Chapter XVII: Masks and Misrule (7)

[932] Saupe, 9; Tille, _Y. and C._ 118; Duchesne, 267. A custom of feasting on the tombs of the dead on the day of St. Peter de Cathedra (Feb. 22) is condemned by the _Council of Tours_ (567), c. 23 (Maassen, i. 133) ‘sunt etiam qui in festivitate cathedrae domui Petri apostoli cibos mortuis offerunt, et post missas redeuntes ad domos proprias, ad gentilium revertuntur errores, et post corpus Domini, sacratas daemoni escas accipiunt.’ I do not doubt that the Germano-Keltic tribes had their spring _Todtenfest_, but the date Feb. 22 seems determined by the Roman _Parentalia_ extending from Feb. 13 to either Feb. 21 (_Feralia_) or Feb. 22 (_Cara Cognatio_): cf. Fowler, 306. The ‘cibi’ mentioned by the council of Tours seem to have been offered in the house, like the winter offerings described below; but there is also evidence for similar Germano-Keltic offerings on the tomb or howe itself; and these were often accompanied by _dadsisas_ or dirges; cf. Saupe, _Indiculus_, 5-9. Saupe considers the _spurcalia in Februario_, explained above (p. 114) as a ploughing rite, to be funereal.

[933] Pfannenschmidt, 123, 165, 435; Saupe, 9; Golther, 586; _C. P. B._ i. 43; Jahn, 251. The chronicler Widukind, _Res gestae Sax._ (Pertz, _Mon. SS._ iii. 423), describes a Saxon three-days’ feast in honour of a victory over the Thuringi in 534. He adds ‘acta sunt autem haec omnia, ut maiorum memoria prodit, die Kal. Octobris, qui dies erroris, religiosorum sanctione virorum mutati sunt in ieiunia et orationes, oblationes quoque omnium nos praecedentium christianorum.’ This is probably a myth to account for the harvest _Todtenfest_, which may more naturally be thought of as transferred with the agricultural rites from November. For the mediaeval _Gemeinwoche_, beginning on the Sunday after Michaelmas, was common to Germany, and not confined to Saxony. Michaelmas, the feast of angels, known at Rome in the sixth century, and in Germany by the ninth, also adapts itself to the notion of a _Todtenfest_.

[934] Pfannenschmidt, 168, 443.

[935] Mogk, in Paul, iii. 260; Tille, _Y. and C._ 107.

[936] Cf. p. 231.

[937] Appendix N, Nos. xii, xvii, xxvii, xxxiii, xxxv, xxxix.

[938] Appendix N, No. xlii.

[939] Martin of Amberg, _Gewissensspiegel_ (thirteenth century, quoted Jahn, 282), the food and drink are left for ‘Percht mit der eisnen nasen.’

[940] _Thes. Paup._ s. v. Superstitio (fifteenth century, quoted Jahn, 282) ‘multi credunt sacris noctibus inter natalem diem Christi et noctem Epiphaniae evenire ad domos suas quasdam mulieres, quibus praeest domina Perchta ... multi in domibus in noctibus praedictis post coenam dimittunt panem et caseum, lac, carnes, ova, vinum, et aquam et huiusmodi super mensas et coclearea, discos, ciphos, cultellos et similia propter visitationem Perhtae cum cohorte sua, ut eis complaceant ... ut inde sint eis propitii ad prosperitatem domus et negotiorum rerum temporalium.’

[941] Usener, ii. 84 ‘Qui preparant mensam dominae Perthae’ (fifteenth century). Schmeller, _Bairisch. Wörterb._ i. 270, gives other references for Perchte in this connexion.

[942] Usener, ii. 58.

[943] _Dives and Pauper_ (Pynson, 1493) ‘Alle that ... use nyce observances in the ... new yere, as setting of mete or drynke, by nighte on the benche, to fede Atholde or Gobelyn.’ In English folk-custom, food is left for the house-spirit or ‘brownie’ on ordinary as well as festal days; cf. my ‘Warwick’ edition of _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, 145.

[944] Jahn, 283; Brand, i. 18; Bertrand, 405; Cortet, 33, 45.

[945] Appendix N, No. xxiii. If the words ‘in foco’ are not part of the text, ‘youling’ (cf. pp. 142, 260) may be intended.

[946] Bertrand, 111, 404.

[947] Jahn, 120, 244, 269: the _Gertruden-minnes_ on St. Gertrude’s day (March 17) perhaps preserve another fragment of the spring _Todtenfest_, St. Gertrude here replacing the mother-goddess; cf. Grimm, iii. xxxviii.

[948] Grimm, i. 268, 273, 281; Mogk, in Paul, iii. 279. The especial day of Frau Perchte is Epiphany.

[949] Mogk, in Paul, iii. 260; Tille, _D. W._ 173.

[950] Grimm, iv. 1798.

[951] Ibid. iv. 1814.

[952] Tille, _D. W._ 163; Grimm, iv. 1782.

[953] Ashton, 104.

[954] Müller, 496.

[955] _Hamlet_, i. 1. 158. I do not know where Shakespeare got the idea, of which I find no confirmation; but its origin is probably an ecclesiastical attempt to parry folk-belief. Other Kalends notions have taken on a Christian colouring. The miraculous events of Christmas night are rooted in the conception that the Kalends must abound in all good things, in order that the coming year may do so. But allusions to Christian legend have been worked into and have transformed them. On Christmas night bees sing (Brand, i. 3), and water is turned into wine (Grimm, iv. 1779, 1809). While the genealogy is sung at the midnight mass, hidden treasures are revealed (Grimm, iv. 1840). Similarly, the cattle of heathen masters naturally shared in the Kalends good cheer; whence a Christian notion that they, and in particular the ox and the ass, witnesses of the Nativity, can speak on that night, and bear testimony to the good or ill-treatment of the farmers (Grimm, iv. 1809, 1840); cf. the _Speculum Perfectionis_, c. 114, ed. Sabatier, 225 ‘quod volebat [S. Franciscus] suadere imperatori ut faceret specialem legem quod in Nativitate Domini homines bene providerent avibus et bovi et asino et pauperibus’: also p. 250, n. 1.--Ten minutes after writing the above note, I have come on the following passage in Tolstoi, _Résurrection_ (trad. franç.), i. 297 ‘Un proverbe dit que les coqs chantent de bonne heure dans les nuits joyeuses.’

[956] Müller, 272.

[957] Pfannenschmidt, 207.

[958] Müller, 235, 239, 248.

[959] Tille, _D. W._ 107; _Y. and C._ 116; Saupe, 28; Io. Iac. Reiske, _Comm. ad Const. Porph., de Caeremoniis_, ii. 357 (_Corp. Script. Byz._ 1830) ‘Vidi puerulus et horrui robustos iuvenes pelliceis indutos, cornutos in fronte, vultus fuligine atratos, intra dentes carbones vivos tenentes, quos reciprocato spiritu animabant, et scintillis quaquaversum sparsis ignem quasi vomebant, cum saccis cursitantes, in quos abdere puerulos occursantes minitabantur, appensis cymbalis et insano clamore frementes.’ He calls them ‘die Knecht Ruperte,’ and says that they performed in the Twelve nights. The _sacci_ are interesting, for English nurses frighten children with a threat that the chimney-sweep (here as in the May-game inheriting the tradition on account of his black face) will put them in his sack. The _beneficent_ Christmas wanderers use the sack to bring presents in; cf. the development of the sack in the Mummers’ play (p. 215).

[960] Müller, 235, 248.

[961] A mince-pie eaten in a different house on each night of the Twelves (_not_ twelve mince-pies eaten _before_ Christmas) ensures twelve lucky months. The weather of each day in the Twelves determines that of a month (Harland, 99; Jackson and Burne, 408). I have heard of a custom of leaping over twelve lighted candles on New Year’s eve. Each that goes out means ill-luck in a corresponding month.

