Martin was suffering from indigestion through too greedily devouring
an entire goose. As he lay groaning on his bed, Borra skipped into the
room with a merry air, and the Monarch inquired of him, whence he came.
“Out of the next vineyard,” answered the fool, “where I saw a young
deer hanging by his tail from a tree, as if some one had so punished
him for stealing figs.” When it is added that the King died of laughter
at this joke, the historians forget the goose and the indigestion.
Alphonso, King of Arragon, had for _his_ fool, one Luis Lopez,
who, according to Cervantes, lies buried in no less a place than
the cathedral of Cordova. Lopez kept, like other fools, a “Fools’
Chronicle,” in which he entered the follies of the court, and the
names of the offenders. The King had given 10,000 ducats to a Moor to
purchase horses with, in Barbary. Some days subsequently, on looking
over the Chronicle, he was astonished to find a page containing simply
his name.
“Cousin Luis,” said his Majesty, “why do you enrol me among fools?”
“For trusting 10,000 ducats to an infidel Moor, without security,”
answered Luis.
“Tush, man! The Moor is honest, and will bring back either horses or
money.”
“Then if he does,” said Lopez, “I will scratch out your name and put
his in its place.”
The above joke was used in various forms, till it grew old, and fools
of quality would no longer plagiarize it. It is told of at least one
jester at every court. Many fools would have been above such a jest at
all; for there were some who, though jesters, joked with instruction in
view.
Michael Aitzinger was one of these. I do not know that he can be
strictly called a Spanish fool, being a Belgian, but he held the office
at the court of Philip II. of Spain, though he became better known for
various heavy historical essays than for light jests quickly spoken.
In one case we have an instance of a Spanish court fool also belonging
to Philip II., exercising the high profession of prophecy. Flögel thus
tells the story, which he borrows from Richter’s _Spectaculum Mundi_.
“A court fool of Philip’s once saw the following persons sitting at
the Royal table:--Hugo Boncampius of Bologna, Papal Nuncio in Spain;
Perettus, a Franciscan monk of Ancona, who in his youth had been a
swineherd; and the Protonotary Sfondrati, of Milan. ‘Dost thou know,’
said the jester to the King, ‘that you have three Popes at table?’
Thereupon, he touched each upon the shoulder according to the future
order of their succession; first, Hugo, afterwards Gregory XIII.; then
Perretus, subsequently Sixtus V.; and lastly Sfondrati, who became
Gregory XIV.”
Flögel considers this as a rather fabulous story, although he admits
that the Eastern idea of the sayings of fools being sometimes inspired
by divinity, prevailed occasionally in Europe. He cites Claudius
Agrippa as ascribing the gift of prophecy to Klaus Narr, of whom I
have already spoken; and he maintains the alleged fact that Klaus,
at the royal table, aroused the guests by exclaiming that one of the
Elector’s castles, twelve leagues off, was in flames. According to
tradition, this proved to be the case, and if so, Klaus may claim the
possession of that not very desirable gift in this world,--the gift of
second-sight.
Of the Spanish jesters in noblemen’s households there is not much
to be said. Perico de Ayala, the paid buffoon of the Marquis of
Villena, was among the most celebrated. The Marquis, says Floresta
(_Española_), “once ordered his wardrobe-keeper to give the fool _un
sayo de brocado_; the man only gave him the _mangas_ and _faldamentos_.
Away went Perico to the court brotherhood, and requested them to bury
one who had died at the Marquis’s, and then away went the funeral
procession, with the little death-bell tinkling before them. The
Marquis, seeing them at his door, asked them why they came. ‘For the
body,’ said the fool, ‘as the Chamberlain only gave me the trimmings.’”
Perico distinguished himself more wittily in his reply to a knight who
once asked him the properties of turquoise. “Why,” said the fool, “if
you have a turquoise about you, and should fall from the top of a tower
and be dashed to pieces, the stone would not break!”
