Que le loup mangit au bois.
Parlé. O tête, pauvre tête,
Tâ qui chantas si bé
L’Magnificat à Vêpres.
Daux matin à quat’ leçons,
La sambredondon, bredondaine,
Daux matin à quat’ léçons,
La sambredondon.’
This, like the Sens choir-boys’ custom of calling their ‘archbishop’ âne, would seem to suggest that the dominus festi was himself the ass, with a mask on; and this may have been sometimes the case. But in most of the mediaeval instances the ass was probably used to ride. At Prague, so far as one can judge from Huss’s description, he was a real ass. There is no proof in any of the French examples that he was, or was not, merely a ‘hobby-ass.’ If he was, he came all the nearer to the Cervulus.
It has been pointed out, and will, in the next volume, be pointed out again, that the ecclesiastical authorities attempted to sanctify the spirit of play at the Feast of Fools and similar festivities by diverting the energies of the revellers to ludi of the miracle-play order. In such ludi they found a place for the ass. He appears for instance as Balaam’s ass in the later versions from Laon and Rouen of the Prophetae, and at Rouen he gave to the whole of this performance the name of the festum or processio asinorum[1163]. At Hamburg, by a curious combination, he is at once Balaam’s ass and the finder of the star in a ludus Trium Regum[1164]. His use as the mount of the Virgin on January 14 at Beauvais, and on some uncertain day at Sens, seems to suggest another favourite episode in such ludi, that of the Flight into Egypt. At Varennes, in Picardy, and at Bayonne, exist carved wooden groups representing this event. That of Varennes is carried in procession; that of Bayonne is the object of pilgrimage on the fêtes of the Virgin[1165].