[962] Caesarius; Boniface (App. N, Nos. xvii, xviii, xxxiii); Alsso, in Usener, ii. 65; _F. L._ iii. 253; Jackson and Burne, 400; Ashton, 111; _Brit. Ass. Report_ (1896), 620. In some of the cases quoted under the last reference and elsewhere, _nothing_ may be taken out of the house on New Year’s Day. Ashes and other refuse which would naturally be taken out in the morning were removed the night before. Ashes, of course, share the sanctity of the fire. Cf. the maskers’ threat (p. 217).

[963] Boniface (App. N, No. xxxiii); cf. the Kloster Scheyern (Usener, ii. 84) condemnation of those ‘qui vomerem ponunt sub mensa tempore nativitatis Christi.’ For other uses of iron as a potent agricultural charm, cf. Grimm, iv. 1795, 1798, 1807, 1816; Burne-Jackson, 164.

[964] Cf. Burchardus (App. N, No. xlii); Grimm, iv. 1793, with many other superstitions in the same appendix to Grimm; Brand, i. 9; Ashton, 222; Jackson and Burne, 403. The practical outcome is to begin jobs for form’s sake and then stop. The same is done on Saint Distaff’s day, January 7; cf. Brand, i. 15.

[965] Harland, 117; Jackson and Burne, 314; _Brit. Ass. Rep._ (1896), 620; Dyer, 483; Ashton, 112, 119, 224. There is a long discussion in _F. L._ iii. 78, 253. I am tempted to find a very early notice of the ‘first foot’ in the prohibition ‘pedem observare’ of Martin of Braga (App. N, No. xxiii).

[966] _F. L._ iii. 253.

[967] _Kloster Scheyern MS._ (fifteenth century) in Usener, ii. 84 ‘Qui credunt, quando masculi primi intrant domum in die nativitatis, quod omnes vaccae generent masculos et e converso.’

[968] Müller, 269 (Italy). Grimm, iv. 1784, notes ‘If the first person you meet in the morning be a virgin or a priest, ’tis a sign of bad luck; if a harlot, of good’: cf. Caspari, _Hom. de Sacrilegiis_, § 11 ‘qui clericum vel monachum de mane aut quacumque hora videns aut o[b]vians, abominosum sibi esse credet, iste non solum paganus, sed demoniacus est, qui christi militem abominatur.’ These German examples have no special relation to the New Year, and the ‘first foot’ superstition is indeed only the ordinary belief in the ominous character of the first thing seen on leaving the house, intensified by the critical season.

[969] Tille, _D. W._ 189; _Y. and C._ 84, 95, 104.

[970] Cf. p. 238.

[971] Brand, i. 3, 209, 226, 257; Spence, _Shetland Folk-Lore_, 189; Grimm, iv. 1777-1848 _passim_; Jackson and Burne, 176, 380, &c., &c. Burchardus (App. N, No. xlii) mentions that the Germans took New Year omens sitting girt with a sword on the housetop or upon a [sacrificial] skin at the crossways. This was called _liodorsâza_, a term which a _glossator_ also uses for the kindred custom of _cervulus_ (Tille, _Y. and C._ 96). Is the man in _Hom. de Sacr._ (App. N, No. xxxix) ‘qui arma in campo ostendit’ taking omens like the man on the housetop, or is he conducting a sword-dance?

[972] Burchardus (App. N, No. xlii).

[973] Brand, i. 209.

[974] Grimm, iv. 1781, 1797, 1818.

[975] Quoted Pfannenschmidt, 489 ‘quod autem obscoena carmina finguntur a daemonibus et perditorum mentibus immittuntur, quidam daemon nequissimus, qui in Nivella urbe Brabantiae puellam nobilem anno domini 1216 prosequebatur, manifeste populis audientibus dixit: cantum hunc celebrem de Martino ego cum collega meo composui et per diversas terras Galliae et Theutoniae promulgavi. Erat autem cantus ille turpissimus et plenus luxuriosis plausibus.’ On _Martinslieder_ in general cf. Pfannenschmidt, 468, 613.

[976] T. Gascoigne, _Loci e Libro Veritatum_ (1403-58), ed. Rogers, 144.

[977] Aubrey, _Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (_F. L. S._), 1.

[978] Tille, _D. W._ 55; K. Simrock, _Deutsche Weihnachtslieder_ (1854); Cortet, 246; Grove, _Dict. of Music_, s. v. Noël; Julian, _Dict. of Hymn._ s. v. Carol; A. H. Bullen, _Carols and Poems_, 1885; Helmore, _Carols for Christmastide_. The cry ‘Noël’ appears in the fifteenth century both in France and England as one of general rejoicing without relation to Christmas. It greeted Henry V in London in 1415 and the Marquis of Suffolk in Rouen in 1446 (Ramsay, _Lancaster and York_, i. 226; ii. 60).

[979] Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, _de Caeremoniis Aulae Byzantinae_, Bk. i. c. 83 (ed. Reiske, in _Corp. Script. Hist. Byz._ i. 381); cf. Bury-Gibbon, vi. 516; Kögel, i. 34; D. Bieliaiev, _Byzantina_, vol. ii: Haupt’s _Zeitschrift_, i., 368; C. Kraus, _Gotisches Weihnachtsspiel_, in _Beitr. z. Gesch. d. deutschen Sprache und Litteratur_, xx (1895), 223.

[980] Fouquier-Cholet, _Hist. des Comtes de Vermandois_, 159, says that Heribert IV (ob. †1081) persuaded the clergy of the Vermandois to suppress the _fête de l’âne_. This would have been a century before Belethus wrote. But he does not give his _probatum_, and I suspect he misread it.

[981] Belethus, c. 72 ‘Festum hypodiaconorum, quod vocamus stultorum, a quibusdam perficitur in Circumcisione, a quibusdam vero in Epiphania, vel in eius octavis. Fiunt autem quatuor tripudia post Nativitatem Domini in Ecclesia, levitarum scilicet, sacerdotum, puerorum, id est minorum aetate et ordine, et hypodiaconorum, qui ordo incertus est. Unde fit ut ille quandoque annumeretur inter sacros ordines, quandoque non, quod expresse ex eo intelligitur quod certum tempus non habeat, et officio celebretur confuso.’ Cf. ch. xv on the three other _tripudia_.

[982] Lebeuf, _Hist. de Paris_ (1741), ii. 277; Grenier, 365:

_Ad amicum venturum ad festum Baculi._
Festa dies aliis Baculus venit et novus annus,
Qua venies, veniet haec mihi festa dies.

Leonius is named as canon of N.-D. in the _Obituary_ of the church Guérard, _Cartulaire de N.-D._ in (_Doc. inédits sur l’Hist. de France_, iv. 34), but unfortunately the year of his death is not given.

[983] During the fifteenth century the _Chantre_ of N.-D. ‘porta le baston’ at the chief feasts as ruler of the choir (F. L. Chartier, _L’ancien Chapitre de N.-D. de Paris_ (1897), 176). This _baculus_ must be distinguished from the _baculus pastoralis_ or _episcopi_.

[984] Guérard, _Cartulaire de N.-D._ (_Doc. inéd. sur l’Hist. de France_), i. 73; also printed by Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_; _P. L._ ccxii. 70. The _charta_, dated 1198, runs in the names of ‘Odo [de Soliaco] episcopus, H. decanus, R. cantor, Mauricius, Heimericus et Odo archidiaconi, Galo, succentor, magister Petrus cancellarius, et magister Petrus de Corbolio, canonicus Parisiensis.’ Possibly the real moving spirit in the reform was the dean H[ugo Clemens], to whom the Paris _Obituary_ (Guérard, _loc. cit._ iv. 61) assigns a similar reform of the feast of St. John the Evangelist. Petrus de Corbolio we shall meet again. Eudes de Sully was bishop 1196-1208. His _Constitutions_ (_P. L._ ccxii. 66) contain a prohibition of ‘choreae ... in ecclesiis, in coemeteriis et in processionibus.’ In a second decree of 1199 (_P. L._ ccxii. 72) he provided a _solatium_ for the loss of the Feast of Fools in a payment of three _deniers_ to each clerk below the degree of canon, and two _deniers_ to each boy present at Matins on the Circumcision. Should the abuses recur, the payment was to lapse. This donation was confirmed in 1208 by his successor Petrus de Nemore (_P. L._ ccxii. 92).

