The day of the sub-deacons, possibly because of its coincidence with the Roman Kalends, was celebrated in a particularly mad fashion. In the words “Deposuit potentes de sede: et exaltavit humiles” sung in the Magnificat at Vespers, was found the suggestion for a general inversion in rank. For the time, the places of rank and honor were taken by the lowly sub-deacons. The sacred services were burlesqued in most shocking fashion varying in different places. In Paris[57] in the fifteenth century, “priests danced in the choir dressed as women, panders, or minstrels. Wanton songs were sung. Black puddings were eaten at the horn of the altar while mass was being celebrated, and the altar was censed with ashes or by the smoke from the soles of old shoes.” Performers without the church were even more irreverent and riotous in character.
The choir boy customs of Holy Innocents’ day were somewhat like those described, although more restrained in character, since, as Mr. Chambers has remarked, boys were more amenable to discipline than the older clergy. There was a similar inversion of rank and, within limit, a similar burlesque of custom, on this day the choir boys taking precedence in rank, presided over by one of their number, usually elected on St. Nicholas’ day, with the title of Boy Bishop, or Nicholas Bishop.
A central feature of the celebration was a pompous church procession following vespers on Childermas eve. In this procession the inversion of rank was a feature. The book, the censer, and the candles, usually borne by boys, on this occasion were borne by reverend canons, and when at the end of the ceremony the procession returned to the choir, the boys took the places of dignity in the higher stalls, with the Boy Bishop in the stall of the bishop or dean. Then followed a feature doubtless in the estimation of the boys not less important than the procession, namely a supper provided by one of the church dignitaries.
On Innocents’ day all the services, including the Mass, were performed by the boys with their “Bishop,” also in many places the “Bishop” preached a sermon. Nor were the honor and dignity of the Boy Bishop confined to the ceremonies within the church. In mounted procession, with attendant boy prebends, he visited other religious houses and houses of neighboring people of prominence, singing songs and imparting blessings in the expectation of festal entertainment and of money gifts as well. In the year 1555 the “chylde byshope” of St. Paul’s with his company visited Queen Mary at St. James’s and sang a song before her both on St. Nicholas’ day (Dec. 6th) and on Innocents’ day (Dec. 28th). The amounts collected on these occasions were considerable. Robert de Holme,[58] who was “Bishop” at York, received from the choirmaster, who served as treasurer, in 1369, the sum of £3 15s. 1-1/2d. But this was only a part of the receipts, for at intervals during the fortnight following Christmas, the “Bishop” with his troupe made trips in the neighborhood which netted handsome profit, the countess of Northumberland alone contributing twenty shillings and a gold ring.[59] In Aberdeen the master of the grammar school was paid by a collection taken when he went the rounds with the “Bishop.” That this source of revenue was not a matter of trivial importance may be inferred from the interesting statement in the municipal registers that “he hes na uder fee to leif on.”
Some interesting details regarding French observance of the Boy Bishop custom have been garnered by Mr. Chambers from the records for Toul. At that place
the expenses of the feast, with the exception of the dinner on the day after Innocents’ day, which came out of the disciplinary fines, are assigned by the statutes to the canons in the order of their appointment. The responsible canon must give a supper on Innocents’ day, and on the following day a dessert out of what is over. He must also provide the “Bishop” with a horse, gloves, and a biretta when he rides abroad. At the supper a curious ceremony took place. The canon returned thanks to the “Bishop,” apologized for any shortcomings in the preparations, and finally handed the “Bishop” a cap of rosemary or other flowers, which was then conferred upon the canon to whose lot it would fall to provide the feast for the next anniversary. Should the canon disregard his duties the boys and sub-deacons were entitled to hang up a black cope on a candlestick in the middle of the choir in illius vituperium for as long as they might choose.
The elaborateness, too, of the manner of celebration, as well as the constant association with St. Nicholas, may be inferred from the following Northumberland inventory of robes and ornaments belonging to one of these Boy Bishops:[60]
Imprimis, i. myter, well garnished with perle and precious stones, with nowches of silver and gilt before and behind. Item, iiii. rynges of silver and gilt, with four ridde precious stones in them. Item, i. pontifical with silver and gilt, with a blue stone in hytt. Item, i. owche, broken, silver and gilt, with iiii. precious stones, and a perle in the mydds. Item, a croose, with a staff of coper and gilt, with the ymage of St. Nicolas in the mydds. Item, i. vestment, redde, with lyons, with silver, with brydds of gold in the orferes of the same. Item, i. albe to the same, with starres in the paro. Item, i. white cope, stayned with tristells and orferes, redde sylke, with does of gold, and whytt napkins about the necks. Item, iiii. copes, blew sylk with red orferes, trayled, with whitt braunchis and flowers. Item, i. steyned cloth of the ymage of St. Nicholas. Item, i. taberd of skarlet, and a hodde thereto lyned with whitt sylk. Item, a hode of skarlett, lyned with blue sylk.
The earliest known reference to the Boy Bishop custom is from St. Gall in the year 911. King Conrad I. was visiting Bishop Solomon of Constance and heard so much of the Vespers procession at St. Gall that he determined to visit the monastery at the time of the revels. He found it “all very amusing and especially the procession of children, so grave and sedate that even when Conrad bade his train roll apples along the aisle, they did not budge.”[61] In later years the custom lost much of its early sobriety, although doubtless a great deal of dignity, real or assumed, persisted in the church procession. The custom pervaded most of the countries of Europe in the following centuries.
In France it was not abolished until 1721. At Mainz, in Germany, it was not wholly extinct in 1779.[62] In Belgium in the nineteenth century there survived a number of popular customs showing for the celebration of Innocents’ day of the present the same kind of inversion of authority that characterized the Boy Bishop customs of earlier times. Innocents’ day is in Belgium more than in other countries a popular festival, making up somewhat for the fact that in Belgium, Christmas is less of a children’s celebration than in other Teutonic countries, or perhaps owing to the greater importance of St. Nicholas customs in the Netherlands than in other countries. In any event, in Belgium, Innocents’ day is a real children’s festival: children are masters in the house, and parents must obey them. At Antwerp, in Brabant, and in some parts of the county of Limbourg, little boys and girls dress up for the day as papas and mammas. Usually the youngest of the family receives the key to the pantry and orders in the kitchen the meals for the day.[63]