I have already spoken of the Spanish jester who was in the household
of the Marquis del Guasto. The latter, a vaunting General, was opposed
to the Count François de Bourbon, at the battle of Cerizoles. He had
previously made himself so sure of defeating the Count that he took
his fool with him, attired in a splendid suit of armour, that the
jester might witness his triumph. He had, moreover, promised the jester
several hundred ducats if he succeeded in being first to carry to
the wife of the Marquis, the news of her husband’s victory. Things,
however, fell out just contrary to the Marquis’s expectations. Instead
of defeating the Count, the Count defeated him, slaying thousands,
capturing cannon, and taking 4,000 prisoners,--not half the number
of the slain. Among the prisoners was a noble-looking gentleman in
a gorgeous suit of armour, of which he appeared to have taken very
peculiar care, for there was no sign of battle about it. It seemed,
however, to promise heavy ransom, and the dignified-looking warrior
who wore it was conducted with much courteous ceremony to the tent
of François de Bourbon. When the Count inquired of his captive as to
the rank he bore, the merry fellow at once burst into a laugh, and
confessed that he was only house fool to the Marquis del Guasto. “And
where is the Marquis?” asked the Count. “Oh!” replied Sir Fool, with a
merrier laugh than before, “he has ridden home to his wife, to cheat me
of my reward by carrying her the earliest news of the battle.”
If we may judge from the little that is to be collected in books,
concerning the Spanish jesters, they were mentally superior to their
Italian colleagues. Some of the former achieved a literary reputation.
At the head of these was Estevanillo Gonzales, who held office
successively in the households of Count Piccolomini and the Duke of
Amalfi; both these noblemen were commanders in the King of Spain’s
army, in the Netherlands. In 1646, when Gonzales was with the Duke, he
wrote his autobiography, describing himself as “hombre de buen humor.”
This book was partly translated, partly rewritten by Lesage, and is
doubtless known to most of my readers.
The wonder perhaps is, that dignified Spaniards should keep jesters at
all. But one of the gravest of Englishmen did so rather than be out of
the fashion. I allude to Sir Thomas Wentworth (Strafford), who on his
establishment at Wentworth Woodhouse, about the year 1620, maintained
a retinue of sixty persons, and among them there is enumerated, by
Hunter, in his History of Doncaster, our ancient friend, “Tom Foole.”
The mode was then more prevalent in Germany than in any other part of
Europe; and thither, if the “gentle reader” object not, we will now
betake ourselves.
THE FOOLS OF THE IMPERIAL AND MINOR COURTS OF GERMANY.
Voltaire remarks, in his ‘Age de Louis XIV.,’ that the fashion
of keeping court and household fools and dwarfs, was for a time
the _grande mode_ of all the courts of Europe. It was a remnant
of barbarism, he tells us, which continued longer in Germany than
elsewhere. He, naturally enough, traces this mode, in its origin, to a
lack of amusement of a better sort. The poor pleasure which degraded
the human intellect, was only a pleasure, he says, because, in the
times of ignorance and bad taste, really agreeable and praiseworthy
pastimes were not easily procurable. The unphilosophical philosopher,
however, forgets that the most celebrated fools were at the most
refined courts; and that L’Angeli was in full swelling triumph long
after Corneille had composed ‘The Cid.’
The “mode” in Germany dates undoubtedly from a very early time, if we
may credit a German poetical tradition which tells us that the jester
used to appear in the procession of the condemned to execution. But
this incident is perhaps only the poetical filling-up of an imaginary
picture.
The profession of “Fool” was so profitable in Germany, in the Middle
Ages, that not only were men found ambitious to be attached to some
nobleman’s house, where there were ordinarily ten or a dozen of
them, but they were proud of being as it were the honorary fools of
the nobles, and for this reason. Holding the rank in question, they
roamed over the country, reaped considerable profits by the exercise
of their profession, and if their licentiousness brought them into
contact with the magistrates, they pleaded their privileges as fools
to noblemen whom they named, and whose warrant they exhibited. The
abuse of this ran to such excess, and the extravagance of fools became
so offensive, that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the abuse
and extravagance were circumscribed by various decrees; and towards
the end of the last-named century, the titular or itinerant fools were
suppressed altogether.[I]
The official fools, at the Imperial courts of Germany, were, for a long
period, held in very great esteem, especially when they united in their
own persons the professions of court fool and court poet. Charlemagne
divided among his mimes, fools, and poets, the entire countship of
Provence; and hence is said to have been the cause that wit and poesy
flourished so generally in that pleasant district.
