Chapter XVII: Masks and Misrule (9)

[1259] _Archaeologia_, l. 446, 472 sqq. (_Invent._ of 1245) ‘mitra alia alba addubbata aurifrigio, plana est; quam dedit J. Belemains episcopo innocentum.... Mitra episcopi innocentum, nullius precii.... Capa et mantella puerorum ad festum Innocentum et Stultorum [cf. p. 323] sunt xxviij debiles et contritae.’ In 1402 there were two little staves for the Boy Bishop (Simpson, _St. Paul’s Cathedral and Old City Life_, 40).

[1260] _Statutes_, bk. i, pars vi. c. 9, _De officio puerorum in festo Sanctorum Innocencium_ (W. S. Simpson, _Registrum Statutorum et Consuetudinum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Sancti Pauli Londinensis_, 91).

[1261] ‘Memorandum, quod Anno Domini Millesimo cc lxiij. tempore G. de fferring, Decani, ordinatum fuit de officio Puerorum die Sanctorum Innocencium, prout sequitur. Provida fuit ab antiquis patribus predecessoribus nostris deliberacione statutum, ut in sollennitate Sanctorum Innocencium, qui pro Innocente Christo sanguinem suum fuderunt, innocens puer Presulatus officio fungeretur, ut sic puer pueris preesset, et innocens innocentibus imperaret, illius tipum tenens in Ecclesia, quem sequuntur iuvenes, quocumque ierit. Cum igitur quod ad laudem lactencium fuit adinventum, conversum sit in dedecus, et in derisum decoris Domus Dei, propter insolenciam effrenatae multitudinis subsequentis eundem, et affluentis improborum turbae pacem Praesulis exturbantis, statuendum duximus ut praedicti pueri, tam in eligendo suo Pontifice et personis dignitatum Decani, Archidiaconorum, et aliorum, necnon et Stacionariorum, antiquum suum ritum observent, tabulam suam faciant, et legant in Capitulo. Hoc tamen adhibito moderamine, ut nullum decetero de Canonicis Maioribus vel Minoribus ad candelabra, vel turribulum, vel ad aliqua obsequia eiusdem Ecclesiae, vel ipsius Pontificis deputent in futurum, set suos eligant ministeriales de illis qui sunt in secunda forma vel in tercia. Processionem suam habeant honestam, tam in incessu, quam habitu et cantu, competenti; ita vero se gerant in omnibus in Ecclesia, quod clerus et populus illos habeant recommendatos.’

[1262] ‘Die vero solemnitatis post prandium ad mandatum personae Decani convenient omnes in atrio Ecclesiae, ibidem equos ascendant ituri ad populum benedicendum. Tenetur autem Decanus Presuli presentare equum, et quilibet Stacionarius sua personae in equo providere.’

[1263] _Statutes_, bk. i, pars vii. c. 6 (Simpson, _op. cit._ 129), a statute made in the time of Dean Ralph de Diceto (1181-†1204) ‘Debet eciam novus Residenciarius post cenam die Sanctorum Innocencium ducere puerum suum cum daunsa et chorea et torchiis ad Elemosinariam, et ibi cum torticiis potum et species singulis ministrare, et liberatam vini cervisiae et specierum et candellarum facere, et ibidem ministri sui expectare, quousque alius puer Canonici senioris veniat. Et secundam cenam in octavis Innocencium tenebit, Episcopum cum pueris et eorum comitiva pascendo, et in recessu dona dando, et, si diu expectat adventum illorum nocte illa, ad matutinos non teneatur venire.’

[1264] Rimbault, xxxii.

[1265] Printed in Rimbault, 1. Duff, _Handlists_, ii. 5, notes also a _Sermo pro episcopo puerorum_ by J. Alcock, printed in the fifteenth century by R. Pynson.

