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.