[985] A ‘hearse’ was a framework of wood or iron bearing spikes for tapers (Wordsworth, _Mediaeval Services_, 156). The _penna_ was also a stand for candles (Ducange, s.v.).

[986] A _prosa_ is a term given in French liturgies to an additional chant inserted on festal occasions as a gloss upon or interpolation in the text of the office or mass. It covers nearly, though not quite, the same ground as _Sequentia_, and comes under the general head of _Tropus_ (ch. xviii). For a more exact differentiation cf. Frere, _Winchester Troper_, ix. _Laetemur gaudiis_ is a prose ascribed to Notker Balbulus of St. Gall.

[987] _cum farsia_: a _farsia_, _farsa_, or _farsura_ (Lat. _farcire_, ‘to stuff’), is a _Tropus_ interpolated into the text of certain portions of the office or mass, especially the _Kyrie_, the _Lectiones_ and the _Epistola_. Such farces were generally in Latin, but occasionally, especially in the Epistle, in the vernacular (Frere, _Winchester Troper_, ix, xvi).

[988] _Laetabundus_: i. e. St. Bernard’s prose beginning _Laetabundus exultet fidelis chorus; Alleluia_ (Daniel, _Thesaurus Hymnologicus_, ii. 61), which was widely used in the feasts of the Christmas season.

[989] The document is too long to quote in full. These are the essential passages. The legate says: The Church of Paris is famous, therefore diligence must be used ‘ad exstirpandum penitus quod ibidem sub praetextu pravae consuetudinis inolevit ... Didicimus quod in festo Circumcisionis Dominicae ... tot consueverunt enormitates et opera flagitiosa committi, quod locum sanctum ... non solum foeditate verborum, verum etiam sanguinis effusione plerumque contingit inquinari, et ... ut sacratissima dies ... festum fatuorum nec immerito generaliter consueverit appellari.’ Odo and the rest order: ‘In vigilia festivitatis ad Vesperas campanae ordinate sicut in duplo simplici pulsabuntur. Cantor faciet matriculam (the roll of clergy for the day’s services) in omnibus ordinate; rimos, personas, luminaria herciarum nisi tantum in rotis ferreis, et in penna, si tamen voluerit ille qui capam redditurus est, fieri prohibemus; statuimus etiam ne dominus festi cum processione vel cantu ad ecclesiam adducatur, vel ad domum suam ab ecclesia reducatur. In choro autem induet capam suam, assistentibus ei duobus canonicis subdiaconis, et tenens baculum cantoris, antequam incipiantur Vesperae, incipiet prosam _Laetemur gaudiis_: qua finita episcopus, si praesens fuerit ... incipiet Vesperas ordinate et solemniter celebrandas; ... a quatuor subdiaconis indutis capis sericis Responsorium cantabitur.... Missa similiter cum horis ordinate celebrabitur ab aliquo praedictorum, hoc addito quod Epistola cum farsia dicetur a duobus in capis sericis, et postmodum a subdiacono ... Vesperae sequentes sicut priores a _Laetemur gaudiis_ habebunt initium: et cantabitur _Laetabundus_, loco hymni. _Deposuit_ quinquies ad plus dicetur loco suo; et si captus fuerit baculus, finito _Te Deum laudamus_, consummabuntur Vesperae ab eo quo fuerint inchoatae.... Per totum festum in omnibus horis canonici et clerici in stallis suis ordinate et regulariter se habebunt.’

[990] The feast lasted from Vespers on the vigil to Vespers on the day of the Circumcision. The _Hauptmoment_ was evidently the _Magnificat_ in the second Vespers. But what exactly took place then? Did the cathedral precentor hand over the _baculus_ to the _dominus festi_, or was it last year’s _dominus festi_, who now handed it over to his newly-chosen successor? Probably the latter. The _dominus festi_ is called at first Vespers ‘capam redditurus’: doubtless the cope and _baculus_ went together. The _dominus festi_ may have, as elsewhere, exercised disciplinary and representative functions amongst the inferior clergy during the year. His title I take to have been, as at Sens, _precentor stultorum_. The order says, ‘si captus fuerit baculus’; probably it was left to the chapter to decide whether the formal installation of the _precentor_ in church should take place in any particular year.

[991] _P. L._ ccxv. 1070 ‘Interdum ludi fiunt in eisdem ecclesiis theatrales, et non solum ad ludibriorum spectacula introducuntur in eas monstra larvarum, verum etiam in tribus anni festivitatibus, quae continue Natalem Christi sequuntur, diaconi, presbiteri ac subdiaconi vicissim insaniae suae ludibria exercentes, per gesticulationum suarum debacchationes obscoenas in conspectu populi decus faciunt clericale vilescere.... Fraternitati vestrae ... mandamus, quatenus ... praelibatam vero ludibriorum consuetudinem vel potius corruptelam curetis e vestris ecclesiis ... exstirpare.’ As to the scope of this decretal and the glosses of the canonists upon it, cf. the account of miracle plays (ch. xx).

[992] _Decretales Greg. IX_, lib. iii. tit. i. cap. 12 (_C. I. Can._ ed. Friedberg, ii. 452). I cannot verify an alleged confirmation of the decretal by Innocent IV in 1246.

[993] _C. of Paris_ (1212), pars iv. c. 16 (Mansi, xxii. 842) ‘A festis vero follorum, ubi baculus accipitur, omnino abstineatur. Idem fortius monachis et monialibus prohibemus.’ Can. 18 is a prohibition against ‘choreae,’ similar to that of Eudes de Sully already referred to. Such general prohibitions are as common during the mediaeval period as during that of the conversion (cf. ch. viii), and probably covered the Feast of Fools. See e.g. _C. of Avignon_ (1209), c. 17 (Mansi, xxii. 791), _C. of Rouen_ (1231), c. 14 (Mansi, xxiii. 216), _C. of Bayeux_ (1300), c. 31 (Mansi, xxv. 66).

[994] _Codex Senonen._ 46 A. There are two copies in the _Bibl. Nat._, (i) _Cod. Parisin._ 10520 B, containing the text only, dated 1667; (ii) _Cod. Parisin._ 1351 C, containing text and music, made for Baluze (1630-1718). The _Officium_ has been printed by F. Bourquelot in _Bulletin de la Soc. arch. de Sens_ (1858), vi. 79, and by Clément, 125 sqq. The metrical portions are also in Dreves, _Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi_, xx. 217, who cites other _Quellen_ for many of them. See further on the MS., Dreves, _Stimmen aus Maria-Laach_, xlvii. 575; Desjardins, 126; Chérest, 14; A. L. Millin, _Monuments antiques inédits_ (1802-6), ii. 336; Du Tilliot, 13; J. A. Dulaure, _Environs de Paris_ (1825), vii. 576; Nisard, in _Archives des Missions scientifiques et littéraires_ (1851), 187; Leber, ix. 344 (l’Abbé Lebeuf). Before the _Officium_ proper, on f. 1^{vo} of the MS. a fifteenth-century hand (Chérest, 18) has written the following quatrain:

‘Festum stultorum de consuetudine morum
omnibus urbs Senonis festivat nobilis annis,
quo gaudet precentor, sed tamen omnis honor
sit Christo circumciso nunc semper et almo’:

and the following couplet:

‘Tartara Bacchorum non pocula sunt fatuorum,
tartara vincentes sic fiunt ut sapientes.’

Millin, _loc. cit._ 344, cites a MS. dissertation of one Père Laire, which ascribes these lines to one Lubin, an official at Chartres. The last eight pages of the MS. contain epistles for the feasts of St. Stephen, St. John the Evangelist, and the Innocents.

