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A Reappraisal of the Feast of Fools:
Interaction and Reciprocity between the Clerical and the
Secular
MA Thesis History: Europe 1000-1800
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. p.c.m. Peter Hoppenbrouwers
Due Date: 31/08/2019
Number of Credits: 20 Number of Words: 18.513
Name: Sokratis Vekris
Student Number: 2254379
Address: Vasileiou 8, 15237, Athens, Greece
Telephone number: +30 6948078458
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction p. 3 - 11
2. What Counts as Feast of Fools? p. 12 - 28
2.1. Tracing the Origins p. 12 - 14
2.2. Essential Features p. 14 - 19
2.3. Regional Variations p. 19 - 23
2.4. Contemporary Perception of the “Feast of Fools” p. 24 – 28
3. Lay and Clerical Interaction p. 29 - 48
3.1. Inviting the Laity p. 29 - 37
3.2. Clerical Participation in the Parallel Lay Festivities p. 38 - 48
4. Conclusion p. 49
5. Bibliography p. 50 - 53
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Introduction
At the end of the eleventh century various regions of Northern France witnessed the emergence of what is arguably the most controversial ecclesiastical liturgy in the history of Catholic Christianity: The Feast of Fools. The first surviving notice of the feast comes from a
learned theologian of Paris named Joannes Belethus (1135-1182), written in the period between
1160 and 1164. Belethus remarks that the Feast of Fools was the last of four consecutive festivities held on the days following Christmas. These festivities were special days of celebration, which honored and exalted the lower ranks of the clergy and took place inside the medieval cathedrals
and collegiate churches. St. Stephens’s Day, December 26th, was the day claimed by the deacons;
St. John the Evangelist’s Day, December 27th, by the priests; Holy Innocents, December 28th, by the
choristers; and the day of the Circumcision, January 1st, by the subdeacons.1 Belethus and various
other theologians of his era appropriate the day of Circumcision as being the equivalent of what we now know as the Feast of Fools.
The evidence indicates that the rationale behind these celebrations was initially a purely religious one; in other words, the Feast of Fools ‘took its name not from fools who rebel against
God but from fools who, like Christ, are loved by God for their lowly status’.2 The same sources
suggest that since the Feast of Fools was conceived within a ecclesiastical framework, it was similarly conducted under the most pious and solemn terms. It must be noted, however, that the overwhelming majority of evidence discussing the Feast of Fools during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, direct us to an utterly different interpretation: it reveals the Feast of Fools as a pagan-like ritual and as a celebration in which all kind of profanities were uncontrollably ubiquitous. The storyline of the latter interpretation has typically described the feast along the following lines: priests and clerks delivered gibberish sermons, they wore masks and costumes, they ate sausages and drank excessively, they played games, and they staged improper performances outside of the church.
It is the aim of this thesis, therefore, to bridge the gap between the contrasting descriptions that historians currently have at their disposal. The main argument of this paper is that the ambiguity surrounding the Feast of Fools cannot be understood without paying close attention to
1 Mackenzie Neil, “Boy into Bishop: A Festive Role Reversal”, In History Today, Vol. 37, No.12 (Dec., 1987), ProQuest, p. 11
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the integral embeddedness of the clerical and the secular worlds. To be sure, this is not to necessarily say that the Feast of Fools was everywhere rowdy and riotous or that it maintains a continuity with Roman idolatry. Rather, I propose that if we read the sources on their own light, it becomes clear that the contemporary authorities were aware and worried of the reciprocal influence that the clerical and the secular cultures had upon each other.
The Feast of Fools has for obvious reasons attracted the attention of a number of scholars coming from a diversity of academic disciplines. Nonetheless, few attempts have been made to deal with the festivity in its exclusive, concrete, and historical details. In 1903, the distinguished Shakespearean scholar, E.K. Chambers (1866-1954), put forward the introductory markers of the history of Feast of Fools. In his book, The Mediaeval Stage, Chambers places his discussion of the Feast of Fools under the rubric “folk drama” and thereby argues that the festivity must be viewed as ‘an ebullition of the natural lout beneath the cassock’.3 The author, consequently, suggests that
the Feast of Fools must be conceived as a remnant of pagan traditions that had interpenetrated the Christian domain. The British literary critic based all of his arguments on the most widespread condemnations that the feast met and finally proposed that ‘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’.4
For a long time to follow Chamber’s interpretation was destined to dominate the historiography of our topic. Assuming that Chamber’s factual analysis was valid, numerous scholars incorporated the Feast of Fools to their anthropological, sociological, and cultural analyses. This development gave birth to some fruitful and insightful results; the most notable being the seminal exegeses given by the literary critic and cultural theorist, Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). In his book Rabelais and his World Bakhtin discussed what he called “the culture of folk humor” as a means to get closer to the meanings of Rabelais’ (1494-1553) novels. In doing so, he regarded Carnival as the supreme expression of lay culture, holding the ability to emphasize ‘the obscenity of the “images of the material bodily lower stratum” and the subversive function of the festival, its emphasis on “degradation” or “uncrowning”’.5 Needless to say that Bakhtin, adhering
to the widespread depictions of the Feast of Fools, traced the origins of the “culture of folk humor” back to this particular festivity. The Russian scholar, therefore, suggested that the Feast of Fools
3 Chambers E.K., The Mediaeval Stage (London: 1903), vol. I., Oxford University Press, p. 325
4 Ibid, p. 325
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originally held a ‘fully legitimate character, it later became only semi legal, until it was banned and it continued to exist in the streets and in taverns, where it was absorbed into carnival merriment and amusements’.6 Bakhtin’s inquiry has undoubtedly opened new directions concerning the
significance of carnivalesque symbols and imagery, but his book lacks historical accuracy and has also too easily overstressed a division between the serious, hierarchical world of the Church and the comic, disorderly world of the laity.
Various other anthropologists and historians have similarly followed this strain of thought and have thereby offered their own interpretations as to why these practices were held and preserved in a Christian world that has otherwise displayed great caution in suppressing radical and profane behaviors. None of these scholars have directly confronted the conventional storyline of the Feast of Fools but all of them have been inclined to comment on its symbolic meaning and social implications. The eminent cultural historian, Peter Burke (1937), for example, states that ‘one could hardly wish for a more literal enactment of the world turned upside down’, suggesting that the Feast of Fools is the perfect example of popular carnivalesque customs infiltrating its ways into the Christian world.7 Anthropologists like Victor Turner (1920-1983) and Max Gluckman
(1911-1975) have coined terms such as “safety-valve” and “rituals of rebellion” as a means to uncover and explicate the reasons behind the emergence and sustenance of phenomena like the Feast of Fools.8 In other words, they have proposed that similar festivities, visible in other cultures
and civilizations as well, allow the population to temporarily decompress the inherent tensions of a hierarchical society.9 In brief, the interpretations related to the Feast of Fools tradition can be
broadly classified in the following three groups: historical, anthropological, and structural/phenomenological.10 Chamber’s approach falls under the first category, Turner’s and
Gluckman’s in the second, whereas Bakhtin’s falls under the third one. For the purposes of this thesis, however, there is no need to elaborate on all of them.