[1266] _Concio de puero Iesu pronunciata a puero in nova schola Iohannis Coleti per eum instituta Londini in qua praesidet imago Pueri Iesu docentis specie_ (Erasmi _Opera_ (1704), v. 599). The English version was printed by W. Redman (Lupton, _Life of Colet_, 176). It is not clear that this _Concio_ was preached by a boy bishop, for Colet’s school (cf. next note) attended the ‘bishop’ of St. Paul’s song-school.

[1267] Lupton, _op. cit._ 175 ‘Alle these Chyldren shall every Chyldremasse day come to paulis Church and here the Chylde Bisshoppis sermon, and after be at the hye masse, and eche of them offre a 1^d. to the Childe Bisshopp; and with theme the Maisters and surveyours of the scole.’

[1268] _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 98 ‘Inveniet [thesaurarius] Stellas cum omnibus ad illas pertinentibus, preter cirpos, quos inveniet Episcopus Puerorum futurorum [?fatuorum], vnam in nocte Natalis Domini pro pastoribus et ·ij^{as} in nocte Epiphanie, si debeat fieri presentacio ·iij^{um} regum.’

[1269] Warton, iv. 224 ‘Ioannes de Quixly confirmatur Episcopus Puerorum, et Capitulum ordinavit, quod electio Episcopi Puerorum in ecclesia Eboracensi de cetero fieret de eo, qui diutius et magis in dicta ecclesia laboraverit, et magis idoneus repertus fuerit, dum tamen competenter sit corpore formosus, et quod aliter facta electio non valebit.’

[1270] Warton, iv. 237 ‘nisi habuerit claram vocem puerilem.’

[1271] Warton, iv. 224.

[1272] Appendix M. Cf. Rimbault, xi, for further elucidations of the _Computus_.

[1273] Percy, _North. H. B._ 340.

[1274] _York Missal_, i. 23. The rubric at the beginning of Mass is ‘Omnibus pueris in Capis, Praecentor illorum incipiat.’ There are some responds for the ‘Praecentor’ and the ‘turba puerorum.’ After the Kyrie, ‘omnibus pueris in medio Chori stantibus et ibi omnia cantantibus, Episcopo eorum interim in cathedra sedente; et si Dominica fuerit, dicitur ab Episcopo stante in cathedra _Gloria in excelsis Deo_: aliter non.’ The _Sequentia_ for the day is

‘Celsa pueri concrepent melodia,
eia, Innocentum colentes tripudia, &c.’

[1275] Rimbault, xvi. The dates are between 1416 and 1537.

[1276] Raine, _Fabric Rolls of York Minster_ (Surtees Soc.), 213 sqq. (†1500, the additions in brackets being †1510) ‘una mitra parva cum petris pro episcopo puerorum ... [unus annulus pro episcopo puerorum et duo owchys, unus in medio ad modum crucis cum lapidibus in circumferenciis cum alio parvo cum uno lapide in medio vocato turchas].... Capae Rubiae.... Una capa de tyssue pro Episcopo puerili ... [duae capae veteres olim pro Episcopo puerorum].’ Leach, 132, says ‘At York, in 1321, the Master of the Works gave “a gold ring with a great stone for the Bishop of the Innocents.” In 1491 the Boy Bishop’s pontifical was mended with silver-gilt.’

[1277] _Lincoln Statutes_, i. 290 (_Black Book_, †1300); ii. ccxxxi.

[1278] _Archaeologia_, liii. 25, 50; _Monasticon_, viii. 1282 ‘Item, a coope of Rede velvett w^t Rolles & clowdes ordenyd for the barne busshop w^t this scriptur “the hye wey ys best”.’ The entry is repeated in a later inventory of 1548.

[1279] Hereford, _Consuetudines_ of thirteenth century (_Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 67) ‘Thesaurarius debet invenire ... in festo Innocencium pueris candelas et ·ij^{os} cereos coram parvo Episcopo.’

[1280] Lichfield--J. C. Cox, _Sports in Churches_, in W. Andrews, _Curious Church Customs_, 3, quoting inventories of 1345 and of the fifteenth century. The latter uses the term ‘Nicholas Bishop.’