On the other hand, there were exceptional cases, as at the wedding
festivities of the Emperor Henry III. at Ingleheim in 1043. The fools
joked, the mimes played, the minstrels harped and sang, but the
Imperial bridegroom gave them nothing. They all left the castle thirsty
and penniless, and young Henry cared little for their maledictions, for
he was a man of strong mind, stout heart, and good taste, and had more
respect for Contractus, the chronicler, and Adalbert, the biographer,
and Willeram, the translator, than for all the fools and chanters in
the world.
The German laws had full as little regard for these officials, albeit
princes, generally, patronized them. The Saxon law, especially, laid
down that their property, at their death, belonged to the Government,
which was a certain method of keeping them reckless and extravagant
with what they earned when living.
They were occasionally even greater knaves than fools, an instance of
which we have in the case of the jester of Frederick Barbarossa, who,
for a bribe from the Milaners, undertook to rid them of his master, by
flinging him out of window, and who nearly succeeded in the attempt.
The Emperor’s cries attracted his Guard, two or three of whom seizing
the stalwart fool, tossed him headlong out of the window, by which he
met swift and sudden death upon the stones below.
In some cases, considerable prizes in money and dress were given to the
fools who eminently distinguished themselves. Thus, in 1342, Casimir
the Great, of Poland, having two jesters at his court, one of whom was
a German, offered a prize of twenty florins and an entire new suit of
clothes for the one who should excel the other in foolery. The two
carried on their struggle in presence of a court whose laughter shook
the very roof. The fools were so equally matched that it was difficult
to determine which was the more skilful in his frolicsome craft. They
jumped, skipped, fought, talked, sang, and illustrious warriors and
fair ladies held their sides, the better to retain their breath. At
length, the jesters took to some very nasty jokes, at which the august
company only laughed the louder. Still the competitors were so even in
their skill that the noble arbitrators could not judge between them,
for the victory was to be obtained by one of the fools doing some
crowning feat which the other should strive in vain to accomplish. This
was at last effected by the German, but for what he did, I must refer
the curious to the _Noctuæ Speculum_ of Argidius Periander.
If the Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg kept no fool of his own, the reason
was that his nose, which was of a size to make Slawkembergius swear
with admiration, was the source of so many jokes, that it provided his
court with fun enough, and so saved the expense of a fool. Rudolph was
yet Count of Hapsburg, when, in 1264, his secret enemy Count Ulrich,
of Ratisbon, resolved to attack him and the Zurich forces, of which
Rudolph was General, unexpectedly. “I think,” said Ulric, one day,
to a circle of his friends, “we have men enough to properly punch Von
Hapsburg’s great nose;”--“_seine grosse Nase zu klopfen_.” Ulric’s
fool heard the remark, and struck with astonishment, or wishing to
convey intelligence to Rudolph, he repaired to the quarters of the
latter to satisfy his curiosity, or any other feeling by which he
was influenced for the moment. His cap and bells procured him ready
access to Rudolph’s presence; and in that presence he stood for awhile,
fixedly staring on the august proboscis. At length he said, “Well, it
is not a mile long, after all. I can’t imagine why my master should
want a whole army in order to punch such a nose. I could myself smash
it flat with a blow of my fist.” “Thanks, good fool, more for your hint
touching your master, than that of the power of your fist.” Therewith
Rudolph protected the jester, and took the initiative in attacking the
Count of Ratisbon; whom, after continued assaults, he reduced to such a
condition, that Ulrich was grateful for permission to become a simple
citizen of Zurich.
Throughout life the nose of Rudolph was ever provocative of remark.
He was once with his courtiers in a very narrow defile, when they
encountered a peasant. “Pass on! pass on!” cried the officers; “the
Emperor! the Emperor!” “That’s all very well,” said the clown, “but
where can I go? his nose fills up the whole valley.” The courtiers
conjectured that the Imperial wrath would be excited; but Rudolph,
turning his head on one side, exclaimed laughingly, “Now, friend, get
on with thee; my poor nose is no longer in your way.”
