[1135] Ibid. op. cit. 161 ‘execrabilem etiam consuetudinem, quae consuevit in quibusdam ecclesiis observari de faciendo festo stultorum, speciali authoritate rescripti apostolici penitus inhibemus; ne de domo orationis fiat domus ludibrii, et acerbitas circumcisionis Domini Iesu Christi iocis et voluptatibus subsannetur.’ The ‘rescript’ will be Innocent III’s decretal of 1207, just republished in Gregory IX’s Decretales of 1234; cf. p. 279.
[1136] Lincoln Statutes, ii. 247 ‘quia in eadem visitacione nostra coram nobis a nonnullis fide dignis delatum extitit quod vicarii et clerici ipsius ecclesiae in die Circumcisionis Domini induti veste laicali per eorum strepitus truffas garulaciones et ludos, quos festa stultorum communiter et convenienter appellant, divinum officium multipliciter et consuete impediunt, tenore presencium. Inhibemus ne ipsi vicarii qui nunc sunt, vel erunt pro tempore, talibus uti de caetero non praesumant nec idem vicarii seu quivis alii ecclesiae ministri publicas potaciones aut insolencias alias in ecclesia, quae domus oracionis existit, contra honestatem eiusdem faciant quouismodo.’ Mr. Leach, in Furnivall Miscellany, 222, notes ‘a sarcastic vicar has written in the margin, “Harrow barrow. Here goes the Feast of Fools (hic subducitur festum stultorum).”’
[1137] What was ly ffolcfeste of which Canon John Marchall complained in Bishop Alnwick’s visitation of 1437 that he was called upon to bear the expense? Cf. Lincoln Statutes, ii. 388 ‘item dicit quod subtrahuntur ab ipso expensae per eum factae pascendo ly ffolcfeste in ultimo Natali, quod non erat in propria, nec in cursu, sed tamen rogatus fecit cum promisso sibi facto de effusione expensarum et non est sibi satisfactum.’
[1138] Statutes of Thos. abp. of York (1391) in Monasticon, vi. 1310 ‘in die etiam Circumcisionis Domini subdiaconis et clericis de secunda forma de victualibus annis singulis, secundum morem et consuetudinem ecclesiae ab antiquo usitatos, debite ministrabit [praepositus], antiqua consuetudine immo verius corruptela regis stultorum infra ecclesiam et extra hactenus usitata sublata penitus et extirpata.’
[1139] Inventory of St. Paul’s (1245) in Archaeologia, l. 472, 480 ‘Baculus stultorum est de ebore et sine cambuca, cum pomello de ebore subtus indentatus ebore et cornu: ... capa et mantella puerorum ad festum Innocentum et Stultorum sunt xxviij debiles et contritae.’
[1140] Sarum Inventory of 1222 in W. H. R. Jones, Vetus Registr. Sarisb. (R. S.), ii. 135 ‘Item baculi ii ad “Festum Folorum.”’
[1141] No. 27 in the list given for ch. x. Father Christmas says ‘Here comes in “The Feast of Fools.”’
[1142] Cf. the further account of these post-Nativity feasts in ch. xv.
[1143] The C. of Paris in 1212 (p. 279) forbids the Feast of Fools in religious houses. But that in the Franciscan convent at Antibes is the only actual instance I have come across.
[1144] There were canonici presbiteri, diaconi, subdiaconi and even pueri at Salisbury (W. H. Frere, Use of Sarum, i. 51).