[987] cum farsia: a farsia, farsa, or farsura (Lat. farcire, ‘to stuff’), is a Tropus interpolated into the text of certain portions of the office or mass, especially the Kyrie, the Lectiones and the Epistola. Such farces were generally in Latin, but occasionally, especially in the Epistle, in the vernacular (Frere, Winchester Troper, ix, xvi).

[988] Laetabundus: i. e. St. Bernard’s prose beginning Laetabundus exultet fidelis chorus; Alleluia (Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus, ii. 61), which was widely used in the feasts of the Christmas season.

[989] The document is too long to quote in full. These are the essential passages. The legate says: The Church of Paris is famous, therefore diligence must be used ‘ad exstirpandum penitus quod ibidem sub praetextu pravae consuetudinis inolevit ... Didicimus quod in festo Circumcisionis Dominicae ... tot consueverunt enormitates et opera flagitiosa committi, quod locum sanctum ... non solum foeditate verborum, verum etiam sanguinis effusione plerumque contingit inquinari, et ... ut sacratissima dies ... festum fatuorum nec immerito generaliter consueverit appellari.’ Odo and the rest order: ‘In vigilia festivitatis ad Vesperas campanae ordinate sicut in duplo simplici pulsabuntur. Cantor faciet matriculam (the roll of clergy for the day’s services) in omnibus ordinate; rimos, personas, luminaria herciarum nisi tantum in rotis ferreis, et in penna, si tamen voluerit ille qui capam redditurus est, fieri prohibemus; statuimus etiam ne dominus festi cum processione vel cantu ad ecclesiam adducatur, vel ad domum suam ab ecclesia reducatur. In choro autem induet capam suam, assistentibus ei duobus canonicis subdiaconis, et tenens baculum cantoris, antequam incipiantur Vesperae, incipiet prosam Laetemur gaudiis: qua finita episcopus, si praesens fuerit ... incipiet Vesperas ordinate et solemniter celebrandas; ... a quatuor subdiaconis indutis capis sericis Responsorium cantabitur.... Missa similiter cum horis ordinate celebrabitur ab aliquo praedictorum, hoc addito quod Epistola cum farsia dicetur a duobus in capis sericis, et postmodum a subdiacono ... Vesperae sequentes sicut priores a Laetemur gaudiis habebunt initium: et cantabitur Laetabundus, loco hymni. Deposuit quinquies ad plus dicetur loco suo; et si captus fuerit baculus, finito Te Deum laudamus, consummabuntur Vesperae ab eo quo fuerint inchoatae.... Per totum festum in omnibus horis canonici et clerici in stallis suis ordinate et regulariter se habebunt.’

[990] The feast lasted from Vespers on the vigil to Vespers on the day of the Circumcision. The Hauptmoment was evidently the Magnificat in the second Vespers. But what exactly took place then? Did the cathedral precentor hand over the baculus to the dominus festi, or was it last year’s dominus festi, who now handed it over to his newly-chosen successor? Probably the latter. The dominus festi is called at first Vespers ‘capam redditurus’: doubtless the cope and baculus went together. The dominus festi may have, as elsewhere, exercised disciplinary and representative functions amongst the inferior clergy during the year. His title I take to have been, as at Sens, precentor stultorum. The order says, ‘si captus fuerit baculus’; probably it was left to the chapter to decide whether the formal installation of the precentor in church should take place in any particular year.

[991] P. L. ccxv. 1070 ‘Interdum ludi fiunt in eisdem ecclesiis theatrales, et non solum ad ludibriorum spectacula introducuntur in eas monstra larvarum, verum etiam in tribus anni festivitatibus, quae continue Natalem Christi sequuntur, diaconi, presbiteri ac subdiaconi vicissim insaniae suae ludibria exercentes, per gesticulationum suarum debacchationes obscoenas in conspectu populi decus faciunt clericale vilescere.... Fraternitati vestrae ... mandamus, quatenus ... praelibatam vero ludibriorum consuetudinem vel potius corruptelam curetis e vestris ecclesiis ... exstirpare.’ As to the scope of this decretal and the glosses of the canonists upon it, cf. the account of miracle plays (ch. xx).

[992] Decretales Greg. IX, lib. iii. tit. i. cap. 12 (C. I. Can. ed. Friedberg, ii. 452). I cannot verify an alleged confirmation of the decretal by Innocent IV in 1246.

[993] C. of Paris (1212), pars iv. c. 16 (Mansi, xxii. 842) ‘A festis vero follorum, ubi baculus accipitur, omnino abstineatur. Idem fortius monachis et monialibus prohibemus.’ Can. 18 is a prohibition against ‘choreae,’ similar to that of Eudes de Sully already referred to. Such general prohibitions are as common during the mediaeval period as during that of the conversion (cf. ch. viii), and probably covered the Feast of Fools. See e.g. C. of Avignon (1209), c. 17 (Mansi, xxii. 791), C. of Rouen (1231), c. 14 (Mansi, xxiii. 216), C. of Bayeux (1300), c. 31 (Mansi, xxv. 66).

[994] Codex Senonen. 46 A. There are two copies in the Bibl. Nat., (i) Cod. Parisin. 10520 B, containing the text only, dated 1667; (ii) Cod. Parisin. 1351 C, containing text and music, made for Baluze (1630-1718). The Officium has been printed by F. Bourquelot in Bulletin de la Soc. arch. de Sens (1858), vi. 79, and by Clément, 125 sqq. The metrical portions are also in Dreves, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, xx. 217, who cites other Quellen for many of them. See further on the MS., Dreves, Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, xlvii. 575; Desjardins, 126; Chérest, 14; A. L. Millin, Monuments antiques inédits (1802-6), ii. 336; Du Tilliot, 13; J. A. Dulaure, Environs de Paris (1825), vii. 576; Nisard, in Archives des Missions scientifiques et littéraires (1851), 187; Leber, ix. 344 (l’Abbé Lebeuf). Before the Officium proper, on f. 1vo of the MS. a fifteenth-century hand (Chérest, 18) has written the following quatrain:

‘Festum stultorum de consuetudine morum

omnibus urbs Senonis festivat nobilis annis,