Few of the Emperors appear to have extended greater favour towards the
jesters than Maximilian I. And yet he found as much peril as profit
in his intercourse with them. In one case he had nearly lost his life
while loading a fowling-piece, by the act of a house fool, who, coming
into his presence with a candle, was about to place the light on an
open cask of powder. On another occasion he was playing with his fool
at snowballs, when the jester sent one at his right eye with such
violence, that the Imperial sight was weakened for a month.
I have said “his fool,” but I should have been more correct in saying
“one of his fools;” for his jester, _par excellence_, his own very
familiar friend and fool, was indisputably Konrad (or Kunz) von den
Rosen, the Don Japhet d’Arménie of Scarron, and the “De Bossu” of
Werner.
Konrad of the Roses was as fearless in applying a joke, as he was neat
in the construction of the joke itself. When Maximilian (then Archduke
of Austria and Burgundy) had once defeated Louis XI., a portion of the
cavalry of the former had not shared in the victory, having early in
the day betaken themselves to flight, following their leader, Count
Philip von Ravenstein. Kunz was on the field, and followed the Count’s
example. On other occasions he did better and more soldierly service;
but for what he rendered now, he was sarcastically bantered at a court
festival at which he and the Count were present. “All very good,” said
Konrad, “but remember, if I showed speed, Count Philip was even more
nimble than I, and was a long league ahead of me when I turned my back
on the fray. Ah, Count,” he added, turning to that “rapid rider,” “you
had a valuable steed that day! he flew out of danger as a bird flies in
the air; and when my horse was blown, and I was compelled to draw rein,
yours was still charging away with his wrong end towards the enemy.”
There was so much useful knowledge, common sense, and actual bravery
about _him_ of the Roses, that some authors, like Manlius, refuse to
rank him among official fools. “The Soldier and Wit of Maximilian,”
is a term applied to him, and we have an instance of his good sense,
when he counselled his Imperial master, at a certain disturbed period,
in 1488, not to enter Bruges, as he would certainly be seized by the
citizens, and be laid up hard and fast in the castle. Maximilian
refused to follow the advice, and entered the city, only to meet the
fate foretold him. The fool, wiser in his generation, rode boldly
in at his master’s side, through one gate; and quietly out, quite
alone, through another. He was a faithful fool, however, and returned
secretly, after awhile, in order to rescue his “dear Max.” On one
dark night, he swam the moat, hoping to be able to convey a rope
to the illustrious captive; but he had no sooner glided into the
water than he was attacked furiously by some old swans, who did not
relish the intrusion. He with great difficulty escaped drowning, and
got back to shore. He subsequently repeated the attempt to liberate
his master, and the means he adopted will remind the reader of an
incident in ‘Ivanhoe.’ No persuasion could induce Maximilian to avail
himself of the opportunity offered him by Konrad. It was not that the
Prince was at all influenced by a reluctance to leave the jester to
be hanged,--for the latter, after gaining access to his master, in a
priest’s dress, was to stay behind, and run the chance of being hanged,
while Maximilian went off in the sacerdotal guise. But Maximilian
suspected that the term of his imprisonment was nearly at an end,
by more legitimate means. Konrad rated his patron with affectionate
sharpness, but in vain; the jester was obliged to pass out through the
groups of guards in waiting, looking as much like a priest, and feeling
more like a fool, than when he entered.[J]
As a common mountebank at court entertainments, we have one sample
of the quality of Kunz, at the marriage at Augsburg, in 1518, of the
Margrave Casimir of Brandenburg with the Bavarian Princess Susanna.
At the festivities which followed the match, Kunz was seated on the
edge of a reservoir, with a preaching monk, and two or three others,
witnessing a foot-race, got up to gratify the more illustrious
personages. At the shout which rose on the race being won, the jester
fell backwards into the reservoir, as if by accident, dragging with
him the monk, whom he managed to duck soundly, and who in his turn
pulled in several others by his struggling. The excellence of this
joke was that not only was the monk nearly drowned, but that Konrad,
on emerging from the water, accused him of being the original cause of
the mischief, whereupon the poor preacher was nearly pummelled dry by
the indignant yet laughing bystanders, and to the great satisfaction of
“persons of quality.”