Since E.K. Chamber’s Mediaeval Stage ‘tales of clerical excess have grown more
outrageous almost with each retelling’.11 More recent studies, however, have begun to doubt the
6 Bakhtin Mikhail, Rabelais and His World (Cambridge: 1968) The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, p. 74
7 Burke Peter, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Surrey: 2009), Ashgate Publishing Limited, p. 272-273
8 Turner Victor, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (London: 1969), Routledge & Kegan Paul / Gluckman Max,
Custom and Conflict in Africa (Oxford:1956), Basil Backwell
9 Although both Turner and Gluckman studied cases coming from the African region, their theories have been applied to explain
the sustenance of Carnival-related phenomena in Europe as well.
10 Gilhus Salid Ingvild, “Carnival in Religion: The Feast of Fools in France”, In Numen, Vol. 37, Fasc. 1 (Jun., 1990), Brill, p. 25
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widespread assumption that the Feast of Fools was an utterly disorderly liturgy; some of them have gone as far to suggest that a careful reading of the sources shows that there was almost nothing disturbing about it. Contemplating upon the paradoxical widespread acceptance of the Feast of Fools by the local cathedrals and churches, Aimé Chérest (1826-1885) was the first scholar to pose the sensible question: ‘how, can such facts be reconciled with the commonly received view of the feast?’.12 New voices have thereafter attempted to reconstruct the history of the Feast of Fools and
to portray its happenings as they really were. Nick Sandon, for instance, argues that ‘some of the wilder excesses to have been committed lay more in the wishful imagination of later commentators than in fact’.13 Likewise, Jerome Taylor in an essay discussing one of the plays incorporated to the
Feast of Fools of the Beauvais cathedral pointed out that it took place ‘in far fewer cathedrals than
is widely supposed’ and that it was ‘by no means everywhere rowdy’.14 More importantly, Max
Harris, in his recent monograph, Sacred Folly, is the first scholar to have undertaken a thorough and complete reevaluation of the origins and happenings of this festivity. His conclusion is that the Feast of Fools was nothing more than a canonical Christian liturgy that has been misinterpreted for centuries and his book is thus an attempt to ‘do justice to its liturgical innovation, its devotional nature, its good humor, and even its beauty’.15
Harris’ monograph does a wonderful job in rooting the feast into its Christian tradition. In doing so, he essentially discards several assumptions previously established by Chambers and he thereby eradicates some of the misconceptions that had for a long time haunted the festivity’s reputation. Yet Harris seems at times to blindly aim to “purify” and “Christianize” the festivity, even when evidence of rowdy behavior appears to be irrefutable. In the conclusion of his book, he himself admits that he might have ‘minimized its potential for abuse’.16 More crucially, he
completely rejects to see the Feast of Fools as a manifestation of the interaction between the lay and the clerical spheres. Falling in the same trap as Bakhtin, Harris is not willing to hear the ever-lasting dialogue between the festivities of the church and the parallel secular celebrations
12 Chérest Aimé, “Nouvelles recherches sur la fête des innocents et la fête des fous”, In Bulletin de la Société des sciences
historiques et naturelles de l’Yonne (Auxerre:1853), Septième Volume, Perriquet, p. 8
13 Sandon Nick, The Octave of the Nativity: Essays and Notes on Ten Liturgical Reconstructions for Christmas (London: 1984),
British Broadcasting Corporation, p. 69
14 Taylor Jerome, “Prophetic ‘Play’ and Symbolist ‘Plot’ in the Beauvais Daniel”, In The Drama in the Middle Ages: Comparative
and Critical Essays, ed. Clifford Davidson, C.J. Gianakaris, and John H. Stroupe (New York:1982), AMS Press, p. 32
15 Harris Max, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools (New York: 2009), Cornell University Press, p.288
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happening outside of it. Instead, he prefers to draw a rigid line between them and to thereby blame all of the alleged wrongdoings of the Feast of Fools in what was happening outside the church.
Reading Harris’ monograph, specialists of the field have expressed both their gratitude for his thorough revisionist achievement and their objections concerning aspects of his overarching approach. Katherine L. French, for instance, has accurately remarked that although ‘Harris’ argument benefits from his careful analysis of medieval liturgical and cathedral documents, these same documents are also the product of clerical bias, and do not always adequately account for lay celebrations or the interconnectedness of lay and clerical culture.’17 In a similar vein, Laugeux has
pointed out that ‘one cannot help but wonder if the vast corpus of ecclesiastical condemnation might not have had at least some basis in reality. One’s suspicions are strengthened, rather than dispelled, by the few places in which the author seems to protest too much.’18 This thesis is thus an
attempt to analyze the Feast of Fools, both by respecting the new, revised foundations established by Harris, and by delving deeper into the entangled relationship of the lay and the clerical cultures. This approach will allow us to draw a more vivid picture of the festivity, without neglecting or simplifying its complexities and contradictions.
The questions that this thesis will answer are the following: Firstly, what did the ecclesiastical authorities, which wrote against the Feast of Fools, mean when they referred to it? Did they equate it exclusively with the feast of Circumcision or did they also include other festivities taking place on the days after Christmas? Are we supposed to read their confusion as part of their ignorance or as an indication that the Feast of Fools had acquired a broader meaning? In other words, what really counts as Feast of Fools? Secondly, to what extent is the Feast of Fools, as a clerical phenomenon, separated from the culture of the laity? To what extent did the laity participate in the clerical tradition of the Feast of Fools? Are we supposed to draw a rigid line between what was happening inside versus what was happening outside of the church? What is the role of the lower clergy in bridging the gap between these two spheres? In other words, how far apart were the clerical and the secular societies from each other?
For the purposes of this thesis, I am going to rely on two broad categories of sources: first, the widespread condemnations that the feast has met over time by major or minor ecclesiastical
17 French Katherine L., Review of Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools, In Journal of Social History, Vol. 46, No. 4
(Summer 2013), Oxford University Press
18 Lagueux Robert, Review of Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools, In The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 98,
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and political figures of the time. The major figures include Pope Innocent III (1161-1211), the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Jean Gerson (1363-1429), King Charles VII (1403-1461), the Council of Basel (1435), and the faculty of Theology of the University of Paris (1445).19 In addition
to these sources, which are by far the most widespread, I will also utilize evidence coming from several other minor ecclesiastical figures of the time, or from the early modern period, that make mention of the Feast of Fools.20 This will allow us to get a deeper understanding both of the festivity
and of the perception that the authorities had formed about it. The second type of sources that I am going to utilize are the surviving liturgical manuscripts that provide us with an idea of how the feast was conducted, what was its content, and so on. These manuscripts are going to be useful primarily for the first chapter of the thesis.