[995] Chérest, 14; Millin, _op. cit._ ii. 336 (plates), and _Voyage dans le Midi_, i. 60 (plates); Clément, 122, 162; Bourquelot, _op. cit._ vi. 79 (plates); A. de Montaiglon, in _Gazette des Beaux-arts_ (1880), i. 24 (plates); E. Molinier, _Hist. générale des Arts appliqués_, i; _Les Ivoires_ (1896), 47 (plate); A. M. Cust, _Ivory Workers of the Middle Ages_ (1902), 34. This last writer says that the diptych is now in the Bibl. Nationale. The leaves of the diptych represent a Triumph of Bacchus, and a Triumph of Artemis or Aphrodite. It has nothing to do with the Feast of Fools, and is of sixth-century workmanship.

[996] Dreves, 575, thinks the MS. was ‘für eine Geckenbruderschaft,’ as the chants are not in the contemporary Missals, Breviaries, Graduais, and Antiphonals of the church. But if they were, a separate _Officium_ book would be superfluous. Such special _festorum libri_ were in use elsewhere, e.g. at Amiens. Nisard, _op. cit._, thinks the _Officium_ was an imitation one written by ‘notaires’ to amuse the choir-boys, and cites a paper of M. Carlier, canon of Sens, before the Historic Congress held at Sens in 1850 in support of this view. Doubtless the _goliardi_ wrote such imitations (cf. the _missa lusorum_ in Schmeller, _Carmina Burana_, 248; the _missa de potatoribus_ in Wright-Halliwell, _Reliquiae Antiquae_, ii. 208; and the _missa potatorum_ in F. Novati, _La Parodia sacra nelle Letterature moderne_ (_Studi critici e letterari_, 289)); but this is too long to be one, and is not a burlesque at all.

[997] Cf. the chapter decree of 1524 ‘festum Circumcisionis a defuncto Corbolio institutum,’ which is doubtless the authority for the statements of Taveau, _Hist. archiep. Senonen_. (1608), 94; Saint-Marthe, _Gallia Christiana_ (1770), xii. 60; Baluze, note in _B. N. Cod. Parisin_. 1351 C. (quoted Nisard, _op. cit._).

[998] Dreves, 575; Chérest, 15, who quotes an elaborate opinion of M. Quantin, ‘archiviste de l’Yonne.’ M. Quantin believes that the hand is that of a charter of Pierre de Corbeil, dated 1201, in the Yonne archives. On the other hand Nisard, _op. cit._, and Danjou, _Revue de musique religieuse_ (1847), 287, think that the MS. is of the fourteenth century.

[999] Chérest, 35; Dreves, 576.

[1000] Liturgically a _conductus_ is a form of _Cantio_, that is, an interpolation in the mass or office, which stands as an independent unit, and not, like the Tropes, Proses and Sequences, as an extension of the proper liturgical texts. The _Cantiones_ are, however, only a further step in the process which began with Tropes (Nisard, _op. cit._ 191; Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 6). From the point of view of musical science H. E. Wooldridge, _Oxford Hist. of Music_, i. 308, defines a _conductus_ as ‘a composition of equally free and flowing melodies in all the parts, in which the words are metrical and given to the lower voice only.’ The term is several times used in the _Officium_. Clément, 163, falls foul of Dulaure for taking it as an adjective throughout, with _asinus_ understood.

[1001] Wordsworth, _Mediaeval Services_, 289; Clément, 126, 163. Dulaure seems to have taken the _tabula_ for the altar. The English name for the _tabula_ was _wax-brede_. An example (†1500) is printed by H. E. Reynolds, _Use of Exeter Cathedral_, 73.

[1002] Appendix L; where the various versions of the ‘Prose’ are collated.

[1003] There are many hymns beginning _Salve, festa dies_. The model is a couplet of Venantius Fortunatus, _Carmina_, iii. 9, _Ad Felicem episcopum de Pascha_, 39 (M. G. H. _Auct. Antiquiss_. iv. 1. 60):

‘Salve, festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo,
qua Deus infernum vicit et astra tenet.’

[1004] Clément, 127, correcting an error of Lebeuf. A still more curious slip is that of M. Bourquelot, who found in the word _euouae_, which occurs frequently in the _Officium_, an echo of the Bacchic cry _évohé_. Now _euouae_ represents the vowels of the words _Seculorum amen_, and is noted at the ends of antiphons in most choir-books to give the tone for the following psalm (Clément, 164).

[1005] Clément, 138, reads _Conductus ad Ludos_, and inserts before _In Laudibus_ the word _Ludarius_. Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 221, reads _Conductus ad Laudes_. The section _In Laudibus_, not being metrical, is not printed by him, so I do not know what he makes of _Ludarius_. If Clément is right, I suppose a secular revel divided Matins and Lauds, which seems unlikely.

[1006] I follow Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 228. Clément, 151, has again _Ludarium_.

[1007] Prudentius, _Cathemerinon_, iii.

[1008] _Egerton MS._ 2615 (_Catalogue of Additions to MSS. in B. M._ 1882-87, p. 336). On the last page is written ‘Iste liber est beati petri beluacensis.’ On ff. 78, 110^v are book-plates of the chapter of Beauvais, the former signed ‘Vollet f[ecit].’ The MS. was bought by the British Museum in 1883, and formerly belonged to Signor Pachiarotti of Padua. It was described and a facsimile of the harmonized Prose of the Ass given in _Annales archéologiques_ (1856), xvi. 259, 300. Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 230 (1895), speaks of it as ‘vielleicht noch in Italien in Privatbesitz.’ This, and not the MS. used by Ducange’s editors, is the MS. whose description Desjardins, 127, 168, gives from a 1464 Beauvais inventory: ‘N^o. 76. Item ung petit volume entre deux ais sans cuir l’ung d’icelx ais rompu à demy contenant plusieurs proses antiennes et commencemens des messes avec oraisons commençant au ii^e feuillet _Belle bouche_ et au pénultième _coopertum stolla candida_.’ The broken board was mended, after 420 years, by the British Museum in 1884.

[1009] _B. M. Catalogue_, _loc. cit._, ‘Written in the xiii^{th} cent., probably during the pontificate of Gregory IX (1227-41) and before the marriage of Louis IX to Marguerite of Provence in 1234.’ There are prayers for Gregorius Papa and Ludovicus Rex on ff. 42, 42^v, but none for any queen of France.

[1010] Between ff. 40^{vo} and 41.

[1011] So _B. M. Catalogue_, _loc. cit._ To me it reads like ‘Conductus asi ... adducitur.’

[1012] F. 43.

[1013] Cf. ch. xix.

[1014] Louis VII married Adèle de Champagne in 1160 and died in 1180.

[1015] Pierre Louvet, _Hist. du Dioc. de Beauvais_ (1635), ii. 299, quoted by Desjardins, 124. I am sorry not to have been able to get hold of the original. Nor can I find E. Charvet, _Rech. sur les anciens théâtres de Beauvais_ (1881).

[1016] Grenier, 362. He says the ‘cérémonial’ is ‘tiré d’un ms. de la cathédrale de Beauvais,’ and gives the footnote ‘Preuv. part 1, n^o. .’ On the prose _Kalendas Ianuarias_ and the censing his footnotes refer to Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_. The ‘Preuves’ for his history are scattered through the _MSS. Picardie_ in the _Bibl. Nat._ No doubt the reference here is to MSS. 14 and 158 which are copies of the Beauvais office (Dreves, in _Stimmen aus Maria-Laach_, xlvii. 575). These, or parts of them, are printed by F. Bourquelot, in _Bulletin de la Soc. arch. de Sens_ (1854), vi. 171 (which also, unfortunately, I have not seen), and chants from them are in Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 229. But here Dreves seems to speak of them as copies of Pacchiarotti’s MS. (_Egerton MS._ 2615). And Desjardins, 124, says that Grenier and Bourquelot used extracts from eighteenth-century copies of Pacchiarotti’s MS. in the library of M. Borel de Brétizel. Are these writers mistaken, or did Grenier only see the copies, and take his description from Louvet? And what has become of the twelfth-century MS.?

