The Elector Frederick, finding his dominions threatened with invasion, was inclined to treat with the enemy, but first asked the fool what he thought of the matter. “Give me your best mantle,” said Klaus, “and I will tell you.” This having been done, Klaus withdrew, tore the mantle in two, and reappeared with one of the halves hanging from his shoulders. The Elector, enraged at the damage done to his best cloak, asked what was meant by such a joke. “It means,” said Klaus, “that if you treat with the foe, you will soon look as ridiculous with half your dominions, as I do with half a cloak.”
This was a more cumbersome sort of wit than was exercised by a contemporary fool, Peter Bärenhaut, at the court of Philip, Landgrave of Baden. The latter complained of headache on the morrow of a terrible drinking-bout, and the fool said he knew a cure for it. “What is your remedy?” asked the Landgrave, “Drink again today,” answered Peter. “Then I shall only suffer more tomorrow,” said the Prince. “Then,” rejoined Peter, “you must drink still more.” “But in what would such a remedy end?” asked the Landgrave. “Why,” said Peter, “in your being a bigger fool than I am!”
The jesters to small potentates rivalled the Narrs of the Imperial Court in their boldness. It would seem that at grave ecclesiastical discussions, where a common man would not dare to make a remark, nor a courtier to venture on a comment, the fool spoke and acted without restraint. Eck has left an account of the great controversy on Articles of Faith which he held against Luther at Leipsic in 1519. “The citadel,” he says, “was prepared as our battle-field; the place was guarded by seventy-six soldiers, to protect us, in case of need, from the insults of the people of Wittemberg.” Against the wit or anger, however, of the fool of George, Duke of Saxony, who was present with his master, no precaution was thought necessary. To the jester, some of the courtiers whispered that Luther and Eck were disputing about his marriage, the former being for and the latter against it. The ducal fool had but one eye, but that was fired with indignation against the supposed opponent of his marriage. Eck bore his angry looks for a time with some patience. At length, annoyed at and not comprehending them, the grave churchman took to mimicking the infirmity of the fool, by screwing up one eye closely, and rolling the other at him in a sort of comical defiance. This drove the Saxon joker out of all bounds of moderation. He started up, pummelled old Eck with hard words, called him rogue, liar, and thief, and after overwhelming him with a torrent of similar amenities, took an indignant hop, skip, and jump out of the hall, amid the universal laughter of the delighted audience.
At a later period, Augustus II., of Saxony, had his own official fool in the person of Joseph Frohlich, for whom he had ninety-nine different suits made, and who in his full dress was often seen in the streets of Dresden. He was not the only fool at this court, for we learn that when the Prussian “joker” von Gundling died, the court fools of Dresden went into mourning for their colleague, wearing crape bands twenty ells in length, and mourning cloaks so long that they or others were always tumbling over them.
A singular instance of what was considered to qualify a man for being a court fool, presents itself in the case of Conrad Pocher, jester to Philip the Upright, Elector Palatine. Pocher was a cowherd, and was once sent a-field, with a boy to attend him. The boy was sick and feeble, and Pocher, out of compassion, hung him to the branch of a tree. He was tried for the murder, but he defended himself with such humour, on the ground that he had greatly benefited the helpless little cow-boy, that the court was in ecstasy, and the Elector, recognizing Pocher’s merits, immediately appointed him to the post of official jester. Little is said of his wit. His jokes were of a very lumbering nature. He would crop the tails of the Elector’s cows, that they might look like the Elector’s horses; and once, when his master laid siege to a small town, which he wanted to reduce by famine, and accordingly occupied the passes leading to it, Pocher lay for three days across a ditch which ran in the direction of the town, in order to hasten, as he said, the surrender of the place!
Another Palatine Prince, Duke Wolfgang of Neuberg, had a far wittier fool in “Squire Peter,” as he was jokingly called. It was once remarked to the Squire, that the Duke did not so much care for him as the Elector of Cologne did for his fool. “I know that very well,” said Peter; “the reason is, that my master looks after his country and subjects, and therefore has not the leisure to play with fools, as your master has.”