In reviewing my primary source material, I will also draw upon excerpts that do not directly speak of the Feast of Fools but yet manifest how the authorities of the time were increasingly worried about the reciprocal interaction between the clerks and the people. During the twenty-first session of the Council of Basel, for instance, there were eleven decrees issued in total, out of which only the last one mentions explicitly the Feast of Fools. The remaining ten decrees discuss a list of measures to be taken as part of a clerical reform program. By undertaking a close reading of all the decrees, I aim to show that there was an increasing awareness that the culture of the clergy interacted and was in constant reciprocity with the culture of the laity. The same applies for the Fourth Lateran Council, and for the writings of Jean Gerson, who was consistently worried about the moral degradation of younger clerks, who according to the French theologian, were more interested in participating in secular wantonness rather than taking seriously their roles within the ecclesiastical spectrum.
The theoretical framework from which this paper departs is mainly that of Gabriel Le Bras’ sociology of religion. One of the major ideas discussed in his book Études de sociologie religieuse
19 Fourth Lateran Council: “Fourth Lateran Council: 1215 Council Fathers”, In Papal Encyclicals (Dec. 2017)
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum12-2.htm
Council of Basel: “Council of Basel 1431-45 A.D. Council Fathers”, In Papal Encyclicals, (Oct.2018), www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum17.htm.
Jean Gerson: McGuire Brian Patrick, Jean Gerson: Early Works (New Jersey:1998), Paulist Press & Jean Gerson, Oeuvres
completes (Paris: 1960-1973), Ed. Palemon Glorieux, 10 vols., Desclée
King Charles VII: Martène Edmond and Ursini Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, (Paris:1717), F. Delaulne
20 Pontal Odette Ed. and Trans., Les statuts synodaux français du XIIIe siècle: précédés de l'historique du synode diocésain depuis
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is that the religious and the profane society ought not to be treated as separate and independent collectivities. Rather, the ‘religious society is always found embedded in the profane society’. The dialogue between these two spheres is, for Le Bras, never-ending and in a continuous strife to define and reorient its relationship. Terms such as reciprocity and interaction are key for the understanding of Le Bras religious sociology. This interaction thereby implies that the Church essentially integrates various ‘marks of identification’ of the profane society in which it is embedded. These marks of identification are to be found in a variety of religious manifestations and practices, such as ‘liturgy, perceptions of belief, and even the nature of grace’. The process of embedding profane marks within the religious society, also explains why there are too many extraordinary and enigmatic religious phenomena that do not seem, at first glance, to fit within the dogmatic views of the religious society. Furthermore, it explains why regional variations are so conspicuous and transparent even in religions that share and follow the same dogma. It then follows, says Le Bras, that local traditions and customs affect to a great extent the nature and forms of religious manifestations. Le Bras, however, acknowledges that as the profane society penetrates deeply into the religious one, this also happens the other way around. The Church has always found powerful methods to influence and subsequently alter the characteristics of the profane society and hence the challenge that the Church faces is not insurmountable. Le Bras, however, reminds us, that whatever the means used by the religious society to alter the characteristics of the profane, the arduous and difficult task of Christianizing the entire profane society, cannot ever be fully achieved and thus remains the most permanent and challenging problem that the religious society faces.21
I have divided my thesis in two chapters. The first sections of the first chapter will attempt to ground the festivity to its liturgical origins and to thereafter illustrate its constitutive elements. The two remaining sections of the chapter will deal with the diverse and fluid nature of the Feast of Fools. By diverse I mean that regional variations played a crucial role in determining the content and outcome of the festivities; evidently, not all churches and cathedrals followed the same liturgical outline. By fluid I mean that although the origin of the Feast of Fools is correctly appropriated to the day of Circumcision, it seems that many contemporaries who later talked about the subject, frequently associated it with several other closely connected festivities, such as the feast of Innocents. It is the contention of this chapter that their confusion shall not be read as a lack
21 For this entire paragraph I have drawn upon the following article: Shippey Frederick A., “The Relations of Theology and the
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of first-hand knowledge or experience of the Feast of Fools, but rather as the way the contemporaries understood a term, which had acquired a very broad and ambiguous meaning. In other words, this chapter aims to show that the Feast of Fools must not be understood as a restricting and narrow term that included exclusively the day of the Circumcision, but rather as a type or category of ecclesiastical activity, which shared as a common feature the inversion of normal, every-day life hierarchies. Through these lenses, it becomes clear why most of the authorities of the time used the Feast of Fools as an umbrella term, which encompassed a variety of liturgical festivities.
The second chapter of my thesis shall explore the extent to which this ecclesiastical phenomenon interacted with the culture of the laity. The aim of this chapter is twofold: firstly, it will illustrate that the Feast of Fools was from its very conception an interactive process between the culture of the clergy and the culture of the laity. This is not surprising if we take into account that many other ecclesiastical liturgies and festivities of the late medieval and early modern period pre-required the participation of the laity. This becomes vividly clear from the numerous activities (dances, plays, processions, etc.) that the Feast of Fools shared with the secular and rapidly emerging urban culture. Secondly, this chapter will underline that the parallel lay celebrations taking place on the same day shall not be treated as conflicting with the ecclesiastical facets of the Feast of Fools, but rather as overlapping and communicating with it.
In his book Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe John H. Arnold argues that it is wiser to see all such festivities as making part of one shared culture rather than seeing them as two separate cultures operating simultaneously and in opposition to each other. He remarks, ‘one may see differences between lay festivity and clerical holy days, but they are differences of emphasis rather than utterly separate worlds. It is not that the lay people held their own celebrations instead of ecclesiastical ones. They had both, and hence clerically sanctioned communal celebrations and more secular games and feasts overlapped rather than competed’.22 The embeddedness and
enmeshment of the clerical and lay celebrations is evidently also a consequence of the ‘religious nature of the calendar itself’.23 The second section of this chapter will also illuminate the significant
role that the lower clergy played in bridging the gap between these two cultures and it will thus, treat this social group as maintaining an intermediary role between the religious and the profane
22 Arnold John H., Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe (London: 2005), Hodder Education, p.116
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society. It is, after all, the lower clergy that led the liturgies of the Feast of Fools and it is this particular group for which these celebrations were created at the first place.
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Chapter 1
What Counts as Feast of Fools?
1.1. Tracing the Origins
A major challenge that a historian must inevitably face when delving into the history of Feast of Fools is that it often seems difficult to detect its exact date and untangle its explicit content. This ambiguity stems from three main factors: first and foremost, the primary source material we currently have in our disposal is both limited and one-sided; we encounter the term either by ecclesiastical figures who launched a direct attack against it or by the surviving liturgical manuscripts. The former type of evidence is for the most part utterly demeaning and therefore to a degree unreliable, whereas the latter type is descriptive and therefore not so helpful in allowing us to discover what actually happened in this controversial festivity. Both types of material, however, alongside a more nuanced and comprehensive account of the relationship between the secular and the clerical traditions are going to lead us to certain potent conclusions. The second factor that blurs the picture we have of the Feast of Fools is that more often than not sources from different periods contradict each other. The third one, and perhaps partly the explanation of the second problem, is that the Feast of Fools was not a homogeneous festivity with a precise and rigid liturgical outline. The content of its liturgical procedures and its overall structure depended on the variety of regional customs in which these emerged. It is then of critical importance to begin by examining where did the Feast of Fools first originate and what was its primary purpose.