[1017] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_, ‘MS. codice Bellovac. ann. circiter 500, ubi 1^a haec occurrit rubrica _Dominus ... ianuae_. Et alibi _Hac ... saucita_.’

[1018] Ducange, s. v. _Festum Asinorum_. Desjardins and other writers give the date of the ‘codex’ as twelfth century. But 500 years from 1733-6 only bring it to the thirteenth century. The mistake is due to the fact that the _first_ edition of Ducange, in which the ‘codex’ is not mentioned, is of 1678. Clément, 158, appears to have no knowledge of the MS. but what he read in Ducange; and it is not quite clear what he means when he says that it ‘d’après nos renseignements, ne renferme pas un office, mais une sorte de _mystère_ postérieur d’un siècle au moins à l’office de Sens, et n’ayant aucune autorité historique et encore bien moins religieuse.’ The MS. was contemporary with the Sens _Officium_, and although certainly influenced by the religious drama was still liturgic (cf. ch. xx).

[1019] Cf. Appendix L, on an _Officium_ (1553) for Jan. 1 without _stulti_ or _asinus_, from Puy.

[1020] Leber, ix. 238. This is a note by J. B. Salques to the reprint of D’Artigny’s memoir on the _Fête des Fous_. The writer calls the ceremony the ‘fête des apôtres,’ and says that it was held at the same time as the ‘fête de l’âne.’ He describes a Rabelaisian _contretemps_, which is said to have put an end to the procession in 1634. No authority is given for this account, which I believe to be the source of all later notices. I may add that Ducange gives the name _Festum Apostolorum_ to the feast of St. Philip and St. James on May 1.

[1021] _Cod. Senonens_. G. 133, printed by Chérest, 47; Quantin, _Recueil de pièces pour faire suite au Cartulaire général de l’Yonne_ (1873), 235 (N^o. 504) ‘mandamus, quatenus illa festorum antiqua ludibria, quae in contemptum Dei, opprobrium cleri, et derisum populi non est dubium exerceri, videlicet, in festis Sancti Ioannis Evangelistae, Innocentium, et Circumcisionis Domini, iuxta pristinum modum nullatenus faciatis aut fieri permittatis, sed iuxta formam et cultum aliarum festivitatum quae per anni circulum celebrantur, ita volumus et praecipimus celebrari. Ita quod ipso facto sententiam suspensionis incurrat quicumque in mutatione habitus aut in sertis de floribus seu aliis dissolutionibus iuxta praedictum ritum reprobatum adeo in praedictis festivitatibus seu aliis a modo praesumpserit se habere.’

[1022] L. Deschamps de Pas, _Les Cérémonies religieuses dans la Collégiale de Saint-Omer au xiii^e Siècle_ (_Mém. de la Soc. de la Morinie_, xx. 147). The directions for Jan. 1 are fragmentary: ‘In quo vicarii ceterique clerici chorum frequentantes et eorum episcopus se habeant in cantando et officiando sicut superius dictum est in festo Sanctorum Innocentium (cf. p. 370), hoc tamen excepto quod omnia quae ista die fiunt officiando quando est festum fatuorum pro posse fiunt et etiam ullulando ... domino decano fatuorum ferunt incensum sed prepostere ut dictum est.’ _Ululatus_ is, however, sometimes a technical term in church music; cf. vol. ii. p. 7.

[1023] _R. de Renard_, xii. 469 (ed. Martin, vol. ii. 14):

‘Dan prestre, il est la feste as fox.
Si fera len demein des chox
Et grant departie a Baieus:
Ales i, si verres les jeus.’

Branch xii of the _Roman_ is the composition of Richart de Lison, who, according to Martin, suppl. 72, wrote in Normandy †1200. The phrase ‘faire les choux’ = ‘get drunk,’ cabbages being regarded as prophylactic of the ill effects of liquor.

[1024] _Hist. de l’Église d’Autun_ (1774), 469, 631 ‘Item innovamus, quod ille qui de caetero capiet baculum anni novi nihil penitus habebit de bursa Capituli’ (_Registr. Capit._ s. a. 1230).

[1025] Martene and Durand, _Thesaurus Anecdotorum_, iv. 1070 ‘in festo stultorum, scilicet Innocentium et anni novi ... multa fiunt inhonesta ... ne talia festa irrisoria de cetero facere praesumant.’

[1026] Ducange, s. v. _abbas esclaffardorum_, quoting _Hist. Delphin._ i. 132; J. J. A. Pilot de Thorey, _Usages, Fêtes et Coutumes en Dauphiné_, i. 182. The latter writer says that there was also an _episcopus_, who was not suppressed, that the canons did reverence to him, and that the singing of the _Magnificat_ was part of the feast.

[1027] C. Hidé, _Bull. de la Soc. acad. de Laon_ (1863), xiii. 115.

[1028] Grenier, 361 ‘Si hoc dicitur festum stultorum a subdiaconis fiat, et dominica eveniat, ab ipsis fiat festum in cappis sericis, sicut in libris festorum continetur.’ These _libri_ possibly resembled those of Sens and Beauvais.

[1029] _Summa Gulielmi Autissiodorensis de Off. Eccles._ (quoted by Chérest, 44, from _Bibl. Nat. MS._ 1411) ‘Quaeritur quare in hac die fit festum stultorum.... Ante adventum Domini celebrabant festa quae vocabant Parentalia; et in illa die spem ponebant credentes quod si in illa die bene eis accideret, quod similiter in toto anno. Hoc festum voluit removere Ecclesia quod contra fidem est. Et quia extirpare omnino non potuit, festum illud permittit et celebrat illud festum celeberrimum ut aliud demittatur: et ideo in matutinali officio leguntur lectiones quae dehortantur ab huiusmodi quae sunt contra fidem (cf. p. 245). Et si ista die ab ecclesia quaedam fiunt praeter fidem, nulla tamen contra fidem. Et ideo ludos qui sunt contra fidem permutavit in ludos qui non sunt contra fidem.’ There is clearly a confusion here between the Roman _Parentalia_ (Feb. 13-22) and _Kalendae_ (Jan. 1). On William of Auxerre, whose work remains in MS., cf. Lebeuf, in P. Desmolets, _Mémoires_, iii. 339; _Nouvelle Biographie universelle_, s. n. He was bishop of Auxerre, translated to Paris in 1220, ob. 1223. He must be distinguished from another William of Auxerre, who was archdeacon of Beauvais (†1230), and wrote a comment on Petrus Lombardus, printed at Paris in 1500 (Gröber, _Grundriss der röm. Philologie_, ii. 1. 239).

[1030] Gulielmus Durandus, _Rationale Div. Off._ (Antwerp, 1614), vi. 15, _de Circumcisione_, ‘In quibusdam ecclesiis subdiaconi fortes et iuvenes faciunt hodie festum ad significandum quod in octava resurgentium, quae significatur per octavam diem, qua circumcisio fiebat, nulla erit debilis aetas, non senectus, non senium, non impotens pueritia ... &c.’ A reference to the heathen Kalends follows; cf. also vii. 42, _de festis SS. Stephani, Ioannis Evang. et Innocentium_, ‘... subdiaconi vero faciunt festum in quibusdam ecclesiis in festo circumcisionis, ut ibi dictum est: in aliis in Epiphania et etiam in aliis in octava Epiphaniae, quod vocant festum stultorum. Quia enim ordo ille antiquitus incertus erat, nam in canonibus antiquis (extra de aetate et qualitate) multis quandoque vocatur sacer et quandoque non, ideo subdiaconi certum ad festandum non habent diem, et eorum festum officio celebratur confuso.’ On Durandus cf. the translation of his work by C. Barthélemy (1854). He was born at Puymisson in the diocese of Béziers (1230), finished the _Rationale_ (1284), became bishop of Mende (1285), and ob. (1296).