Of his dignity, Peter had a very exalted idea, and when a young Count once wished to bandy jokes with him, the Squire haughtily observed, “I am his Serene Highness’s jester, and not the tool of every sorry Count that comes to visit him!” He spared the clergy as little as the nobility; and to a priest who once asked him if he had prepared for the coming fast, Peter replied, “Better than you, Father, for you have bought fish and eggs enough to last a family fond of good living, for a month. Now I have bought nothing at all; and so am better prepared for fasting.” At the close of the fast, the same priest inquired how he had kept it. “I did away with a couple of hams,” said Peter;—at which the reverend gentleman looked shocked. “Don’t look so disgusted,” rejoined the Squire. “I did away with them in this sense,—I gave them, instead of money, to a neighbour who was a creditor of mine.” “You are a merry fellow,” said the priest; “let me now hear you say the Lord’s Prayer.” “I don’t know it,” answered the Squire. “It is wicked, it is shameful—” the priest began to remark, when Peter interrupted him by observing, “Exactly; that’s just the reason why I did not learn it.”
Numerous are the stories of this nature told of Squire Peter, who appears to have been something of a profane wit. Towards the end of the century in which he lived, we find a celebrated fool in Pomerania, Claus Hintze, in the service of Duke John Frederick of Stettin. Claus was originally only a cowherd, but after his appointment as official jester to the Duke, he so grew in his patron’s favour, that his master made him lord of the village of Butterdorf; and in consequence of a rhymed petition to that effect, declared that the district should never again serve as a wolf-chase. For this privilege the grateful people thanked a fool who had a fair share of fun in him, who served his ducal master well on very critical occasions, and who was as jolly a toper as any in Pomerania.
In the last character he was surpassed by a successor at the ducal court, Hans Miesko, A.D. 1600. Hans was imbecile, and it is surprising to find that, even in the age in which he lived, princes could derive pleasure from the mistakes and unclean acts of such persons, or could give them official standing in their household. Miesko died in extreme old-age, from reaching which his gluttony and excessive drinking had presented no obstruction; and he is perhaps the only fool who had the honour of a funeral sermon being preached over him. This was done by the command, and in the presence of, his master, Duke Francis, and the Reverend Philip Cradelius, who took his text from 1 Samuel xxi. 13–15: “And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. Then said Achish unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye brought him to me? Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house?” The preacher too much exalted the merits of Miesko, as Christian, servant, and fool; over-praised the condescension of princes towards such individuals, and founded on his text, scriptural warrant for the existence of such officials. But I think there is something satirical in the application of the text, which teaches us, says the preacher, that where great princes are, there too may you look to find great fools. The double meaning should have raised the Rector to a Deanery.—But perhaps Duke Francis did not relish the joke.
While Miesko was making Pomeranian princes glad by his imbecility and the fun drawn out of it, Frederick Taubman was keeping the Saxon court in merry humour by his conceits. But Taubman, though as lowly born as Miesko, was a scholar, and was not officially a fool. He was something of a poet, something of a philosopher, was well-read, was a collegiate professor; but therewith he was poor, yet was fond of luxurious living, and therefore he was glad to take his eccentricities to court, where their exhibition was paid for in ducats, rich viands, costly wines, and endless jollification. He was the court fool in all but being officially appointed; and, with better qualifications than many, used the license common to all. On one occasion, a courtier who was shaking hands with him, remarked, “Taubman, your coarse hands are only fit for digging.” Taubman squeezed the courtier’s fingers, and answered, “I am already handling a clod.” He once asked Cardinal Clesel, if he knew where God was not. “In hell,” answered the Cardinal readily.—“Nor in Rome,” rejoined the wit; “or wherefore is his Vicegerent there?”