It has already been noted in the introduction of this paper that the first notice that we have about the Feast of Fools was written by John Beleth sometime between 1160 and 1164. In describing the emergence of the feast in the city of Paris, the theologian remarked: ‘the feast of the subdeacons, which we call “of fools” [quod vocamus stultorum], by some is executed on the
Circumcision, but by others on Epiphany or its octave’.24 Two things must be kept in mind from
Beleth’s observation: first, the Feast of Fools was initially established in order to celebrate the ecclesiastical rank of the subdeacons. Second, from the very beginning its exact date of celebration was unspecified; that is, it could be held either on the day of Circumcision or on the day of Epiphany or its octave. An ordinal from Châlons, writing ten years earlier than John Beleth,
24 Beleth Iohannes, Summa de ecclesiasticis officis (Turnhout:1976), Ed. Douteil Herbert, CCCM 41-41A, Brepols, vol II, p.
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reaffirms that the feast of Circumcision began as a liturgy that celebrated the ecclesiastical rank of the subdeacons. He mentions that the festivity took place ‘on the feast of the octave of [the birth of] the Lord’ and that this was the day when ‘the feast of the subdeacons is celebrated’.25 All of the
remarks coming from the second half of the twelfth century likewise suggest that the Feast of Fools was created as a celebration of the subdeacons, and was usually, yet not everywhere, celebrated on the day of the Circumcision.
Taking into consideration the information we have about the Feast of Fools during its first years of activity, it would be more than arbitrary to claim that the festivity held its origins in pagan traditions and mores. This is an assumption that E.K. Chambers has made, albeit somewhat cautiously. The British scholar mentions that ‘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” … 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 medieval scholars make about that feast’.26 Although similarities between the Christian Feast of Fools and
the Roman Kalends of January might potentially exist (given that we accept the riotous descriptions of the feast from the fourteenth-century onwards), it would be wrong to assume that there is a hereditary relationship between the two.
Max Harris has convincingly shown that we must not fall in the trap and presume that the Feast of Fools took its name from the fool in Psalm 14, who mocks and denies God’s existence and authority. Rather, ‘the Feast of Fools honored the fool of lowly status’.27 As a matter of fact,
the festivity was not connected with the fool that rebelled against God but rather with the fool described in Saint Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, namely, those who ‘are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are “wise in Christ”’.28 It cannot be a coincidence that the majority of the liturgical texts
written for the feast of Circumcision included the following lines from the Magnificat: ‘he has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree’.29 In short, the rationale behind
the feast of the subdeacons was initially a purely religious one.
25 Ravaux Jean-Pierre, “Les cathédrales de Châlons-sur-Marne avant 1230”, In Mémoires de la Société d’agriculture, commerce,
sciences et arts du département de la Marne (Châlons-sur-Marne:1974), Tome 89, p.42-43
26 Chambers E.K., The Mediaeval Stage (London: 1903), Oxford University Press, vol.1, p. 334-335
27 Harris Max, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools (Ithaca, NY: 2011), Cornell University Press, p. 67
28 The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Containing the Old and New Testaments (London:1952), Oxford University Press,
Corinthians, 4:10, p.1200
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Beleth also informs us that the festum stultorum was part of ‘four tripudia [festivities]’,
which were organized and took place after Christmas.30 What all of these tripudia had in common
is that they consecutively celebrated the lower ranks of the clergy; deacons, priests, choristers, and subdeacons, each clerical rank was granted a special day wherein it was able to temporarily and symbolically advance in the hierarchy of the church and preside over a liturgy which marked and celebrated its own, humble role within its district. The ways and procedures through which this reversal in hierarchy occurred differed from region to region and from festivity to festivity. It is, nevertheless, quite frequent that both the feast of choristers (on the day of the Innocents) and the feast of subdeacons (on the day of the Circumcision) elected a “bishop” of the fools to take over and lead the mass and the processions. That these festivities were held in a calendrical succession and that they all shared as a fundamental feature the reversal of roles of hierarchy is something that must not be overlooked. On the contrary, we shall see on the next three sections of this chapter why some of these festivities were frequently associated with each other.
1.2. Essential Features
The most appropriate way to begin an analysis of the content of the Feast of Fools is by citing the most famous and characteristic letter, which was composed and announced by the faculty of Theology of Paris in 1445. This is because the letter encapsulates what has been for centuries the main standpoint of the festivity and it will thus give us a succinct summary of all the accusations that it has met over time:
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 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.31
Are we supposed to take these allegations at face-value? This is a question that we will try to answer in a slightly indirect way throughout this paper. What we must remember from these descriptions, nevertheless, is that the clergy taking part in the Feast of Fools was accused for
30 Beleth Iohannes, Summa de ecclesiasticis officis (Turnhout:1976), Ed. Herbert Douteil, CCCM 41-41A, Brepols, Vol II, p.
133-134
31 Migne J.P. ed., Patrologiae cursus completus [. . .] series Latina (Paris: 1844-1864), Garnier, vol 207, p. 1171; for an English
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bringing obscene, sacrilegious practices within the church and for willingly participating in profane and secular entertainments outside of it. In the letter above, the distinction between what happens inside and what happens outside the church is not rigid; in contrast, the Feast of Fools seems to have been linked with an opportunity for the most uncontrollable impulses to emerge both in the clerical and the secular societies. Let us, however, have a more sober look on what these clerical procedures entailed.
In some regions the Feast of Fools acquired its own ecclesiastical office in order to become legitimized and separate itself from more unofficial practices of clerical activity. The first trace we have of the Office of the Circumcision appears in Sens and was prescribed by the archbishop of the town, Peter of Corbeil (died in 1222). The manuscript informing us about the office, which comes under the title Missel de Fous, was written during the first half of the thirteenth-century and for Harris serves as the ‘paradigm of a prescribed office for the subdeacons’ feast’.32 Among other
things, it mentions:
The Feast of Fools, by ancient custom celebrated every year in Sens, delights the cantor: but all honor’s due to Christ the circumcised, forever kind 33
The third and fourth verses verify what we have already noted in the first section concerning the purpose of the festivity: it is dedicated to the cantor, but it ultimately holds a Christian meaning. The second epigraph found in the Missel de Fous says the following:
Tartara Bacchorum non pocula sunt fatuorum, tartara vincentes sic fiunt ut sapientes The cups of the fools are not hellish rites; defeating the wine, the fools become wise 34
32 Harris Max, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools (Ithaca, NY: 2011), Cornell University Press, p. 99
33 Villetard Henri ed., Office de Pierre de Corbeil (Office de la Circoncision) improprement appelé “Office des Fous”
(Paris:1907), Alphonse Picard & Fils, p. 12
34 Villetard Henri ed., Office de Pierre de Corbeil (Office de la Circoncision) improprement appelé “Office des Fous”
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One cannot help but notice the ambiguity stemming out from this epigraph. It comes as no surprise that Millin has argued that it is almost untranslatable.35 From a first reading we might
surmise that the fools deny any association with profanity; they “defeat the wine” so as to come closer to wisdom and religious upheaval. A different reading, on the other hand, might suggest the exact opposite interpretation: the fool, being aware of the obscenity of its actions (in that case excessive drinking), defend his right to become wise in a quite radical fashion. Whether the fool “defeats the wine” by drinking it, or by abstaining, is not at all clear; the reference to Bacchus renders the epigraph to be even more dubious. Interestingly enough, the binding of the manuscript depicts Bacchus and Diana as sun and moon, and is dated back to the sixth-century.36 Harris
explains these facts by remarking that ‘the age and beauty of the Sens diptych were what mattered; its pagan subject was largely coincidental’.37I am not at any cost suggesting that the epigraph above
was written having the latter interpretation in mind - how possibly could a Christian ecclesiastical office have any real correlation with Bacchus? Yet it is important to be aware of the very thin line in which such interpretation depended; language remains flexible even within an ecclesiastical setting. If we, therefore, believe the objections that the Feast of Fools met from the fourteenth-century onward, it is not unreasonable to assume that such epigraphs have acquired a completely different meaning.