[1031] A. Lecoy de la Marche, _La Chaire française au M. A._ 368, citing _Bibl. Nat. MSS. fr._ 13314, f. 18; 16481, N^o. 93. The latter MS., which is analysed by Echard, _Script. Ord. Predicatorum_, i. 269, contains Dominican sermons delivered in Paris, 1272-3.

[1032] Chérest, 49 sqq., from Sens _Chapter Accounts_ in _Archives de l’Yonne_, at Auxerre. The _Compotus Camerarii_ begins in 1295-6. The _Chapter Register_ is missing before 1662: some of Baluze’s extracts from it are in _Bibl. Nat. Cod. Parisin._ 1351.

[1033] Chérest, 55 ‘pro servitio faciendo die dicti festi quatenus tangit canonicos subdiaconos in ecclesia.’

[1034] Towards the end of this period the accounts are in French: ‘le précentre de la feste aux fols.’

[1035] _Epistola de Reformatione Theologiae_ (Gerson, _Opera Omnia_, i. 121), from Bruges, 1st Jan. 1400 ‘ex sacrilegis paganorum idololatrarumque ritibus reliquiae,’ &c.; _Solemnis oratio ex parte Universitatis Paris. in praesentia Regis Caroli Sexti_ (1405, _Opera_ iv. 620; cf. French version in _Bibl. Nat. anc. f. fr._ 7275, described P. Paris, _Manus. franç. de la Bibl. du Roi_, vii. 266) ‘hic commendari potest bona Regis fides et vestrum omnium Dominorum variis modis religiosorum, ... in hoc quod iam dudum litteras dedistis contra abominabiles maledictiones et quasi idolatrias, quae in Francorum fiunt ecclesiis sub umbra Festi fatuorum. Fatui sunt ipsi, et perniciosi fatui, nec sustinendi, opus est executione’; _Rememoratio quorumdam quae per Praelatum quemlibet pro parte sua nunc agenda viderentur_ (1407-8, _Opera_, ii. 109) ‘sciatur quomodo ritus ille impiissimus et insanus qui regnat per totam Franciam poterit evelli aut saltem temperari. De hoc scilicet quod ecclesiastici faciunt, vel in die Innocentium, vel in die Circumcisionis, vel in Epiphania Domini, vel in Carnisprivio per Ecclesias suas, ubi fit irrisio detestabilis Servitii Domini et Sacramentorum: ubi plura fiunt impudenter et execrabiliter quam fieri deberent, in tabernis vel prostibulis, vel apud Saracenos et Iudaeos; sciunt qui viderunt, quod non sufficit censura Ecclesiastica; quaeratur auxilium potestatis Regiae per edicta sua vehementer urgentia’; _Quinque conclusiones super ludo stultorum communiter fieri solito_ (_Opera_ iii. 309) ‘qui per Regnum Franciae in diversis fiunt Ecclesiis et Abbatiis monachorum et monialium ... hae enim insolentiae non dicerentur cocis in eorum culina absque dedecore aut reprehensione, quae ibi fiunt in Ecclesiis Sacrosanctis, in loco orationis, in praesentia Sancti Sacramenti Altaris, dum divinum cantatur servitium, toto populo Christiano spectante et interdum Iudaeis ... adhuc peius est dicere, festum hoc adeo approbatum esse sicut festum Conceptionis Virginis Mariae, quod paulo ante asseruit quidam in urbe Altissiodorensi secundum quod dicitur et narrari solet, &c.’

[1036] _Council of Langres_ (1404) ‘prohibemus clericis ... ne intersint ... in ludis illis inhonestis quae solent fieri in aliquibus Ecclesiis in festo Fatuorum quod faciunt in festivitatibus Natalis Domini.’

[1037] _Council of Nantes_ (1431), c. 13 (J. Maan, _Sancta et Metrop. Eccl. Turonensis_, ii. 101) ‘quia in talibus Ecclesiis Provinciae Turonensis inolevit et servatur usus, ... quod festis Nativitatis Domini, Sanctorum Stephani, Ioannis et Innocentium, nonnulli Papam, nonnulli Episcopum, alii Ducem vel Comitem aut Principem in suis Ecclesiis ex novitiis praecipuis faciunt et ordinant ... Et talia ... vulgari eloquio festum stultorum nuncupatur, quod de residuis Kalendis Ianuariis a multo tempore ortum fuisse credatur.’

[1038] _Council of Basle_, sessio xxi (June 9, 1435), can. xi (Mansi, xxix. 108) ‘Turpem etiam illum abusum in quibusdam frequentatum Ecclesiis, quo certis anni celebritatibus nonnullis cum mitra, baculo ac vestibus pontificalibus more episcoporum benedicunt, alii ut reges ac duces induti quod festum Fatuorum, vel Innocentum seu Puerorum in quibusdam regionibus nuncupatur, alii larvales et theatrales iocos, alii choreas et tripudia marium et mulierum facientes homines ad spectacula et cachinnationes movent, alii comessationes et convivia ibidem praeparant.’

[1039] _Council of Bourges_, July 7, 1438 (_Ordonnances des Rois de France de la Troisième Race_, xiii. 287) ‘Item. Acceptat Decretum de spectaculis in Ecclesia non faciendis, quod incipit: _Turpem_, &c.’

[1040] F. Aubert, _Le Parlement de Paris, sa Compétence, ses Attributions_, 1314-1422 (1890), 182; _Hist. du Parlement de Paris_, 1250-1515 (1894), i. 163.

[1041] _Epistola et xiv. conclusiones facultatis theologiae Parisiensis ad ecclesiarum praelatos contra festum fatuorum in Octavis Nativitatis Domini vel prima Ianuarii in quibusdam Ecclesiis celebratum_ (H. Denifle, _Chartularium Univ. Paris_. iv. 652; _P. L._ ccvii. 1169). The document is too long and too scholastic to quote in full. The date is March 12, 144⁴⁄₅.

[1042] ‘Quis, quaeso, Christianorum sensatus non diceret malos illos sacerdotes et clericos, quos divini officii tempore videret larvatos, monstruosis vultibus, aut in vestibus mulierum, aut lenonum, vel histrionum choreas ducere in choro, cantilenas inhonestas cantare, offas pingues supra cornu altaris iuxta celebrantem missam comedere, ludum taxillorum ibidem exercere, thurificare de fumo fetido ex corio veterum sotularium, et per totam ecclesiam currere, saltare, turpitudinem suam non erubescere, ac deinde per villam et theatra in curribus et vehiculis sordidis duci ad infamia spectacula, pro risu astantium et concurrentium turpes gesticulationes sui corporis faciendo, et verba impudicissima ac scurrilia proferendo?’

[1043] ‘Concludimus, quod a vobis praelatis pendet continuatio vel abolitio huius pestiferi ritus; nam ipsos ecclesiasticos ita dementes esse et obstinatos in hac furia non est verisimile, quod si faciem praelati reperirent rigidam et nullatenus flexibilem a punitione cum assistentia inquisitorum fidei, et auxilio brachii saecularis, quam illico cederent aut frangerentur. Timerent namque carceres, timerent perdere beneficia, perdere famam et ab altaribus sacris repelli.’

[1044] T. Boutiot, _Hist. de la Ville de Troyes_ (1870-80), ii. 264; iii. 19. A chapter decree of 1437 lays down that a vicar who has served as ‘archbishop’ and has subsequently left the cathedral and returned again, need not serve a second time. It was doubtless an expensive dignity.

[1045] Boutiot, _op. cit._ iii. 20; A. de Jubainville, _Inventaire sommaire des Archives départementales de l’Aube_, i. 244 (G. 1275); P. de Julleville, _Les Com._ 35, _Rép. Com._ 330; A. Vallet de Viriville, in _Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, iii. 448. The letter of Jean Leguisé to Louis de Melun is printed in _Annales archéologiques_, iv. 209; _Revue des Soc. Savantes_ (2nd series), vi. 94; _Journal de Verdun_, Oct. 1751, and partly by Rigollot, 153. It is dated only Jan. 23, but clearly refers to the events of 1444-5. The _Ordonnance_ of Charles VII is in Martene and Durand, _Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum_, i. 1804; H. Denifle, _Chartularium Univ. Paris_, iv. 657. Extracts are given by Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_. The king speaks of the Troyes affair as leading to the Theological Faculty’s letter. It is permissible to conjecture that he was moved, no doubt by the abstract rights and wrongs of the case, but also by a rumour spread at Troyes that he had revoked the Pragmatic Sanction. For, as a matter of fact, Peter of Brescia, the papal legate, was trying hard to get him to revoke it.

