more wise and profitable counsel to be found under the cap and bells
of the jester, than under many a mantle which hung from the neck
of venerable statesmen. Flögel, on the authority of Don Sylvio di
Rosalva, says this was especially the case in Spain. It appears to have
been also the case in other places, for when a Venetian ambassador,
endeavouring to dissuade Louis XII. from making war against Venice,
spoke of the wisdom of the Republic, Louis replied, “J’opposerai un si
grand nombre de fous à vos sages, que toute leur sagesse sera incapable
de les résister.”
Under another method of expression, Erasmus utters a similar sentiment.
He points out that the wisest men have been the worst governors of
states; that the greatest orators were the most easily put out of
countenance; and that the most able statesmen had fools for their sons.
Tully’s son, Marcus, we are told, was a fool, although he was bred at
Athens; and the children of Socrates had more of their mother than of
their father. Pericles was a great man, but his two sons were known by
the unpleasant appellation of Βλιτομἁμαι, or “Boobies.” A similar name,
indeed, used to be applied to the whole people of Brabant, of whom it
was said, “The older they are, the greater fools they are.”
As every fashion has its detractors, so the fashion of fools could
not escape the censure of those who did not care to be in the mode.
The Emperor Henry III., surnamed the Black, could never comprehend
the use of a court fool,--a licensed scoundrel, his Majesty said,
who often obtained for his nonsense rewards that had never properly
been showered on the benefactors of mankind. Frederick Barbarossa
had an insurmountable dislike for court fools and proud courtiers.
Nevertheless he had both about him; and one of the former, on one
occasion, did not hesitate to risk his own life, in order to save that
of his imperial and not over-grateful master. Several other Teutonic
potentates shared in this distaste for the cockscomb wearers,--perhaps,
because they could not tolerate unpalatable truths; and Christian I.
of Denmark once sharply remarked, on a presentation to him of several
court fools, that he was not in want of such things, and if he were,
he had only to give license to his courtiers, who, to his certain
knowledge, were capable of exhibiting themselves as the greatest fools
in Europe.
Fools were free to speak before there was a liberty of the press,
or even a press at all. But it was Frederick William I., King of
Prussia, who placed his fools under censorship. They dared not speak
without thinking, which, time out of mind, has been the privilege of
your fool; and if their wit offended against good manners, they ran
good chance of a whipping. It was probably to hold the freedom of the
sprightly corporation in check that Philander von Sittewald invented
and described the Hell of Fools, which he is supposed to have visited.
The locality, we are told, was like the cellar of a palace, which was
crowded with Zanies, condemned to hear for ever, and to burst with envy
at, each other’s jokes. The retribution and the sarcasm are equally
severe. The severity of the former is only inferior to that developed
in another German idea, whereby, in the next world, all inefficient
clergymen are condemned to read all the bad sermons ever printed in
this.
We are not without instances in which the offices of preacher and fool
have been exercised by the same individual. In the seventeenth century
there was a preacher, named Schwab, at one of the German Courts, who
was as much skilled in laying a cloth for dinner as in the construction
of his sermons. These were never serious, but they were sometimes long.
When the latter was the case, the not too pious Prince would interrupt
the preacher in full career, and without waiting for the blessing,
would roar aloud, “John, John, get ye down and lay the cloth!”--a
command which met with a joke, by way of benediction, and instant
obedience.
John evidently had not the fool’s license of speech, or he might
have improved the occasion. And this reminds me of a passage and an
illustration in Osborn’s Letters to his Son, which have reference to
this very subject, and are well worthy of being quoted. “’Tis not
dutiful,” says Osborn, “nor safe, to drive your prince by a witty
answer beyond all possibility of reply; it being more excusable to
appear rich than wise at the prejudice of one in superlative power,
who have their ears so continually softened by flattery, as they easier
bear diminutions in their treasure, which they look upon as below and
without them, than in wit, handsomeness, horsemanship, etc., which
their parasites have long made them believe are inherent in them. This,
a carver at court, formerly in good esteem with King James (I.), found
to his prejudice, who being laughed at by him for saying the _Wing
of the Rabbit_, maintained it as congruous as the _Fore Leg of the
Capon_, a phrase used in Scotland, and by himself here, which put the
King so out of patience as he never looked on the gentleman more. The
like I have been told of a bishop who, being reproved for preaching
against the papists, during the treaty with Spain, replied, he could
never say more than his Majesty had writ. ‘Go thy way,’ quoth the King,
‘and expect thy new translation in Heaven, not from me’--meaning he
would never better his see. This humour makes these terrestrial gods
more auspicious to fools than those Solomon saith are able to render a
reason.”
