[1233] Châlons-sur-Saône: Du Tilliot, 20; C. Perry, Hist. de Châlons (1659), 435.
[1234] Grenoble: Pilot de Thorey, Usages, Fêtes et Coutumes en Dauphiné, i. 181.
[1235] C. of Cognac (1260), c. 2 (Mansi, xxiii. 1033) ‘cum in balleatione quae in festo SS. Innocentium in quibusdam Ecclesiis fieri inolevit, multae rixae, contentiones et turbationes, tam in divinis officiis quam aliis consueverint provenire, praedictas balleationes ulterius sub intimatione anathematis fieri prohibemus; nec non et Episcopos in praedicto festo creari; cum hoc in ecclesia Dei ridiculum existat, et hoc dignitatis episcopalis ludibrio fiat.’ C. of Salzburg (1274), c. 17 (Labbé, xi. 1004) ‘ludi noxii quos vulgaris elocutio Eptus puor. appellat’; CC. of Chartres (1526 and 1575; Bochellus, Decr. Eccl. Gall. iv. 7. 46; Du Tilliot, 66) ‘stultum aut ridiculum in ecclesia’ on days of SS. Nicholas and Catharine, and the Innocents; C. of Toledo (1565), ii. 21 (Labbé, xv. 764) ‘ficta illa et puerilis episcopatus electio’; C. of Rouen (1581; Hardouin, Concilia, x. 1217) ‘in festivitate SS. Innocentium theatralia.’
[1236] There are traces of it in the eighteenth century at Lyons (Martene, iii. 40) and Rheims (Barthélemy, v. 334); at Sens, in the nineteenth, the choir-boys still play at being bishops on Innocents’ day, and name the ‘archbishop’ âne (Chérest, 81).
[1237] Grenier, 358, quoting Le Vasseur, Epistolae, Cent. ii. Epist. 68; cf. on the Noyon feast, Leach, 135; Du Tilliot, 17; Rigollot, 27; L. Mazière, Noyon religieux, in Comptes-Rendus et Mémoires, xi. 91, of The Comité arch. et hist. de Noyon. Le Vasseur, an ex-Rector of the University of Paris, writes to François Geuffrin ‘ecce ludunt etiam ante ipsas aras; internecionem detestamur, execramur carnificem. Ludunt et placet iste ludus ecclesiae.... Tam grandis est natu ritus iste, quem viguisse deprehendo iam ante quadringentos annos in hac aede, magno totius orbis ordinum et aetatum plausu fructuque.... O miserum saeculum! ... solo gestu externoque habitu spectabiles, sola barba et pallio philosophi, caetera pecudes!’
[1238] Chronicon Montis Sereni in Pertz, Scriptores, xxiii. 144.
[1239] Monum. Boic. xiii. 214, quoted by Specht, 228 ‘in festo nativitatis Dominicae annuatim sibi ludendo constituentes episcopum.’
[1240] Vitus Arnpekius, Chron. Baioariorum, v. 53, cited by Martene, iii. 40.
[1241] Specht, 228.
[1242] Ibid. 225; Creizenach, i. 391; both quoting E. Meyer, Gesch. des hamburgischen Schul-und Unterrichtswesens im Mittelalter, 197 ‘praeterea scholares nunquam, sive in electione sive extra, aliquos rhythmos faciant, tam in latino, quam in teutonico, qui famam alicuius valeant maculare.’ In the thirteenth century a child-abbot was chosen in Hamburg on St. Andrew’s day (Nov. 30). On St. Nicholas’ day (Dec. 6) he gave way to a child-bishop, who remained in office until Dec. 28 (Tille, D. W. 31, citing Beneke, Hamburgische Geschichte und Sagen, 90).