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.