There are instances, too, where the remark of the wit, or the
professional jester, has enlightened while it amused the monarch.
We have such an instance in the case of one of the Kings of Persia
who wished his people to enjoy the benefits of instruction. Schools
were established, and amongst others, the court fool commenced to
learn spelling. But we are told that at the very commencement of his
progress, at the first junction of syllables and vowels, he opened the
Koran, and pointed out to his Sovereign the passage in which Mahomet
forbids the payment of impost to the kings of the earth. The fool’s
vigilance kept the people _in_ ignorance and under taxation.
May we not reasonably conclude that there was once considerable dignity
attached to the office of fool, seeing that many ancient families bore
the insignia of fools in their arms? The chief of these was the family
of Briesach, long since extinct; and indeed I only know one house now
existing whose crest seems to intimate some connection with the old
jester, or some love of “short, brilliant folly.” I allude to the House
of Orford (Walpole). The crest is a male bust, on whose head is the old
official fool’s cap, rising from a coronet. The motto also seems to
bear reference to the circumstance; for _Fari quæ sentias_, “Speak what
you think,” was exactly the injunction suited to the court jester.
It must, however, be observed that even the jester, licensed as he
was, could not always do this without watching his opportunity, and
the license at one court was different from that at another. It was
just the same regarding courtiers and their homage to sovereigns. As
Chesterfield reminds his son, it was respectful to bow to the King of
England, but at that time it was rather a rudeness than otherwise to
bow to the King of France.
And now let us contemplate the outward presence of the official fool.
From the oldest period, the jester is represented bald, and wise men,
monks at least, adopted the fashion. They shaved their heads, like
fools, says Agrippa, in his discourse on Vanity. The fashion, however,
was very ancient. The Greek Gelatopoios (laughter-maker), the Mimes,
and the Moriones, are never represented otherwise but bald.
As with the natural, so with the artificial covering of the head,
the fools and the monks followed, or nearly followed, one mode. The
hood attached to the cloak was the covering for a fool, with an
addition signified in a remark of Erasmus, that the Franciscans only
wanted asses’ ears and bells, to look like fools by profession. The
Franciscans would seem to have intended some such profession, for they
called themselves _Mundi Moriones_, or Fools of the World. And it was
not an unusual thing to meet with highly religious persons who styled
themselves, some, “God’s Fools,” others, “Christ’s Fools.” Thus, in
1382, Conrad von Queinfurt, a priest, prays in his epitaph, “Christe,
tuum Mimum salvum facias!” As a jester would address a sovereign to
have mercy on his poor fool, so did Conrad address Christ. This fashion
was adopted by Homagius, in 1609; when that pious personage called
himself, “Fool in the Court of God,” or “God’s Court Fool.”
The ass’s ears further distinguished our ancient and merry friend. The
_Vice_ in old English plays wore a fool’s cap with ears, a long jacket,
and at his side a wooden sword. Learned men have looked into Greek, and
found there the origin of this word _Vice_. But, as far as it signifies
this dramatic fool, Flögel’s derivation of it, from the old Frank word
_Vis_ (phiz), a face, a mask, may be accepted. _Visdase_, another old
word for fool, is derived by Ménage from “_Vis d’âne_” (ass-face), and
Vizard is a known term amongst ourselves for the mask or counterfeit
representation, usually comic, of a face.
This derivation seems more satisfactory than that given by Upton,
who tells us that “Old Vice was a droll character in our old plays,
accoutred with a long coat, a cap, a pair of ass’s ears, and a dagger
of lath. This buffoon character was used _to make fun with the devil_;
and he had several trite expressions, as, ‘I’ll be with you in a trice.