In any case, the most striking and characteristic feature of the Feast of Fools is that on the day of its celebration the lower clergy elected a “bishop of fools” among its members, who after a series of ceremonial procedures was responsible for taking over the liturgies of the day(s). I say day(s) because the evidence suggests that in some regions, various procedures of the feast endured
more than the day of Circumcision. In 1445, the bishop of Troyes, Jean Lesguisé(1386-1450),
urged the archbishop of Sens to take all possible measures in his effort to suppress the alleged travesties that were taking place in his town. The bishopremarks:
Stop making bishops and archbishops in the churches at the Feast of Fools. This year, under cover of the Feast of Fools, some clerics of his town have committed several great acts of mockery, derision, and foolishness against the honor and reverence of God and in great contempt and abusive censure of the clergy and of the whole ecclesiastical state. And they have observed the feast with greater excess that has been customary in times past…for four whole days. 38
35 Millin Aubin-Louis, Monumens antiques, inédits ou nouvellement expliqués (Paris:1802-1806), Laroche, vol II, p. 344
36 Millin Aubin-Louis, Monumens antiques, inédits ou nouvellement expliqués (Paris:1802-1806), Laroche, vol II, p. 336-343
37 Harris Max, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools (Ithaca, NY: 2011), Cornell University Press, p. 99
38 Foucher V. ed., “Lettre écrite vers 1450 par l’évêque de Troyes à l’archevêque de Sens sur la célébration de la fête des Fous”,
17
First thing to note about Lesguisé’sletter is that he underlines that the Feast of Fools, or at least some facets associated with it, lasted “for four whole days”. This statement evidently implies that in the eyes of the contemporaries the Feast of Fools was something more than a strict ecclesiastical liturgy happening on the day of Circumcision. Lesguisé sheds light on another critical aspect of the Feast of Fools tradition: the flexibility of the various different titles of “fools” that could potentially emerge. Due to the variety of forms that the festivity could take in the various regions of France, it is not uncommon to encounter term such as “abbot of fools”, “archbishop of fools”, “pope of fools”, besides the most widespread “bishop of fools”. These differentiations are of minimal importance and should not be treated as elements of a different clerical tradition; all of them adhered to the idea of electing a “something of the fools” and thereafter followed identical ecclesiastical procedures and celebrations. A point often overlooked is that Lesguiséstates that these acts of mockery were committed “under cover of the Feast of Fools”. The way Lesguisé phrases his sentence is important because it reveals that the contemporaries understood that the official, clerical Feast of Fools could function as an excuse for the clergy to commit these alleged revelries outside the official ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The broad meaning that the term Feast of Fools acquired is going to be discussed further in later parts of this thesis.
The feast of Innocents, celebrated on the 28th of December, often followed a similar outline
with the one we have already described during the day of Circumcision. A surviving manuscript
from the Besançoncathedral provides us with plenty of information about it. To begin with, in
thirteenth-century Besançon, there were two cathedrals and two collegiate churches, and each of them elected their own “bishop of fools”. ‘The cathedral of Saint Stephen chose a pope of fools, the cathedral of Saint John an archbishop of fools, the collegiate church of Saint Mary Magdalen a bishop of fools, and the collegiate church of Saint Paul a cardinal of fools’.39 The manuscript,
dated sometime between 1215 and 1253, states that there was an ‘annual exaltation of the pope of fools by the lower clergy of the cathedral church of Saint Stephen’ and that the newly elected pope was then carried by ‘a third of the servants of the church, singing in “circuitu”’, while being dressed in ‘a specially prepared amice and alb, a red dalmatic or cope, with gloves, a miter, and sandals’.40
39 Harris Max, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools (Ithaca, NY: 2011), Cornell University Press, p. 139
40 Gauthier Jules, “La fête des fous au chapitre de Besançon”, In [Mémoires de l’] Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de
18
Then followed an iconic installation ceremony, in which the newly elected “bishop of fools” had to officially verify his status:
Are you willing to become pope? I am willing [Volo].
Will you rule and defend the holy Roman church and its daughters? I will.
Will you be of good character, prudent and chaste? I will.
Are you willing to be confirmed? I am willing.
And I confirm you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit41
The Besançon manuscript is insightful because it virtually summarizes the major aspects of the official ordo of the Feast of Fools. It includes the election of a “pope of fools” dressed in extravagant vestments, the procession of the “pope” through the city together with his “cardinals”, and an official “installation” ceremony in which the “pope” is granted the supervision of the entire day.
It is noteworthy to mention that Besançon did not hold any special festivity on the day of Circumcision. We can surmise that this was their own Feast of Fools, with the only difference that it was conducted on the day of the slaughter of the innocents. To be sure, this was far from unusual; many other regions led similar clerical liturgies during the day of the Innocents. The city of Lille, for example, preserved this tradition by electing both a “boy bishop” during the feast of Innocents and a “bishop of fools” during the Feast of Fools on the day of Epiphany.42 In the region of Saint
Omer, on the other hand, three out of four tripudia following Christmas, elected their own “bishop”. The chapter accounts show that they supported these festivities by electing a “bishop of the deacons” (episcopus dyacanorum) on the day of Saint Stephen, a “bishop of the priests” (episcopus presbiterorum) on the day of Saint John, and a “bishop of the innocents” (episcopus
41 Castan Auguste, Le forum de Vesontio et la Fête des Fous à Besançon (Besançon: 1878), Dodivers, p. 15; for the English
translation see Harris p. 140-141
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innocentium) on the day of the Innocents.43 No written evidence mentions a “bishop of fools” in
the region of Saint Omer.
