than the usual insolence and riot. On the Sunday
before Christmas they publicly consecrated their ‘archbishop’ in the
most public place of the town with a _jeu de personnages_ called _le
jeu du sacre de leur arcevesque_, which was a burlesque of the _saint
mistère de consécration pontificale_. The feast itself took place in
St. Stephen’s Church. The vicar who was chosen ‘archbishop’ performed
the service on the eve and day of the Circumcision _in pontificalibus_,
gave the Benediction to the people, and went in procession through the
town. Finally, on Sunday, January 3, the clergy of all three churches
joined in another _jeu de personnages_, in which, under the names
of _Hypocrisie_, _Faintise_ and _Faux-semblant_, the bishop and two
canons who had been most active in opposing the feast, were held up
to ridicule. Jean Leguisé was not a man to be defied with impunity.
On January 23 he wrote a letter to the archbishop of Sens, Louis de
Melun, calling his attention to the fact that the rebellious clerks had
claimed his authority for their action. He also lodged a complaint with
the king himself, and probably incited the Faculty of Theology at Paris
to back him up with the protest already described. The upshot of it all
was a sharp letter from Charles VII to the _bailly_ and _prévost_ of
Troyes, setting forth what had taken place, and requiring them to see
that no repetition of the scandalous _jeux_ was allowed[1045]. Shortly
afterwards the chapter of St. Peter’s sent for their _Ordinarium_, and
solemnly erased all that was derogatory to religion and the good name
of the clergy in the directions for the feast. What the chapter of St.
Stephen’s did, we do not know. The canons mainly to blame had already
apologized to the bishop. Probably it was thought best to say nothing,
and let it blow over. At any rate, it is interesting to note that in
1595, a century and a half later, St. Stephen’s was still electing its
_archevesque des saulx_, and that _droits_ were paid on account of the
vicars’ feast until all _droits_ tumbled in 1789[1046].
The proceedings at Troyes seem to have reacted upon the feast at Sens.
In December, 1444, the chapter had issued an elaborate order for the
regulation of the ceremony, in which they somewhat pointedly avoided
any reference to the council of Basle or the Pragmatic Sanction, and
cited only the legatine statute of Odo of Tusculum in 1245. The order
requires that divine service shall be devoutly and decently performed,
_prout iacet in libro ipsius servitii_. By this is doubtless meant the
_Officium_ already described. There must be no mockery or impropriety,
no unclerical costume, no dissonant singing. Then comes what,
considering that this is a reform, appears a sufficiently remarkable
direction. Not more than three buckets of water at most must be poured
over the _precentor stultorum_ at Vespers. The custom of ducking
on St. John’s eve, apparently the occasion when the precentor was
elected, is also pruned, and a final clause provides that if nobody’s
rights are infringed the _stulti_ may do what they like outside the
church[1047]. Under these straitened conditions the feast was probably
held in 1445. There was, however, the archbishop as well as the chapter
to be reckoned with. It was difficult for Louis de Melun, after the
direct appeal made to him by his suffragan at Troyes, to avoid taking
some action, and in certain statutes promulgated in November, 1445,
he required the suppression of the whole _consuetudo_ and ordered the
directions for it to be erased from the chant-books[1048]. There is
now no mention of the feast until 1486, from which date an occasional
payment for _la feste du premier jour de l’an_ begins to appear again
in the chapter account-books[1049]. In 1511, the _servitium divinum_
after the old custom is back in the church. But the chapter draws
a distinction between the _servitium_ and the _festum stultorum_,
which is forbidden. The performance of _jeux de personnages_ and the
public shaving of the precentor’s beard on a stage are especially
reprobated[1050]. The _servitium_ was again allowed in 1514, 1516,
1517, and in 1520 with a provision that the _lucerna precentoris
fatuorum_ must not be brought into the church[1051]. In 1522, both
_servitium_ and _festum_ were forbidden on account of the war with
Spain; the shaving of the precentor and the ceremony of his election
on the feast of St. John the Evangelist again coming in for express
prohibition[1052]. In 1523 the _servitium_ was allowed upon a protest
by the vicars, but only with the strict exclusion of the popular
elements[1053]. In 1524 even the _servitium_ was withheld, and though
sanctioned again in 1535, 1539 and 1543, it was finally suppressed in
1547[1054]. Some feast, however, would still seem to have been held,
probably outside the church, until 1614[1055], and even as late as 1634
there was a trace of it in the annual procession of the Virgin Mary and
the Apostles, already referred to.
This later history of the feast at Sens is fairly typical, as the
following chapter will show, of what took place all over France.
The chapters by no means showed themselves universally willing to
submit to the decree promulgated in the Pragmatic Sanction. In many of
them the struggle between the conservative and the reforming parties
was spread over a number of years. Councils, national, provincial
and diocesan, continued to find it necessary to condemn the feast,
mentioning it either by name or in a common category with other _ludi_,
_spectacula_, _choreae_, _tripudia_ and _larvationes_[1056]. In one
or two instances the authority of the _Parlements_ was invoked. But
in the majority of cases the feast either gradually disappeared, or
else passed, first from the churches into the streets, and then from
the clerks to the _bourgeois_, often to receive a new life under quite
altered circumstances at the hands of some witty and popular _compagnie
des fous_[1057].