Ah, hah, boy, are you there?’ etc.; and this was great entertainment
to the audience, to see their old enemy so belaboured in effigy. Vice
seems to be an abbreviation of Vice-devil,--as Vice-roy, Vice-doge,
etc., and therefore called, very properly, ‘The Vice.’ He makes very
free with his master, like most other Vice-roys or Prime Ministers, so
that he is the devil’s Vice, or Prime Minister. And,” adds Mr. Upton,
“this it is which makes him so saucy.”
In that dialogue of which Erasmus is the author, called the
‘_Franciscani_,’ Conrad, the monk, asks Pandocheus, “Are not fools
dressed otherwise than wise men?” “Well,” says Pandocheus, “I do not
know which dress would be most suitable for you; but you only lack
long ears and little bells, to look like the fools themselves.” “Ay,”
replied Conrad, “we have not those adornments, and we are plainly fools
as regards the things of this world; if we are what we profess to be.”
“I know nothing about that,” rejoins Pandocheus; “but I do know that
there are many fools, with elongated ears and tinkling bells, who are
far wiser men than they who wear the whole insignia of a doctor.” He
even goes so far as to assert, that there were some who outdid the
University philosophers in their lectures, and who, of course, were
twenty times as amusing;--the cockscomb outdoing the doctoral hat.
The cockscomb which surmounted the headpiece of the fool, is too
familiar to require description. Its antiquity however is undoubted,
since Lucian describes, in his ‘Lapithæ,’ the appearance of a jester
with closely-shorn head, except at the top, where it was left in the
form of the “comb” which decorates the head of the cock.
The fool carried a stick, staff, or club, which, according to Flögel,
was originally nothing more than the plant (_Typha_ Linnæi) which
grows in marshes, and which was commonly known as the fools’ club, or
sceptre. It was afterwards usual to furnish the jester with one made
of leather, something in the shape of Hercules’ club, with a loop to
hang it from the arm. It was such an emblem of his vocation as this
that a fool once received from his lord, with the command never to give
it up except to a greater fool than himself. Some months after, the
donor fell ill, the doctor visited him frequently, and the latter being
asked on one occasion of his leaving the house, what he thought of the
patient, roughly answered, “He’ll be off soon; he won’t stop here long.”
The fool heard the words, ran into the stables, and seeing no
preparation for departure, shook his head as if perplexed. The next
day, he heard a similar remark from the doctor,--again looked into the
stables, and observing all quiet there, went up to the chamber of his
sick master.
“The doctor,” whispered he, “declares that you are going to leave us.
How long will you be away, master mine? a year?”
“Longer, much longer, merry friend,” said the lord. “So long, that
coming back is out of all question.”
“But I see no preparation in the stables--”
“No, nor elsewhere!” groaned the sick man.
“Then I beg to give you my club,” said the jester; “for if you are
setting out on a journey which you know you must make, and from which
you also know you will never come back, and all this without getting
anything ready for it, assuredly, master, you are a greater fool than
I. But, perhaps, it is not too late for remedy.”
It is said that the poor fool’s words touched the rich man’s heart, and
that the latter, by prayer, prepared for his own journey; and by will
provided for the comfort of those of his kin and household who were to
tarry here, till summoned to tread the same inevitable road.
The club and the fool’s whip are supposed by some to have descended
from the old wooden sword of the comic actor. To these two succeeded
the slender staff with the fool’s head delicately carved at the top,
which remained one of the signs of his office till the office itself
had passed away. The broad frill was probably not adopted by the fool
until the exaggeration of fashion had rendered it ridiculous. It still
lingers round the necks of Scaramouch, Pierrot, and others of the
family “Stultorum.”
Lastly, a fool was only half a fool without his bells. To show
whence this ornament was derived, Flögel has ransacked libraries,
and displayed a stupendous amount of learning to remarkably little
purpose;--if that purpose were, to determine why they were worn by
jesters. It is going to a period more than sufficiently remote, to say,
that golden bells hung from the robe of the Jewish High Priest, and
not for ornament only. They told of his presence; they rang man to
thoughts of God; they rang away all the ill words that had fallen from
human tongues; they represented the divine shadow; they warned men of
death;--these and a hundred other significations have been found in the
golden bells of the solemn High Priest.
