[981] Belethus, c. 72 ‘Festum hypodiaconorum, quod vocamus stultorum, a quibusdam perficitur in Circumcisione, a quibusdam vero in Epiphania, vel in eius octavis. Fiunt autem quatuor tripudia post Nativitatem Domini in Ecclesia, levitarum scilicet, sacerdotum, puerorum, id est minorum aetate et ordine, et hypodiaconorum, qui ordo incertus est. Unde fit ut ille quandoque annumeretur inter sacros ordines, quandoque non, quod expresse ex eo intelligitur quod certum tempus non habeat, et officio celebretur confuso.’ Cf. ch. xv on the three other tripudia.
[982] Lebeuf, Hist. de Paris (1741), ii. 277; Grenier, 365:
Ad amicum venturum ad festum Baculi.
Festa dies aliis Baculus venit et novus annus,
Qua venies, veniet haec mihi festa dies.
Leonius is named as canon of N.-D. in the Obituary of the church Guérard, Cartulaire de N.-D. in (Doc. inédits sur l’Hist. de France, iv. 34), but unfortunately the year of his death is not given.
[983] During the fifteenth century the Chantre of N.-D. ‘porta le baston’ at the chief feasts as ruler of the choir (F. L. Chartier, L’ancien Chapitre de N.-D. de Paris (1897), 176). This baculus must be distinguished from the baculus pastoralis or episcopi.
[984] Guérard, Cartulaire de N.-D. (Doc. inéd. sur l’Hist. de France), i. 73; also printed by Ducange, s. v. Kalendae; P. L. ccxii. 70. The charta, dated 1198, runs in the names of ‘Odo [de Soliaco] episcopus, H. decanus, R. cantor, Mauricius, Heimericus et Odo archidiaconi, Galo, succentor, magister Petrus cancellarius, et magister Petrus de Corbolio, canonicus Parisiensis.’ Possibly the real moving spirit in the reform was the dean H[ugo Clemens], to whom the Paris Obituary (Guérard, loc. cit. iv. 61) assigns a similar reform of the feast of St. John the Evangelist. Petrus de Corbolio we shall meet again. Eudes de Sully was bishop 1196-1208. His Constitutions (P. L. ccxii. 66) contain a prohibition of ‘choreae ... in ecclesiis, in coemeteriis et in processionibus.’ In a second decree of 1199 (P. L. ccxii. 72) he provided a solatium for the loss of the Feast of Fools in a payment of three deniers to each clerk below the degree of canon, and two deniers to each boy present at Matins on the Circumcision. Should the abuses recur, the payment was to lapse. This donation was confirmed in 1208 by his successor Petrus de Nemore (P. L. ccxii. 92).
[985] A ‘hearse’ was a framework of wood or iron bearing spikes for tapers (Wordsworth, Mediaeval Services, 156). The penna was also a stand for candles (Ducange, s.v.).
[986] A prosa is a term given in French liturgies to an additional chant inserted on festal occasions as a gloss upon or interpolation in the text of the office or mass. It covers nearly, though not quite, the same ground as Sequentia, and comes under the general head of Tropus (ch. xviii). For a more exact differentiation cf. Frere, Winchester Troper, ix. Laetemur gaudiis is a prose ascribed to Notker Balbulus of St. Gall.