In this tone the chant continues through nine similar stanzas, describing the mode of life and food of the ass. When the procession reached the altar, the priest began a service in prose. Beleth, one of the celebrated doctors of the university of Paris, who flourished in 1182, speaks of the “feast of fools” as in existence in his time; and the acts of the council of Paris, held in 1212, forbid the presence of archbishops and bishops, and more especially of monks and nuns, at the feasts of fools, “in which a staff was carried.”[70] We know the proceedings of this latter festival rather minutely from the accounts given in the ecclesiastical censures. It was in the cathedral churches that they elected the archbishop or bishop of fools, whose election was confirmed, and he was consecrated, with a multitude of buffooneries. He then entered upon his pontifical duties wearing the mitre and carrying the crosier before the people, on whom he bestowed his solemn benediction. In the exempt churches, or those which depended immediately upon the Holy See, they elected a pope of fools (unum papam fatuorum), who wore similarly the ensigns of the papacy. These dignitaries were assisted by an equally burlesque and licentious clergy, who uttered and performed a mixture of follies and impieties during the church service of the day, which they attended in disguises and masquerade dresses. Some wore masks, or had their faces painted, and others were dressed in women’s clothing, or in ridiculous costumes. On entering the choir, they danced and sang licentious songs. The deacons and sub-deacons ate black puddings and sausages on the altar while the priest was celebrating; others played at cards or dice under his eyes; and others threw bits of old leather into the censer in order to raise a disagreeable smell. After the mass was ended, the people broke out into all sorts of riotous behaviour in the church, leaping, dancing, and exhibiting themselves in indecent postures, and some went as far as to strip themselves naked, and in this condition they were drawn through the streets with tubs full of ordure and filth, which they threw about at the mob. Every now and then they halted, when they exhibited immodest postures and actions, accompanied with songs and speeches of the same character. Many of the laity took part in the procession, dressed as monks and nuns. These disorders seem to have been carried to their greatest degree of extravagance during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[71]
Towards the fifteenth century, lay societies, having apparently no connection with the clergy or the church, but of just the same burlesque character, arose in France. One of the earliest of these was formed by the clerks of the Bazoche, or lawyers’ clerks of the Palais de Justice in Paris, whose president was a sort of king of misrule. The other principal society of this kind in Paris took the rather mirthful name of Enfans sans Souci (Careless Boys); it consisted of young men of education, who gave to their president or chieftain the title of Prince des Sots (the Prince of Fools). Both these societies composed and performed farces, and other small dramatic pieces. These farces were satires on contemporary society, and appear to have been often very personal.
No. 129. Money of the Archbishop of the Innocents.
No. 130. Money of the Pope of Fools.
Almost the only monuments of the older of these societies consist of coins, or tokens, struck in lead, and sometimes commemorating the names of their mock dignitaries. A considerable number of these have been found in France, and an account of them, with engravings, was published by Dr. Rigollot some years ago.[72] Our cut No. 129 will serve as an example. It represents a leaden token of the Archbishop of the Innocents of the parish of St. Firmin, at Amiens, and is curious as bearing a date. On one side the archbishop of the Innocents is represented in the act of giving his blessing to his flock, surrounded by the inscription, MONETA · ARCHIEPI · SCTI · FIRMINI. On the other side we have the name of the individual who that year held the office of archbishop, NICOLAVS · GAVDRAM · ARCHIEPVS · 1520, surrounding a group consisting of two men, one of whom is dressed as a fool, holding between them a bird, which has somewhat the appearance of a magpie. Our cut No. 130 is still more curious; it is a token of the pope of fools. On one side appears the pope with his tiara and double cross, and a fool in full costume, who approaches his bauble to the pontifical cross. It is certainly a bitter caricature on the papacy, whether that were the intention or not. Two persons behind, dressed apparently in scholastic costume, seem to be merely spectators. The inscription is, MONETA · NOVA · ADRIANI · STVLTORV [M]· PAPE (the last E being in the field of the piece), “new money of Adrian, the pope of fools.” The inscription on the other side of the token is one frequently repeated on these leaden medals, STVLTORV [M] · INFINITVS · EST · NVMERVS, “the number of fools is infinite.” In the field we see Mother Folly holding up her bauble, and before her a grotesque figure in a cardinal’s hat, apparently kneeling to her. It is rather surprising that we find so few allusions to these burlesque societies in the various classes of pictorial records from which the subject of these chapters has been illustrated; but we have evidence that they were not altogether overlooked. Until the latter end of the last century, the misereres of the church of St. Spire, at Corbeil, near Paris, were remarkable for the singular carvings with which they were decorated, and which have since been destroyed, but fortunately they were engraved by Millin. One of them, copied in our cut No. 131, evidently represents the bishop of fools conferring his blessing; the fool’s bauble occupies the place of the pastoral staff.
No. 131. The Bishop of Fools.