Further, the Eastern kings, and especially the Persian, were as famous
for the bells they wore as the lady in the ballad about Banbury Cross.
It was but the other day that the ex-Queen of Oude was received by
our own Sovereign Lady, when the head-dress or crown of the former
was remarkable for its number of jingling ornaments, which sounded
like bells. Christian bishops early adopted this mode, and for many
centuries subsequent to this, the pictures of some of the greatest
personages, male and female, royal and noble, represent them with bells
of fine fashion, attached to neck-chains, bracelets, or girdle. Knights
wore them on their armour, ladies on their zones; and people who were
in the very highest of the mode attached them to their shoes. When
this was the custom, the continual jingle at tournament or ball must
have been deafening; and, what was worse, if cavalier and demoiselle
bethought themselves of taking a quiet walk together beneath the oaks
in the woods, every rustic near was made the confidant of the pleasant
matter, as far as bells could do it. The folly of this was so patent,
that we cannot wonder at fools mounting the bells in their caps.
Indeed, they mounted them not only in their caps, but on every part
of the body. This was especially the case in the fifteenth century,
when the fashion of wearing bells was abandoned to the professional
merry-men. The mode itself, too, would seem to have prevailed in
the East. As late as the seventeenth century, Tartar princes seldom
stirred abroad in their barbaric splendour without a little knot of
quaintly-dressed “Chaouls,” or fools, running in front of the gorgeous
company, at whose every step the bells attached to their shoulders,
knees, elbows, ankles, etc., jingled merrily. The Chaouls excited the
mirth of their rather moody masters by satirical songs as they went
along. In this latter custom we find a trace of the old usage of the
Roman imperial soldiery who, at the ovations of Emperors, enjoyed full
license of tongue, and took advantage of the triumph of their lord,
to pelt him in rude songs with sly, rather than censuring, remarks
alluding to his known or supposed vices. Suetonius furnishes us with
more than one example of this sort.
As it was said in the olden time that there was no feast without a
Levite, so, at a later period, there was no festival without a fool.
That the latter custom proved a lack of civilization may perhaps be
seen in the fact, that among savage nations a somewhat similar custom
prevails. In its extreme form we find it among the old Kamtchatkans,
whose gala days were rendered doubly joyous by the performances of the
jesters by vocation. One sample however of the jokes of these gentlemen
may suffice. This consists in harnessing themselves to sledges like
dogs; by their close imitation of which animal in every respect, they
excited roars of laughter from their not too delicate audience.
The fools who bustled about on the tournament ground of our knightly
forefathers, were less gross in their merriment. They were for ever
busy, before, during, and after the contest. While it was raging, they
performed the part of the ancient Chorus, making sharp remarks on the
proceedings, now full of pity, anon exulting; and as ready to help
a favourite knight to victory, as to tender succour to his foe when
fallen.
The year 1480 was, in one sense, the very jubilee year of German fools.
It was then that took place the famous tournament described by Marx
Walther, at which were present not less than fifteen professional
fools, in splendid but grotesque uniform. Two of these were mounted,
and headed the respective companies of opposing knights, playing
lustily the while on screeching bagpipes. It was their delight to raise
the wildest screaming from these instruments, as the adversaries rushed
to the combat. They might not hope to frighten the knights, but they
often succeeded in frightening the horses; at which, loudly laughed the
gentle company. Of the remainder of the grotesque children of folly,
eleven were engaged in racing, leaping, tumbling, and wildly joking.
The remaining two galloped about the arena, sometimes with young
fools, sometimes young nobles, on their backs. These fought their mock
tournaments; and as the fools went prancing to the charge and rolled
over one another in the dust, amid volleys of jokes of every possible
description, the spectators condescended to be amused therewith till
sterner fighters took the scene, and the breath which had been wasted
in laughter, was now held in suspense.