Apart from the election of a “bishop of fools”, the procession through the city’s streets, and an installation ceremony, the Feast of Fools frequently involved activities such as drinking wine, the performance of music, dancing, and some playful ludi. Although at first glance these activities match perfectly with the condemnations written by the Faculty of Theology of Paris, if executed with modesty and reverence could be considered normal parts of a variety of other ecclesiastical procedures. Consequently, the mere fact that in many regions of France the Feast of Fools entailed the performance of music, for instance, does not prove anything about its religious irregularity. In Beauvais, for instance, the feast of Circumcision is famously known for structuring a liturgy of
sublime musical tunes.44 As Chérest proposes, ‘the melody of the prose is singularly remarkable
for its grace, and the refrain itself “hez, sir asne, hez,” which has so often been portrayed as a barbarous cry, provides an ending for each verse as sweet as it is simple’.45
1.3. Regional Variations
Since the Feast of Fools was celebrated in a variety of regions of Northern France, we are already reviewing a feast that does not have a fixed nature. The variety of regional customs determined to a great extent the nature of the festivity as different cathedrals added their own particular innovations to it. In examining the Feast of Fools, therefore, it is of vital importance to take into consideration both its diverse and its fluid character. Although we have previously attempted to point out the main features of the Feast of Fools, we must always keep in mind that the diversity of its regional character shall make us very skeptical before making hasty generalizations and claim that the Feast of Fools was either an orderly liturgy or a subversive festivity. Gabriel Le Bras notes that ‘the morphology of the Church of France, while respecting the principles of hierarchy, should be explained by its political and administrative geography. The coincidence of the territorial forms of the two societies [universal and local church] … favored a
43 Deschamps de Pas Louis, “Les cérémonies religieuses dans la collégiale de Saint-Omer au XIIIe siècle: Examen d’un rituel
manuscrit de cette église”, In Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de la Morinie (Saint-Omer:1886–87), Tome XX, Tumerel, p. 104
44 Harris Max, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools (Ithaca, NY: 2011), Cornell University Press, p. 77
45 Chérest Aimé, “Nouvelles recherches sur la fête des innocents et la fête des fous”, In Bulletin de la Société des sciences
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local, regional, national psychology’.46 Discussing the exponential growth of liturgies in medieval
Europe of the twelfth century, Wickham likewise remarks that ‘it becomes obvious that several liturgies would develop simultaneously, each colored by variants of language, artistic traditions and other local factors particular to the country in question’.47 Despite our efforts to pay close
attention to the diverse psychological character of the Feast of Fools, we will simultaneously illuminate the underlying relationship that seems to be central and pivotal in the totality of its colors and expressions; that is, the interplay between the religious and the profane, the clerical and the secular, the serious and the comical.
The diverse character of each separate Feast of Fools clerical tradition is captured at its best through the variety of plays that different cathedrals staged under its name. The cathedral of Beauvais, for example, introduced the infamous Play of Daniel and historians who specialize in ecclesiastical liturgies have suggested that this play must essentially be regarded as part of the Feast of Fools clerical tradition. The composition opens with the following verses:
In your honor, O Christ, this play of Daniel, was compiled in Beauvais and the young men compiled it 48
Two things must be kept in mind out of these verses: first, it is stated explicitly that the Play of
Daniel was created in Beauvais and we should thus not view it as part of a larger French tradition.
More crucially, the opening lines state that “young men” compiled the composition of the play. Accordingly, the play was written either by the young students of the cathedral school in Beauvais or by the subdeacons themselves. Karl Young claims that ‘it is obvious that in general content and sequence of action the play from Beauvais closely resembles that written by Hilarius’, the famous wandering scholar who had composed a number of plays and poems during the first half of the twelfth century.49
Another important trait of the Play of Daniel, but also of the various plays that emerged during the flourishment of medieval drama, is that they had for the first time introduced the
46 Le Bras Gabriel, “Pour une Sociologie Historique du Catholicisme en France”, In Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, Vol.
16, (Jan., 1954), ProQuest, p. 17
47 Wickham Glynne, The Medieval Theatre (London:1974), Willmer Brothers Limited, p.25
48 Young Karl, The Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford:1951), Oxford University Press, vol. II, p. 290
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appearance of non-Christian characters. The devout dignity of Daniel the prophet, for instance, was enhanced through his interaction with characters such as Belshazzar and Darius. This development shall not have been taken as an indication of some sort of religious profanity; yet ‘the impersonation of non-Christian characters carried with it an innate risk that the means adopted to represent them would come to possess an entertainment value’.50 The inclusion of an entertainment
value was among other things a consequence of the efforts of the church to integrate the popular marks of identification within a Christian context and environment. ‘But, although, Daniel is a
ludus’, Margot Fassler says, ‘that is, a sporting or jocular entertainment, it is not ultimately
irreverent. Instead this is a play written by ecclesiastical reformers, as was the Circumcision Office that accompanies it in manuscript. It permits folly and discord, but within an orthodox context, and its goals are to suppress certain aspects of well-established popular traditions by bringing them into the church and containing them within larger liturgical and exegetical traditions’. 51
The Play of Daniel is thus a ludus whose aim is to integrate the various marks of popular identity within the realm of the church. In other words, certain values of the secular tradition, such as the need for a more comical and playful ceremony, are absorbed by the religious society itself. This explains why the clerks of Beauvais created a ludus whose ‘staging, text, and music, the particular choice of the Old Testament characters, and the narrative, all serve to illustrate the themes of misrule prominent in other aspects of Feast of Fools celebrations.’52Although we are
unable to say whether such plays were actually bringing misbehavior within the church, we are absolutely certain that they were created with the aim to absorb aspects of popular identity and to thereby secularize to the extent possible the liturgies of the various cathedrals. This effort brings us to two interrelated conclusions: first, that each cathedral or church absorbed the specific marks of identification of its regional identity. Second, as Gabriel le Bras notes, that the religious society is always in a kind of captivity by the profane society and it thereby utilizes all available means to overcome this barrier: ‘If religion lives inside the heart of man, each positive religion is born and grows within the society, which in turn, influences its content and form’.53
Similar theatrical innovations took place in the region of Laon with the introduction of the
Office of Joseph. Lagueux claims that the office is beyond any doubt a “Feast of Fools play”, as
50 Wickham Glynne, The Medieval Theatre (London:1974), Willmer Brothers Limited, p.53
51Fassler Margot, “The Feast of Fools and Danielis Ludus: Popular Tradition in a Medieval Cathedral Play” In Plainsong in the
Age of Polyphony (Cambridge:1992), Cambridge University Press, p. 66-67
52 Ibid, p. 66-67
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are the Office of the Prophets and the Office of the Stars a Christmas eve and a feast of Innocents plays respectively.54 These are plays created and staged only in Laon and should thus be considered
a particular expression of Laon’s clerical and popular tradition. As in the Play of Daniel, the Office
of Joseph, ‘composed for performance on Epiphany…the feast of the subdeacons at Laon’, was
designed in an effort to integrate secular marks of identification within a religious setting. 55 These
marks are captured through the play’s remarkable opportunity for cross-dressing, through its comical scenes, and through its portrayal of scenes of sexual seduction. The scenes of sexual seduction, for example, include dashing lines like the following: ‘again Portiphar’s wife, desiring Joseph, calls him in private’ and later it is added, ‘the wanton wanted to overwhelm me in the chamber’.56 All in all, Lagueux argues that the Office of Joseph was ‘a sophisticated masterpiece
of performative gloss’.57 Like the Play of Daniel, it entangled the serious piety of the clerical world
together with the comical character of the secular.