It is very clear, I think, that the inspiration of a fool was not
always trusted to, and that a joke was sometimes suggested to him, by
his master, when the latter had a particular purpose in so doing. I
find a trace of this suggestion in the case of a costly joke which the
jester of the Roses would certainly not have dared to make on his own
responsibility. A deputation from the Venetian States had presented to
the Emperor a magnificent goblet of the purest crystal. At the banquet,
given in honour of the Ambassadors and their Government, Konrad was in
high, loud, and active mirth. So active indeed that he contrived to
hook his spur in the tablecloth, and dancing off, to pull away with
him everything on the table, the crystal goblet included, which lay in
fragments on the ground. The Ambassadors were indignant, and they cried
loudly for a flagellation for the fool. Maximilian, however, refused to
gratify them. “You see, worthy sirs,” he remarked, “that the thing was
only of glass, and that glass is very fragile. Had it been of gold, it
would not have broken; and even if it had, its fragments would at least
have been valuable.” The Kaiser the more felt this, as he was sorely
in want of gold;--of which Konrad told him he would have enough and
to spare, if instead of being Sovereign he would take the office of a
Minister.
The freedom with which the fool treated his great patron is seen in
the incident at the card-table, at which Kunz was playing, the monarch
standing by him the while. The game, at which much money was staked,
was won by _him_, who under certain circumstances held, and could
play, four kings. Kunz had only three, but after playing his third, he
suddenly seized upon Maximilian, and crying, “Here is my fourth and
winning king,” swept the whole of the stakes into the pockets of his
white trunk-hose, slashed with scarlet. Then throwing his light-blue
cap upon his head, and buckling to his girdle the sword, outside whose
sheath he carried knife and fork, and pulling together his blue and
yellow vest, and fingering complacently his ample and well-curled
beard, he walked off laughingly, every tiny bell in his bonnet ringing
merrily to his laughter, as he passed along.
If all Konrad’s jokes had been as harmless, albeit as bold as this,
there would have been little wherewith to reproach him. But some of
his jests will not bear repeating, and others are only remarkable for
their silliness. Some were quiet and telling; as when a too grossly
flattering genealogist curried favour with the Emperor, by showing him
a pedigree which traced his descent from Noah.--“Bravo!” exclaimed
Von den Rosen, who was present, “then the Kaiser and I are cousins,
through the patriarch. I did not know I was of half such good blood!”
Maximilian smiled approvingly on the fool, and then contemptuously on
Master Johann Stabius, poet and genealogist, who had thought to get
crowns from a King, and only obtained sly reproaches from a fool.
Finally, it may be said that the hand of Konrad was as heavy as his
tongue was sharp. One scene in the life of this jester, exhibits him
in a melodramatic light, that reminds one of the days, or nights, of
“Raymond and Agnes, or the Bleeding Nun.” Konrad was once compelled to
pass the night at a sorry inn, in a wood, through whose intricacies
he had lost his way. It was kept by brigands; but the joyousness of
Konrad won him the heart of the waiting-maid, who bade him beware of
the male-servant who would come to take away his supper-tray, and
who would extinguish the light, as if by accident, in order that the
poor traveller might be murdered in the dark, by the landlord and his
fellows. Konrad, by good luck, had with him a dark-lantern; this he
lighted and concealed beneath his coat; and when the incident occurred
for which the maid had told him to be prepared, the jester went to work
in terrible earnest. As soon as the candle had been extinguished, he
turned on his lantern, and saw himself in presence of three ruffians
with very menacing looks and stilettoes. Kunz’s own poniard was quicker
than theirs: having buried it in the bosom of the bandit nearest to
him, he addressed himself to the landlord, of whose companions one lay
dead at his feet, and the other had suddenly fled. The traveller did
not kill his host, but bound him tightly, with the ready aid of the
female servant, who was herself a sort of prisoner, and delivered him
to that justice which begins with much needless form, but which has a
rope and a noose at the end of it.
It was soon after this exploit that Konrad von den Rosen lost his
Imperial master, Maximilian. The poor fool loved his patron; “I
followed him near for a long while,” said he, “and I will follow him
closely now.” And so it was! Konrad followed Maximilian, when Germany,
too busy to think of him, was talking of Charles V., Luther, and the
Diet of Worms.