Milan, like Verona, had its jesters at court, but the only incident therewith worth repeating is, that at the court of Duke Francis Sforza, the fool Marchesina bore so striking a resemblance to the Duke’s son-in-law, Malatesta, that it was thought necessary always to send Marchesina out of Milan whenever Malatesta repaired thither on a visit.
From the Italian jesters we will, if my readers please, pass finally to those of households where we might least expect to find them, unless Scripture could give warrant for their employment,—namely, priestly households where fools found homes.
JESTERS IN PRIESTS’ HOUSES.
The court fool, like the tailor, is one whose avocation is passed by without notice in Scripture. From no passage in Holy Writ could the old church dignitaries who maintained fools in their households, find warrant for their practice; they simply found a worldly fashion, and adopted it. Like princes, they were not always free from “vapours;” and as princes sought to cure their melancholy by the agency of hired mirth-makers, these reverend gentlemen followed the example.
With respect to the profession of fools, in its connection with the Clergy, there are two circumstances which present themselves to our attention, and excite our surprise. In old pictures and woodcuts representing inner clerical life, the presence of the jester proves that he was an actual member of the godly and merry household. This is further certain by several edicts, which forbid, not only various church dignitaries therein named from maintaining fools, but also forbidding abbesses from making dull days in convents tolerable by employing jesters to help them through such heavy seasons. But if it be matter of some surprise, to find grave religious dignitaries and solemn lady abbesses taking pleasure in such jokes as the professional mirth-maker could manufacture for them, a still greater measure of surprise is excited by the fact, that these holy personages occasionally acted the fool themselves, at the tables of patrons whose particular favour they most earnestly desired. That this irregular practice must have prevailed to a very wide extent, is ascertained by a passage in a decree of the Council of Cahors, to this effect: “It is also our command, that the clergy shall not practise as jesters, fools, or buffoons (Joculatores, Goliardi, seu Bufones), declaring that if they exercise such disgraceful profession for one year, they are thereby deprived of every ecclesiastical privilege; and further ordering, that if they do not desist, after being duly admonished, they shall be subjected, in addition, to secular punishment.” I am afraid that the Council of Cahors would not even have granted exemption to Sydney Smith.
Among the punishments alluded to, was whipping—after degradation. The last alone was no joke to a clerical jester. He was condemned to serve his brethren, and to go to communion as a simple laic. If such an offender travelled without testimonials, he was further subject to great annoyance and suspicion, as (to take an early example) when Chrysostom, at Constantinople, hospitably entertained some agreeable Egyptian monks, he was delighted with his visitors, but he would not admit them to the Eucharist. The joyous strangers might, for aught he knew, be under censure, and he treated them accordingly.
But, although Scripture does not mention, and the Councils of the Church do not sanction, “fools,” the latter particularly when they are members also of the clerical profession; yet the jester does not lack a protector among the Saints. The Church, indeed, has been, if one may say so without being impertinent, a little inconsistent towards the professional merrymen, when it is recollected, that in the roll of Saints there are two who especially favour fools. One is St. Mathurin, who was always invoked by them in sickness. He was a very good man, who lived at Montargis, in the fourth century, and who condescended to be the physician of all professional jesters, till the vocation became extinct. The other, and more especially patron-saint, was St. Julian; but which of the half-dozen of solemn and shadowy men who bear that name on the calendar, I am unable to say. Probably it was the Julian who, in the seventh century, was Archbishop of Toledo. This prelate not only lived at the court of King Wemba, but he talked him into abdicating the crown, and assuming the cowl. There was no other but a fool who could have had such liberty of speech, or was likely to have used it so effectually,—and from this circumstance is, perhaps, derived the alleged fact of St. Julian’s patronage of the professors of folly.
Whatever the Saint may have thought of the community, it is very clear that the Church did not regard its members with so much complacency as certain individual priests, who loved to have a “fun-maker” in their household. I suppose the liking and the practices to which it led were abused, or solemn councils would hardly have issued stern prohibitions, by which prelates were forbidden to retain the professional fool. The prohibition was referred to during many centuries, and we are told that Antony Sanderus, as late as 1624, reproached the clergy of his time with their love for buffoons, and for young ladies whose wit might be heavier, but whose principles were lighter than any ever professed beneath the party-coloured gabardine.
There was a time when some church corporations peculiarly honoured the votary of St. Julian. At Tournay, for instance, at the annual procession of the Holy Sacrament, the pompous line of march was opened by the official fou de la ville, who was paid by the municipality. When we read that his dress, acts, and words were all of the most extravagant description, we are surprised to learn that the office was sometimes filled by a wealthy banker of the city. At that time perhaps bankers were more fools than knaves.