[1046] Boutiot, _op. cit._ i. 494, iii. 20. The chapters of St. Stephen’s and St. Urban’s and the abbey of St. Loup all continued to make payments for their feasts after 1445. They may have been pruned of abuses. In the sixteenth century the Comte of Champagne pays five sous to the ‘archevesque des Saulx’ at St. Stephen’s, and this appears to be the _droit_ charged upon the royal demesne up to 1789.

[1047] Chérest, 66, from _Acta Capitularia_ (Dec. 4, 1444) in _Bibl. Nat. Cod. Paris._ 1014 and 1351 ‘De servitio dominicae circumcisionis, viso super hoc statuto per quemdam legatum edito, et consideratis aliis circa hoc considerandis, et ad evitandum scandala, quae super hoc possent exoriri, ordinatum fuit unanimiter et concorditer, nemine discrepante, quod de caetero dictum servitium fiet, prout iacet in libro ipsius servitii, devote et cum reverentia; absque aliqua derisione, tumultu aut turpitudine, prout fiunt alia servitia in aliis festis, in habitibus per dictum statutum ordinatis, et non alias, et voce modulosa, absque dissonantia, et assistant in huiusmodi servitio omnes qui tenentur in eo interesse, et faciant debitum suum absque discursu aut turbatione servitii, potissime in ecclesia; nec proiiciatur aqua in vesperis super praecentorem stultorum ultra quantitatem trium sitularum ad plus; nec adducantur nudi in crastino festi dominicae nativitatis, sine brachis verenda tegentibus, nec etiam adducantur in ecclesia, sed ducantur ad puteum claustri, non hora servitii sed alia, et ibi rigentur sola situla aquae sine lesione. Qui contrarium fecerit occurrit ipso facto suspensionis censuram per dictum statutum latam; attamen extra ecclesiam permissum est quod stulti faciant alias ceremonias sine damno aut iniuria cuiusquam.’ The proceedings on the day after the Nativity are probably explained by the election of the precentor on that day (after Vespers). The victims ducked may have failed to be present at the election; but cf. the Easter _prisio_ (ch. vii).

[1048] Saint-Marthe, _Gallia Christiana_, xii. 96, partly quoted by Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_. The bishop describes the feast almost in the _ipsissima verba_ of the Paris Theologians, but in one passage (‘nudos homines sine verendorum tegmine inverecunde ducendo per villam et theatra in curribus et vehiculis sordidis, &c.’) he adds a trait from the Sens chapter act just quoted.

[1049] Chérest, 68. The councils of Sens in 1460 and 1485 (p. 300) are for the province. That of 1528 (sometimes called of Sens, but properly of Paris) is national. They are not evidence for the feast at Sens itself.

[1050] Ibid. 72 ‘Insolentias, tam de die quam de nocte, faciendo tondere barbam parte, ut fieri consuevit, in theatro ... ac ludere personagia, die scilicet circumcisionis Domini.’ The shaven face was characteristic of the mediaeval fool, minstrel, or actor (cf. ch. ii). Dreves, 586, adds that Tallinus Bissart, the precentor of this year, was threatened with excommunication.

[1051] Ibid. 75.

[1052] Ibid. 76 ‘prohibitum vicariis ne attentent, ultima die anni, in theatro tabulato ante valvas ecclesiae aut alibi in civitate Senonensi, publice barbam illius qui se praecentorem fatuorum nominat, aut alterius, radere, radifacere, permittere, aut procurare; et ne ad electionem dicti praecentoris die festo Sancti Iohannis Evangelistae sub poenis excommunicationis.’

[1053] Ibid. 77 ‘honeste, ac devote, sine laternis, sine precentore, sine delatione baculi domini precentoris, nec poterunt facere rasuram in theatro ante ecclesiam.’

[1054] Ibid. 78.

[1055] Dreves, 586.

[1056] _Prov. C. of Rouen_ (1445), c. 11 (Labbé, xiii. 1304) ‘prohibet haec sancta synodus ludos qui fatuorum vulgariter nuncupantur cum larvatis faciebus et alias inhoneste fieri in ecclesiis aut cemeteriis’; _Prov. C. of Sens_ (1485, repeats decrees of earlier council of 1460), c. 3 (Labbé, xiii. 1728), quoting and adopting Basle decree, with careful exception for _consuetudines_ of Nativity and Resurrection; cf. ch. xx; _Dioc. C. of Chartres_ (1526, apparently repeated 1550, tit. 16; cf. Du Tilliot, 62) quoted Bochellus, iv. 7. 46 ‘denique ab Ecclesia eiiciantur vestes fatuorum personas scenicas agentium’; _Nat. C. of Paris_ (1528, held by Abp. of Sens as primate), _Decr. Morum_, c. 16 (Labbé, xiv. 471) ‘prohibemus ne fiat deinceps festum fatuorum aut innocentium, neque erigatur decanatus patellae.’ The _Prov. C. of Rheims_ (1456, held at Soissons) in Labbé, xiii. 1397, mentions only ‘larvales et theatrales ioci,’ ‘choreae,’ ‘tripudia,’ but refers explicitly to the Pragmatic Sanction. This, it may be observed, was suspended for a while in 1461 and finally annulled in 1516. Still more general are the terms of the _C. of Orleans_ (1525, repeated 1587; Du Tilliot, 61); _C. of Narbonne_ (1551), c. 46 (Labbé, xv. 26); _C. of Beauvais_ (1554; E. Fleury, _Cinquante Ans de Laon_, 53); _C. of Cambrai_ (1565), vi. 11 (Labbé, xv. 160); _C. of Rheims_ (1583), c. 5 (Labbé, xv. 889); _C. of Tours_ (1583, quoted Bochellus, iv. 7. 40). See also the councils quoted as to the Boy Bishop, in ch. xv. Finally, the _C. of Trent_, although in its 22nd session (1562) it renewed the decrees of popes and councils ‘de choreis, aleis, lusibus’ (_Decr. de Reformatione_, c. 1), made no specific mention of ‘fatui’ (_Can. et Decr. Sacros. Oec. Conc. Tridentini_, (Romae, 1845), 127). Probably the range of the feast was by this time insignificant.

[1057] Cf. ch. xvi.

[1058] But there was another revel on Aug. 28. F. L. Chartier, _L’ancien Chapitre de N.-D. de Paris_, 175, quotes _Archives Nationales_, LL. 288, p. 219 ‘iniunctum est clericis matutinalibus, ne in festo S. Augustini faciant dissolutiones quas facere assueverant annis praeteritis.’

[1059] Dulaure, _Hist. de Paris_, iii. 81; Grenier, 370. A ‘cardinal’ was chosen on Jan. 13, and took part in the office.

[1060] Grenier, 362. A model account form has the heading ‘in die Circumcisionis, si fiat festum stultorum.’ The ‘rubriques du luminaire’ provide for a distribution of wax to the sub-deacons and choir-clerks.

[1061] Martonne, 49, giving no authority.

[1062] Grenier, 361; Dreves, 583; Rigollot, 15, quoting _Actum Capit._ Leave was given to John Cornet, of St. Michael’s, John de Nœux of St. Maurice’s, rectors, and Everard Duirech, _capellanus_ of the cathedral, ‘pridem electi, instituti et assumpti in papatum stultorum villae Ambianensis ... quod dictus Cornet ... et sui praedecessores in ipso papatu ordinati superstites die circumcisionis Domini ... facerent prandium in quo beneficiati ipsius villae convocarentur ... ut inibi eligere instituere et ordinare valerent papam ac papatum relevarent absque tamen praeiudicio in aliquo tangendo servitium divinum ... faciendum.’ Apparently the parochial clergy of Amiens joined with the cathedral vicars and chaplains in the feast.

