The society belonging to Lincoln's-inn had anciently an officer chosen at this season, who was honoured with the title of king of Christmas-day, because he presided in the hall upon that day. This temporary potentate had a marshal and a steward to attend upon him. The marshal, in the absence of the monarch, was permitted to assume his state, and upon New-Year's-day he sat as king in the hall when the master of the revels, during the time of dining, supplied the marshal's place. Upon Childermas-day they had another officer, denominated the King of the Cockneys, who also presided on the day of his appointment, and had his inferior officers to wait upon him. [993]
VI.—A KING OF CHRISTMAS AT NORWICH.
In the history of Norfolk [994] mention is made of a pageant exhibited at Norwich upon a Shrove Tuesday, which happened in the month of March, "when one rode through the street, having his horse trapped with tyn foyle and other nyse disgysynges, crowned as Kyng of Christmas, in token that the season should end with the twelve moneths of the year; and afore [995] hym went yche [996] moneth dysgysyd as the season requiryd."
VII.—THE KING OF THE BEAN.
The dignified persons above mentioned were, I presume, upon an equal footing with the King of the Bean, whose reign commenced upon the vigil of the Epiphany, or upon the day itself. We read that, some time back, "it was a common Christmas gambol in both our universities, and continued," at the commencement of the last century, "to be usual in other places, to give the name of king or queen to that person whose extraordinary good luck it was to hit upon that part of a divided cake which was honoured above the others by having a bean in it." [997] The reader will readily trace the vestige of this custom, though somewhat differently managed, and without the bean, in the present method of drawing, as it is called, for king and queen upon Twelfth-day. I will not pretend to say in ancient times, for the title is by no means of recent date, that the election of this monarch, the King of the Bean, depended entirely upon the decision of fortune: the words of an old kalendar belonging to the Romish church [998] seem to favour a contrary opinion; they are to this effect: On the fifth of January, the vigil of the Epiphany, the Kings of the Bean are created; [999] and on the sixth the feast of the kings shall be held, and also of the queen; and let the banqueting be continued for many days. At court, in the eighth year of Edward III., this majestic title was conferred upon one of the king's minstrels, as we find by an entry in a computus so dated, which states that sixty shillings were given by the king, upon the day of the Epiphany, to Regan the trumpeter and his associates, the court minstrels, in the name of King of the Bean. [1000]
VIII.—WHENCE THESE MOCK DIGNITIES WERE DERIVED.
Selden asserts, [1001] and in my opinion with great justice, that all these whimsical transpositions of dignity are derived from the ancient Saturnalia, or Feasts of Saturn, when the masters waited upon their servants, who were honoured with mock titles, and permitted to assume the state and deportment of their lords. These fooleries were exceedingly popular, and continued to be practised long after the establishment of Christianity, in defiance of the threatenings and the remonstrances of the clergy, who, finding it impossible to divert the stream of vulgar prejudice permitted them to be exercised, but changed the primitive object of devotion; so that the same unhallowed orgies, which had disgraced the worship of a heathen deity, were dedicated, as it was called, to the service of the true God, and sanctioned by the appellation of a Christian institution. From this polluted stock branched out variety of unseemly and immoral sports; but none of them more daringly impious and outrageous to common sense, than the Festival of Fools, in which the most sacred rites and ceremonies of the church were turned into ridicule, and the ecclesiastics themselves participated in the abominable profanations. The following outlines of this absurd diversion will no doubt be thought sufficient.
IX.—THE FESTIVAL OF FOOLS.
In each of the cathedral churches there was a bishop, or an archbishop of fools, elected; and in the churches immediately dependent upon the papal see a pope of fools. These mock pontiffs had usually a proper suit of ecclesiastics who attended upon them, and assisted at the divine service, most of them attired in ridiculous dresses resembling pantomimical players and buffoons; they were accompanied by large crowds of the laity, some being disguised with masks of a monstrous fashion, and others having their faces smutted; in one instance to frighten the beholders, and in the other to excite their laughter: and some, again, assuming the habits of females, practised all the wanton airs of the loosest and most abandoned of the sex. During the divine service this motley crowd were not contented with singing of indecent songs in the choir, but some of them ate, and drank, and played at dice upon the altar, by the side of the priest who celebrated the mass. After the service they put filth into the censers, and ran about the church, leaping, dancing, laughing, singing, breaking obscene jests, and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes with shameless impudence. [1002] Another part of these ridiculous ceremonies was, to shave the precentor of fools upon a stage erected before the church, in the presence of the populace; and during the operation, he amused them with lewd and vulgar discourses, [1003] accompanied by actions equally reprehensible. The bishop, or the pope of fools, performed the divine service habited in the pontifical garments, and gave his benediction to the people before they quitted the church. He was afterwards seated in an open carriage, and drawn about to the different parts of the town, attended by a large train of ecclesiastics and laymen promiscuously mingled together; and many of the most profligate of the latter assumed clerical habits in order to give their impious fooleries the greater effect; they had also with them carts filled with ordure, which they threw occasionally upon the populace assembled to see the procession. [1004] These spectacles were always exhibited at Christmas-time, or near to it, but not confined to one particular day. It was sometimes on Christmas-day, and on the feasts of St. Stephen, St. John, the Innocents, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, &c. [1005] When the ceremony took place upon St. Stephen's-day, they sang, as part of the mass, a burlesque composition called the Prose of the Ass, or the Fool's Prose. It was performed by a double choir, and at intervals, in place of a burden, they imitated the braying of an ass. Upon the festival of St. John the Evangelist they had another arrangement of ludicrous sentences, denominated the Prose of the Ox, equally reprehensible. [1006] These exhibitions were highly relished by the populace at large, and crept into the monasteries and nunneries, where they were practised by the female votaries of religion.