Cardinal Richelieu possessed a better taste in jesters than Wolsey. His buffoons were men of wit and learning, and the latter were admirably combined in the Abbé de Boisrobert, who brought to the Cardinal his daily dish of city scandal, amused him by his imitations of the peculiarities of Richelieu’s friends, wrote half his tragedies for him, knew more of the drama than of divinity, was so constantly present at the theatre that it came to be called the “Cathedral of Boisrobert,” and finally, who founded the French Academy. The Abbé was no ordinary fool, but an incomparable wit; and when he was out of favour with Richelieu, and the latter was ill, his physician wrote the simple but indispensable prescription, “Recipe Boisrobert!”
If Cardinals had their jesters, we must not be surprised to find them in episcopal houses. In Germany, in the 16th and 17th centuries, some of them exhibited the usual bent of the class for practical joking; some were famous for their feats of strength; others for their blasphemy; one or two were remarkable for their simplicity; but none of them can be said to have been distinguished for wit. I have already mentioned Klaus Narr in a ducal household; he was subsequently jester to Ernst, Archbishop of Magdeburg. In this service, if he did nothing else, he at least gave rise to a proverbial saying. He had covered the floor of the Archbishop’s room with feathers from a bed which he had ripped open. The prelate, on entering the apartment, angrily inquired who had done this; and as, at the moment, the Archbishop’s dog Lepsch, which had been in the chamber the whole time of Klaus Narr’s freak, rose from his couchant position, and opened his mouth, Klaus called to him angrily, “Lepsch, boy, don’t let out the secret!” The prelate laughed; and the expression became a proverb, to be applied in cases where silence was recommended.
The Bishop of Bamberg was less choice in his fool than his brother of Magdeburg. He kept a jester whose chief wit consisted in passing himself off as the brother of our Saviour. This poor wretch prattled incessantly of incidents in the household of his supposed family, and drew laughter from his reverend master by chatting with fearful familiarity of the events of a life, death, and resurrection which no Christian can ever think of without emotions of sympathy, love, and gratitude. This sorry fool, once seeing his godly patron treating with immense demonstration of friendship a deputation of Nurembergers whom he intended to fleece, imprison, and hang, the jester exclaimed, “Ay, ay! I remember how my good brother Jesus was superbly treated when he entered Jerusalem in triumph; but those rascally Jews plundered and executed him nevertheless!” The blasphemy certainly served the purpose of putting the Nurembergers on their guard; and the Bishop was only annoyed at it because it frustrated a cherished purpose.
The bad taste of the Bamberg bishops with respect to their jesters, is illustrated in another diocesan, who lived in part of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. This exemplary divine maintained a coarse, strong, active, semi-savage peasant, who amused the episcopal court and guests by going about on all-fours, and often with a dwarf on his back, like a young knight on a huge steed. The fun consisted in the steed trying to unhorse the cavalier. Sometimes this huge fellow would leap on to the table without upsetting a goblet; at other times he was baited in the Bishop’s dining-room by dogs, and they generally had the worst of it. Springing at them in his wild attire, and uttering unearthly howls, he would pull down with his teeth even the fiercest bull-dogs, and so terribly maul them that they would not try a second attack. As for dogs of less ferocious breed, they flew at once from his terrific bellowing, seldom waiting to try the effect of his teeth. The agility of this savage was equal to his strength, and he would run along the uppermost parapet of the episcopal palace, and throw somersaults upon it as carelessly as if he had been on the ground, to the wild delight of the Bambergers, who were not very superior in moral qualities to the people of Munster. The latter had more regard for the fool of their Bishop than the fool had for them. One morning, the prelate’s jester was seen in a field belonging to his master, sowing pebbles. “It would be more profitable,” remarked a spectator, “if you could sow seed that should bring a crop of honest men.” “Ah,” answered the joker, “that’s a crop that the land of Munster is of too bad a quality to produce.”
Julius, Bishop of Wurtzburg, had as witty a fool as his brother of Munster. This jester was very much petted; but like spoiled favourites, he sometimes offended grievously by his impertinence, and the Bishop once ordered him to prison. While the gaoler was strewing some straw on the ground of the cell for the condemned jester to lie upon, the latter slipped out, locked the keeper in, and carried the key to the Bishop, with the remark that it was “all right.” “All right?” exclaimed the prelate. “It is all wrong, since you are not in prison, sirrah, and the gaoler is.” “There may be some mistake,” answered the joker; “but I can hardly think so. You ordered a fool to prison, and I am sure you will find one there, if you will only look for him.”
The prelates who kept fools about their hearth, had not unfrequently a taste of their office which was more likely to excite anger than merriment. These prelates occasionally even slept with their jesters. The former could not have been much given to meditation, since they depended on the latter to laugh them into sleep, or to solace them by merriment when they were wakeful. One of the princely Archbishops of Cologne followed this very indifferent fashion.
Were not my space becoming so limited, I might here fittingly notice those “Festivals of Fools” in which whole cities once took part, and of which the church was the principal scene. I allude especially to those Fêtes des Fous, Saturnalia established or continued to conciliate semi-converted pagans, and which were not entirely abolished till the end of the sixteenth century. This subject, however, would require a volume, and in some countries has had volumes devoted to it. The chief characteristic of a Fête des Fous was, insult to the Church, and it is astonishing that a powerful Church bore with the nuisance for so long a period. A boy was, generally at the Epiphany, elected as Bishop, mounted on an ass, and escorted to church, where the people would interrupt the priest at his office, by unseemly songs, jeers, and profane and filthy conversation. Some would play at dice upon the altar, while others would feign to denounce them, or pretend to assist the priest, by mock exhortations or obscene lectures. The procession of fools, on leaving the church, greeted the open-mouthed starers by flinging bran in their faces, as they passed; and amused others by jumping over brooms, and chanting so-called hymns,—that were not for edification. This abomination lasted so long that many conservatively-minded persons saw a mystery in it, and when the church authorities aided the secular government to suppress the iniquity, there were not wanting individuals who maintained that this festival of fools was as pleasing to God, as the holiest festival of the year! Among these objectors to the suppression of this custom, were many clerics, who either enjoyed the uproarious holiday or made profit by being actors on the occasion.
In connection with jests and jesters near the Church, I could not well avoid mentioning this festival, where the buffoons exceeded any license assumed by official fools in royal and imperial courts. There are, however, so many well-known works or essays devoted to this matter, that I gladly leave the subject, trusting that if there be a reader who has gone with me thus far, he will accompany me through one more chapter before we finally part.