[1063] Grenier, 362; Rigollot, 15 ‘Servitium divinum facient honeste in choro ecclesiae solemne, absque faciendo insolentias aut aliquas irrisiones, nec deferendo aliquas campanas in dicta ecclesia, aut alibi, et si dicti vicarii facere voluerint aliqua convivia, erit eorum sumptibus et non sumptibus Dominorum canonicorum.’

[1064] Rigollot, 16 ‘inhibuerunt capellanis et vicariis ... facere recreationes solitas in pascha annotino, etiam facere electionem de Papa Stultorum.’ Later in the year the ‘iocalia Papae, videlicet annulus aureus, tassara (_sic_) argentea et sigillum’ were put in charge of the ‘canonicus vicarialis.’

[1065] Rigollot, 17 ‘licentiam dederunt ... ludere die dominica proxima brioris.’ Rigollot and Leber think that ‘brioris’ may be for ‘burarum,’ the feast of ‘buras’ or ‘brandons’ on the first Sunday in Lent. Can it be the same as the ‘fête des Braies’ of Laon?

[1066] Grenier, 414; Rigollot, 17.

[1067] L. Maziére, _Noyon Religieux_ in _Comptes-Rendus et Mémoires_ of the _Comité arch. et hist. de Noyon_ (1895), xi. 92; Grenier, 370, 413; Rigollot, 28, quoting _Actum Capit._ of 1497 ‘cavere a cantu carminum infamium et scandalosorum, nec non similiter carminibus indecoris et impudicis verbis in ultimo festo Innocentium per eos fetide decantatis; et si vicarii cum rege vadant ad equitatum solito, nequaquam fiet chorea et tripudia ante magnum portale, saltem ita impudice ut fieri solet.’

[1068] Grenier, 365; Rigollot, 29, quoting, I think, a ceremonial (1350) of the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre-au-Parvis. The masquers obtained permission from some canons seated on a theatre near the house called _Grosse-Tête_.

[1069] Grenier, 365; Rigollot, 26; Dreves, 584, quoting cathedral _Actum Capit._ of 19 Dec. 1403, from Grenier’s _MS. Picardie_, 158. Five canons said ‘quod papa fieret in ecclesia, sed nulla elevatio, et quod, qui vellet venire, in habitu saeculari honesto veniret, et quod nulla dansio ibi fieret’; but the casting-vote of the dean was against them, ‘sed extra possent facere capellani et alii quidquid vellent.’

[1070] Grenier, 370; Rigollot, 22; E. Fleury, _Cinquante Ans de Laon_, 16; C. Hidé, in _Bull. de la Soc. académique de Laon_ (1863), xiii. 111.

[1071] Hidé, _op. cit._ 116, thinks that the Patriarch used _jetons de présence_, similar to those used by the Boy Bishop at Amiens and elsewhere (ch. xv). He figures some, but they may belong to the period of the _confrérie_.

[1072] _MS. Hist._ of Dom. Bugniatre (eighteenth century) quoted Fleury, _op. cit._ 16. I do not feel sure that the term ‘fête des ânes’ was really used at Laon.

[1073] Julleville, _Les Com._ 36; _Rép. Com._ 348; L. Paris, _Remensiana_, 32, _Le Théâtre à Reims_, 30; Coquillart, _Œuvres_ (Bibl. Elzév.), i. cxxxv. Coquillart is said to have written verses for the Basoche on this occasion.

[1074] Rigollot, 211, from A. Hugo, _La France pittoresque_, ii. 226, on the authority of a register of 1570 in the cathedral archives.

[1075] It begins ‘Cantemus ad honorem, gloriam et laudem Sancti Stephani.’

[1076] L. Deschamps de Pas, in _Mém. de la Soc. des Antiq. de la Morinie_, xx. 104, 107, 133; O. Bled, in _Bull. Hist., de la même Soc._ (1887), 62.

[1077] Deschamps de Pas, _op. cit._ 133 ‘solitum est fieri gaude in cena ob reverentiam ipsius sancti.’

[1078] Ibid. _op. cit._ 107. Grenier, 414, citing Sammarthanus, _Gallia Christiana_, x. 1510, calls Francis de Melun ‘bishop of Terouanne.’ An earlier reform of the feast seems implied by the undated Chapter Statute in Ducange, s. v. _Episcopus Fatuorum_ ‘quia temporibus retroactis multi defectus et plura scandala, deordinationes et mala, occasione Episcopi Fatuorum et suorum evenerint, statuimus et ordinamus quod de caetero in festo Circumcisionis Domini Vicarii caeterique chorum frequentantes et eorum Episcopus se habeant honeste, cantando et officiando sicut continetur plenius in Ordinario Ecclesiae.’

[1079] De la Fons-Melicocq, _Cérémonies dramatiques et Anciens Usages dans les Eglises du Nord de la France_ (1850), 4. In 1445 is a payment to the ‘évêque des fous de Saint-Aldegonde’ for a ‘jeu’; in 1474, one for the chapter’s share of ‘le feste du vesque des asnes, par dessus tout ce que ly cœurz paya.’

[1080] E. Hautcœur, _Hist. de l’Église collégiale de Saint-Pierre de Lille_ (1896-9), ii. 30; Id. _Cartulaire de l’Église_, &c. ii. 630, 651 (_Stat. Capit._ of July 7, 1323, confirmed June 23, 1328); ‘item volumus festum folorum penitus anullari.’

[1081] Hautcœur, _Hist._ ii. 215; De la Fons-Melicocq, _Archives hist. et litt. du Nord de France_ (3rd series), v. 374; Flammermont, _Album paléographique du Nord de la France_ (1896), No. 45.

[1082] Ducange, s. v. _Deposuit_ (_Stat. Capit. S. Petri Insul._ July 13, 1531, ex Reg. k.) ‘Scandala et ludibria quae sub Fatuitatis praetextu per beneficiatos et habituatos dictae nostrae ecclesiae a vigilia usque ad completas octavas Epiphaniae fieri et exerceri consueverunt ... deinceps nullus nominetur, assumatur et creetur praelatus follorum, nec ludus, quem Deposuit vocant, in dicta vigilia, aut alio quocumque tempore, ludatur, exerceatur, aut fiat.’ Probably to this date belongs the very similarly worded but undated memorandum in Delobel, _Collectanea_, f. 76, which Hautcœur, _Hist._ ii. 220, 224, assigns to 1490. This adds ‘de non ... faciendo officio ... per vicarios in octava Epiphaniae.’ The municipal duties of the _praelatus_ fell to the _confrérie_ of the Prince des Foux, afterwards Prince d’Amour, which held revels in 1547 (Du Tilliot, 87), and still later to the ‘fou de la ville’ who led the procession of the Holy Sacrament, and flung water at the people in the eighteenth century (Leber, ix. 265).

[1083] Rigollot, 14.

[1084] Two documents are preserved, each giving a full account of the event: (_a_) summons of the delinquents before the Parlement, dated March 16, 149⁸⁄₉ (J. F. Foppens, _Supplément_ (1748), to A. Miraeus, _Opera Diplomatica_, iv. 295). This is endorsed with some notes of further proceedings; (_b_) official notes of the hearing on Nov. 18, 1499 (_Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, iii. 568); cf. Julleville, _Rép. com._ 355; Cousin, _Hist. de Tournay_, Bk. iv. 261. The Synod of Tournai in 1520 still found it necessary to forbid students to appear in church ‘en habits de fous, en représentant des personnages de comédie’ on St. Nicholas’ day, Innocents’ day, or ‘la fête de l’évêque’ (E. Fleury, _Cinquante Ans de Laon_, 54).

[1085] Rigollot, 19, 157.

[1086] Cf. ch. xix.