The cathedral of Beauvais and of Sens are also known for introducing as a part of their Feast of Fools tradition, a liturgical innovation that came to be known as the Feast of Ass. In Beauvais, the Feast of Ass began when two choristers sang the following verses in front of the cathedral’s door:
Light today, the light of joy, I banish every sorrow;
Wherever found, be it expelled from our solemnities tomorrow. Away be strife and grief and care, from every anxious breast, And all be joy and glee in those who keep the Ass’s feast58
The festivity included the procession of an ass inside the church, as a reenactment of the Biblical scene wherein the Holy Family was carried by an ass to its journey in Egypt. It is hardly necessary to point out that the procession of an ass inside the church was a very daring, yet not necessarily unholy, addition to Beauvais’ liturgical traditions. Moreover, the feast had created the ‘processional chanting of “Orientis partibus,” now known as the song (or prose) of the ass’.59 It is
important to realize that all these daring, lively, and local innovations indicate that the regional
54Lagueux Robert C., Glossing Christmas: Liturgy, Music, Exegesis, and Drama in High Medieval Laon (Yale: 2004), PhD. Diss,
Yale University Press, p. 372;
55Ibid, p. 372
56 Ibid, p. 383-84, p. 428-429
57 Ibid, p. 374
58 Louvet Pierre, Histoire et antiquitez du pais de Beauvais (Beauvais: 1631-1635), Valet, vol.2, p.300; for an English translation
see Hone Williams, Ancient Mysteries Described (London: 1823), William Hone, p. 163
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psychology of a French town determined to a great extent the nature of liturgy and subsequently the spirit of the festivities themselves. Finally, the majority of the liturgical innovations attached to the Feast of Fools had as a major aim (consciously or not) to unite the comical world of the secular community with the serious piety of the religious one.
Evidence coming from the poems composed by the goliardic scholar Walter of Châtillon (1135-1180) further highlights the regional flavor that the Feast of Fools was prone to take. Several scholars believe that a great portion of his poems ‘can be understood as texts recited at the Feast of Fools’.60 Karl Strecker (1861-1945) has put forward the proposition that at least four of Walter’s
satirical poems share a strong link with “the feast of the staff”, which was one of the various facets of the Feast of Fools in Châlons.61 Venetia Bridges has added that ‘interestingly, some of the early
evidence for the Feast comes from Châlons-en-Champagne, where Walter is meant to have taught and from where he derived his surname, suggesting a potential geographical link between his poetry and the festival’.62 The participation of poets in the counterparts of the Feast of Fools
underlines its flexible and diverse nature and suggests that many cathedrals often welcomed secular influences and interventions.
The powerful effect that these plays could potentially have in the consciousness of the clergy was an issue that had for a long time tantalized the thoughts and writings of Jean Gerson. In a treatise written in 1402, named “Against the Feast of Fools”, the French theologian ‘denounced the claim that “long usage” or the apparently harmless designations of games renders the festes des folz acceptable’.63 Two years later, in a sermon that he delivered in the city of Paris
under the title “On the Life of Clerics”, Gerson further highlighted his distrust and dislike of the performance of peculiar and innovative ludi. He remarks: ‘whatever blasphemy is done in the form
of games [ludi] must be earnestly put right by those who hold high office’.64 Whether Gerson was
attacking ludi like the ones discussed above or other forms of amusement taking place outside the French cathedrals remains unknown. Yet it is precisely because Jean Gerson knew that these
60 Schmidt Paul Gerhard, “The Quotation in Goliardic Poetry: The Feast of Fools and the Goliardic Strophe cum auctoritate” In
Latin Poetry and the Classical Tradition: Essays in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Oxford: 1996), Translated by Peter
Godman, Edited by Peter Godman and Oswyn Murray, Clarendon Press, p. 46
61 Strecker Karl, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte Walters von Chatillon (Heidelberg:1929), p. 127
62 Bridges Venetia, “Goliardic Poetry and the Problem of Historical Perspective: Medieval Adaptations of Walter of Châtillon’s
Quotation Poems”, In Medium Aevum, vol 81., no.2.,2012, p. 254
63 Gerson Jean, Oeuvres completes (Paris: 1960-1973), Ed. Palemon Glorieux, Desclée, vol. 7, p. 410; for an English translation
see Harris Max, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools (Ithaca, NY: 2011), Cornell University Press, p. 191
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used” ludi were creating the room for the religious and the secular lifestyles to become temporarily enmeshed that made him so worried of the consequences they could cause. To sum it up, the plays and liturgical innovations that have been enumerated in the section above are only indicative of the variety of forms that the Feast of Fools could take. Additionally, they were not necessarily celebrated on the day of Circumcision. This has obviously enhanced the ambiguity surrounding the Feast of Fools, which ‘as a rule focused on the Circumcision’ but more often than not ‘the term Feast of Fools extended to cover one or more three feasts, distinguished from it by Belethus, which immediately follow Christmas.’65
1.4. Contemporary Perception of the “Feast of Fools”
Due to is close proximity with other inversion-oriented clerical festivities and various secular games that were flourishing during the days after Christmas, the Feast of Fools very soon acquired a broad meaning, which encompassed various distinct happenings. The broad meaning that the term “Feast of Fools” acquired can also explain why the ecclesiastical authorities of the time were frequently attacking both the clerical parts of the Feast of Fools and the various customs that were taking place outside of the French cathedrals. Equally revealing is the fact that so many contemporaries of the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries appear to be almost indifferent in distinguishing between the Feast of Fools, the Feast of Innocents, the Feast of St. Nicholas, and curiously enough, even from Carnival. I say “curiously enough” not because it is impossible to comprehend the links between two phenomena (clerical and secular) that emphasized so heavily the idea of “turning the world upside-down”, or in other words, of temporarily inverting the hierarchical apparatus, but because typically speaking, the Christmas clerical festivities were a different thing from the secular celebrations of Carnival. In any case, let us now have a closer look on how the ecclesiastical authorities of the time described the Feast of Fools tradition and to hence unravel their own perception of it.
In his Summa de sacramentis, written in the last five years of his life, Peter the Chanter (died in 1997), a theologian and cantor of Notre-Dame in Paris, first remarked the similarities between these consecutive Christmas festivities. He says: ‘so that [the question] might be properly addressed or resolved, suppose that at the Feast of Fools or of Saint Nicholas or the feast of
25
Innocents, blood were shed during the performance of seasonal games when one [of the players], intending to strike with the flat of his sword, struck instead with the blade’.66 It is easy to note that
at the time of Peter Cantor the distinction between the Feast of Fools, the Feast of Innocents, and the Feast of Saint Nicolas were to a degree clear. Yet the cantor makes a hypothetical question including all these festivities, thus indicating that similar practices could have occurred in all of them.