While the combat was proceeding, the most restless of the fools would
perhaps try to seek repose with his head reclining on a tin pot, into
which, as he remarked, he had stuffed a whole sack-full of feathers to
render his pillow softer. When a knight was slain, the fool had at his
service a brief epitaph: “Here you are, gentle Sir, quiet for once in
your lifetime!” These jokes of the old arena descended to the clowns
of the circus; and manuals of wit continue to make mention of their
sallies.
The descent was natural enough. As noble lords and ladies patronized
fools who figured in the lists, so common people welcomed them at
their village festivals. Some districts kept their own fools. There
were others who raised to that distinction any “poor natural” of the
locality, out of whose peculiarities or infirmities it was possible
to extract something to laugh at. In some places, fools were hired on
great occasions, to amuse a company unable to amuse itself. In the
sixteenth century this appears to have been the case at notable Greek
weddings in the Levant. Schweigger describes the nuptial feast (at
which he was present) in 1578, of a patriarchal protonotary with a
certain Irene Moschini, at which all the jollity was produced by a
Jewish fool and other hirelings of the like amusing vocation.
The Jews themselves employed jesters to enliven their own wedding
feasts. This was the case in Silesia as late as the last century. The
company sat gravely enough till the indispensable jokers and tumblers
were introduced, and _then_ the fun was of the oddest, if not most
refined, sort. But the Silesian Jews were a simple people, unacquainted
with the mendacity and dreariness of wedding-breakfast speeches. Their
fools had full license to abuse truth, but not to be dreary.
In passing now to the fools of different courts and localities, I will,
by the way, notice a class which may claim precedence, by right of sex.
I therefore proceed to say a few words of the FEMALE FOOLS.
THE FEMALE FOOLS.
I do not know any earlier instance of a retained female fool than
in the case of the wife of Seneca, who kept in her house one named
Harpaste, and whom the philosopher describes as _fatua_, adding that
he himself found no pleasure in such objects; and (as I have quoted
in another page) that if he found it necessary to take delight in
contemplating a fool, he had not far to go,--having only to look in a
mirror. Harpaste may have been retained out of charity, for she was so
witless that, becoming suddenly blind, she was not conscious of her
calamity; but, remarking how very dark it was in the house, asked the
pædagogus to lead her out-of-doors.
Seneca, it will be remembered, loved folly as little in a philosopher
as in the fool by vocation. “He,” observes the son of the Cordovaner,
“who duly considers the business of life and death, will find that
he has little time to spare from that study. And yet, how we trifle
away our hours upon niceties and cavils! Will Plato’s imaginary ideas
make me an honest man?... _A mouse is a syllable, but a syllable
does not eat cheese; therefore a mouse does not eat cheese?_ Oh,
these childish follies!... We are jesting, when we should help the
miserable,--ourselves, as well as others.”
Jeanne, Queen of Charles I. of France, maintained a female fool of the
name of Artaude du Puy, but of whom we know nothing more than that she
cost her mistress, or rather the royal treasury, a considerable sum,
for dress. There is an unpublished autograph letter of Charles, dated
January 3, 1373, an extract from which, printed by the author of ‘_Les
Monnaies des Évêques_,’ etc., shows that the King orders his treasurers
to pay Jean Mandoli, furrier and citizen of Paris, the sum of 179 gold
francs, for certain gauds and braveries of woman’s dress, furnished “to
Artaude du Puy, Fole to our dear companion, the Queen.”
In 1429, we hear of a _moult gracieuse folle_ (she is so called by
St. Remy), whose name was Madame d’Or, and whose wit kept all the
nobles laughing at the festival in honour of the institution of the
Golden Fleece, at Bruges, in 1429. A _folle_ was also attached to the
household of Margaret, the granddaughter of Charles the Bold. Her
position in the household is clearly ascertained by the fact that, when
moving abroad, she followed her mistress in a chariot, accompanied by
the “_old_ ladies in waiting.”
In the succeeding century, in the year 1561, we find a woman, named La
Jardinière, registered as “Fole de la Royne,” attached to the rather
gloomy household of the Queen Dowager, Catherine de Medicis. Catherine
seems to have patronized this sort of official, for in 1568, and for at
least four subsequent years, there was a certain _Jacquette_, who held
in the Queen’s establishment the office of “Plaisante de la Royne.”