[1072] MS. Hist. of Dom. Bugniatre (eighteenth century) quoted Fleury, op. cit. 16. I do not feel sure that the term ‘fête des ânes’ was really used at Laon.
[1073] Julleville, Les Com. 36; Rép. Com. 348; L. Paris, Remensiana, 32, Le Théâtre à Reims, 30; Coquillart, Œuvres (Bibl. Elzév.), i. cxxxv. Coquillart is said to have written verses for the Basoche on this occasion.
[1074] Rigollot, 211, from A. Hugo, La France pittoresque, ii. 226, on the authority of a register of 1570 in the cathedral archives.
[1075] It begins ‘Cantemus ad honorem, gloriam et laudem Sancti Stephani.’
[1076] L. Deschamps de Pas, in Mém. de la Soc. des Antiq. de la Morinie, xx. 104, 107, 133; O. Bled, in Bull. Hist., de la même Soc. (1887), 62.
[1077] Deschamps de Pas, op. cit. 133 ‘solitum est fieri gaude in cena ob reverentiam ipsius sancti.’
[1078] Ibid. op. cit. 107. Grenier, 414, citing Sammarthanus, Gallia Christiana, x. 1510, calls Francis de Melun ‘bishop of Terouanne.’ An earlier reform of the feast seems implied by the undated Chapter Statute in Ducange, s. v. Episcopus Fatuorum ‘quia temporibus retroactis multi defectus et plura scandala, deordinationes et mala, occasione Episcopi Fatuorum et suorum evenerint, statuimus et ordinamus quod de caetero in festo Circumcisionis Domini Vicarii caeterique chorum frequentantes et eorum Episcopus se habeant honeste, cantando et officiando sicut continetur plenius in Ordinario Ecclesiae.’
[1079] De la Fons-Melicocq, Cérémonies dramatiques et Anciens Usages dans les Eglises du Nord de la France (1850), 4. In 1445 is a payment to the ‘évêque des fous de Saint-Aldegonde’ for a ‘jeu’; in 1474, one for the chapter’s share of ‘le feste du vesque des asnes, par dessus tout ce que ly cœurz paya.’
[1080] E. Hautcœur, Hist. de l’Église collégiale de Saint-Pierre de Lille (1896-9), ii. 30; Id. Cartulaire de l’Église, &c. ii. 630, 651 (Stat. Capit. of July 7, 1323, confirmed June 23, 1328); ‘item volumus festum folorum penitus anullari.’
[1081] Hautcœur, Hist. ii. 215; De la Fons-Melicocq, Archives hist. et litt. du Nord de France (3rd series), v. 374; Flammermont, Album paléographique du Nord de la France (1896), No. 45.