The first instance in which the Feast of Fools is clearly associated with the Feast of Innocents comes as early as 1246. The following excerpt was most probably written by Odo of Tusculum (1190-1273), directing his instructions to the chapter of Nevers. He says:
Because we have become aware that on the Feast of Fools, which is [celebrated on the feast] of the Innocents and the New Year, they do many shameful things in your church, we strictly insist, under penalty of excommunication, that they not presume to hold such mocking feasts [festa irrisoria] in the future, strongly enjoining that solemn divine service be held just as on the other days; in this way you should take care to act will all decency and devotion on these feasts.67
The theologian here does not distinguish between the day of Innocents and the day of Circumcision (New Year). He uses the conjunction “and” thereby suggesting that the Feast of Fools was indeed, according to his own view, celebrated in both festivities, or at least, that in both of them similar practices were taking place. Accordingly, the Feast of Fools began to lose its strict initial attachment to feast of Circumcision and came to be equated with other festivities as well.
In 1313, the chapter of Chartres issued an order, in which it instructed that the Feast of Fools must be banished, while the Feast of Innocents shall remain in full function. In condemning the former festivity, the chapter remarked: ‘all the Feasts of Fools’ ought to ‘disappear henceforth’.68 It is worthwhile to ponder awhile on this condemnation. To begin with, the chapter
makes a rigid distinction between the Feast of Innocents and the Feast of Fools. It is revealing, however, that it thereafter makes mention not of one, singular Feast of Fools but rather of many, multiple, “Feasts of Fools”. This is not a coincidence; the “Feasts of Fools” were a variety of clerical activities that were initially attached to the day of Circumcision but with the passage of time came to be equated with a number of activities happening inside or outside the church. To put it differently, the “Feasts of Fools” is nothing more than a festive atmosphere permeating the
66 Baldwin John W, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle (Princeton: 1970),
Princeton University Press, vol.1 p. 132, vol. 2. p. 91
67 Martène Edmond and Ursini Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, (Paris:1717), F. Delaulne, vol. IV, p.1070
68 Clerval J.A., L’ancienne maitrise de Notre-Dame de Chartres du Ve siècle à la révolution (Geneva: 1972), Minkoff, p.
26
entire Christmas period, in which the reversal of roles of hierarchy stood at the center of its conception, and which also included a vast amount of secular practices, such as singing, dancing, staging of performances, games, masquerading, cross-dressing, to name a few.
The equation of the clerical Feast of Fools with all these different clerical activities is captured at its best in a letter written sometime between 1407 and 1408 by the Chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson. He proclaims:
Let it be known, how that most impious and insane rite which reigns throughout all of France can be plucked out or at least regulated: [I refer], of course, to what ecclesiastics do either on the day of the Innocents or on the day of the Circumcision or on the Epiphany of the Lord, or during Carnival, throughout the churches [of France], where a detestable mockery is made of the service of the Lord and of the sacraments, where many things are impudently and execrably done which should be done only in taverns or brothels, or among Saracens and Jews; those who have seen [these things] know [what I mean]. If ecclesiastical censure does not suffice, let the help of the king’s power be sought through a [royal] edict vigorously enforced69
To begin with, Gerson had great knowledge of the religious customs of his era and was heavily involved in reforming many practices that he personally disapproved. Consequently, it is very probable that Gerson had access to first-hand information, not to say that he himself was a witness of the clerical activities which were held and preserved within the various cathedrals of Paris. In fact, his remark that “those who have seen [these things] know [what I mean]”, indicates that he was talking as someone who had himself experienced what these festivities were all about.
In spite of whether Gerson’s descriptions shall be treated as accurate or not, what is important to underline here is that he indifferently groups the Feast of Fools together with the Feast of Innocents and with the celebrations taking place in the season of Carnival. The fact that all such festivities are included under the same pretext and are therefore treated synonymously, suggests that the theologian was not interested to speak about the happenings of a specific liturgy, but rather aimed to condemn practices and customs that have emerged and sustained throughout the Christmas clerical festivities. His comparison with “things done in taverns or brothels” underscores that he was mostly interested in drawing away the clergy from participating in practices of a secular nature. Indeed, the Chancellor goes as far as to include the secular Carnival in his description, precisely because the Feast of Fools (now seen as an umbrella term rather than a feast held on the day of Circumcision) shared similar language and imagery with the revels taking place in the lay festivities.
69 Gerson Jean, Oeuvres completes (Paris: 1960-1973), Ed. Palemon Glorieux, Desclée, vol. 6, p. 108-114; for an English
27
Similar descriptions of the Feast of Fools will follow throughout the fifteenth century. We will limit ourselves by listing the most central and important ones so as to understand the broad tone that the Feast of Fools had by this time acquired. In a decree issued in 1435, the Council of Basel proclaims:
In some churches, during certain celebrations of the year, there are carried on various scandalous practices. Some people with mitre, crozier and pontifical vestments give blessings after the manner of bishops. Others are robed like kings and dukes; in some regions this is called the feast of fools or innocents, or of children. Some put on masked and theatrical comedies, others organize dances for men and women, attracting people to amusement and buffoonery. Others prepare meals and banquets there. This holy synod detests these abuses. It forbids ordinaries as well as deans and rectors of churches, under pain of being deprived of all ecclesiastical revenues for three months, to allow these and similar frivolities, or even markets and fairs, in churches, which ought to be houses of prayer, or even in cemeteries. They are to punish transgressors by ecclesiastical censures and other remedies of the law. The holy synod decrees that all customs, statutes and privileges which do not accord with these decrees, unless they add greater penalties, are null.70
The passage above reconfirms that the authorities themselves did not have a precise picture of when the Feast of Fools took place or what exactly was its name. We shall not assume that the Council of Basel did not possess the means to know the exact details of the Feast of Fools; they could have easily acquired such information with the help of local participants. It is, therefore, precisely the fact that the decree groups all these different and to a degree distinct festivities together (the mention to the feast “of children” might be a reference to the Feast of St. Nicholas), that leads us to the conclusion that the Feast of Fools shall not be examined under the strict liturgical apparatus that took place on the day of Circumcision but rather as a type or category of festivities, which shared as a main feature the inversion of roles of hierarchy. Not only the Council of Basel groups these different liturgies under the broad term Feast of Fools, but it also underlines the spontaneous and diverse nature of the festivity by listing all the possible directions that it could take: ‘some put on masked and theatrical comedies… others prepare meals and banquets’ and so on.
A legislation passed four years earlier, issued by the provincial council of Tours, captures even more vividly the broadness that the term Feast of Fools had acquired. It states:
In some churches of the province of Tours, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord, Saint Stephen, John, and the Innocents, some make and appoint, from the novices or [choir]boys, a pope, some a bishop, others a duke, others a count, and others a prince… In common speech, such things are called the Feast of Fools. 71
70 “Council of Basel 1431-45 A.D. Council Fathers”, In Papal Encyclicals, (Oct. 2018)
www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum17.htm
71 Avril Joseph, Les conciles de la province de Tours (XIIIe–XVe siècles) (Paris: 1987), Centre National de la Recherche