[1281] Gloucester--Rimbault, 14, prints from _Cotton MSS. Vesp._ A. xxv, f. 173, a _Sermon of the Child Bishop, Pronownysed by John Stubs, Querester, on Childermas Day, at Gloceter_, 1558.

[1282] Norwich--a fourteenth-century antiphonal of Sarum Use, probably of Norwich _provenance_ (_Lansd. MS._ 463, f. 16^v), provides for the giving of the _baculus_ to the _Episcopus Puerorum_ at Vespers on St. John’s Day.

[1283] Beverley--the fifth earl of Northumberland about 1522 gave xx_s._ at Christmas to the ‘Barne Bishop’ of Beverley, as well as to him of York (Percy, _North. H. B._ 340); cf. p. 357.

[1284] Wordsworth, _Proc._ 52; cf. Appendix M (1).

[1285] Ottery--_Statutes_ of Bishop Grandisson (1337), quoted by Warton, ii. 229 ‘Item statuimus, quod nullus canonicus, vicarius, vel secundarius, pueros choristas in festo sanctorum Innocentium extra parochiam de Otery trahant, aut eis licentiam vagandi concedant.’

[1286] Magdalen--see Appendix E.

[1287] All Souls--An inventory has ‘j chem. j cap et mitra pro Episcopo Nicholao’ (Rock, iii. 2. 217).

[1288] In 1299 Edward I heard vespers said ‘de Sancto Nicholao ... in Capella sua apud Heton iuxta Novum Castrum super Tynam’ (_Wardrobe Account_, ed. Soc. of Antiq., 25). In 1306 a Boy Bishop officiated before Edward II on St. Nicholas’ Day in the king’s chapel at Scroby (_Wardrobe Account_ in _Archaeologia_, xxvi. 342). In 1339 Edward III gave a gift ‘Episcopo puerorum ecclesiae de Andeworp cantanti coram domino rege in camera sua in festo sanctorum Innocentium’ (Warton, ii. 229). There was a yearly payment of £1 to the Boy Bishop at St. Stephen’s, Westminster, in 1382 (Devon, _Issues of Exchequer_, 222), and about 1528-32 (Brewer, iv. 1939).

[1289] The fifth earl of Northumberland (†1512) was wont to ‘gyfe yerly upon Saynt Nicolas-Even if he kepe Chapell for Saynt Nicolas to the Master of his Childeren of his Chapell for one of the Childeren of his Chapell yerely vj^{s.} viij^{d.} And if Saynt Nicolas com owt of the Towne wher my Lord lyeth and my Lord kepe no Chapell than to have yerely iij^{s.} iiij^{d.}’ (Percy, _North. H. B._ 343). An elaborate _Contenta de Ornamentis Ep., puer._, of uncertain _provenance_, is printed by Percy, _op. cit._ 439.

[1290] St. Mary at Hill (Brand, i. 233); St. Mary de Prees (_Monasticon_, iii. 360); St. Peter Cheap (Journal of _Brit. Arch. Ass._ xxiv. 156); Hospital of St. Katharine by the Tower (_Reliquary_, iv. 153); Lambeth (Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 310); cf. p. 367.

[1291] Louth (E. Hewlett, _Boy Bishops_, in W. Andrews, _Curious Church Gleanings_, 241)--the payments for the Chyld Bishop include some for ‘making his See’ (_sedes_); Nottingham (_Archaeologia_, xxvi. 342); Sandwich (Boys, _Hist. of S._ 376); New Romney (_Hist. MSS._ v. 517-28), Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Somersetshire (J. C. Cox, _Sports in Churches_, in W. Andrews, _Curious Church Customs_); Bristol--L. T. Smith, _Ricart’s Kalendar_, 80 (1479-1506, Camden Soc.). On Nov. 24, the Mayor, Sheriff, and ‘worshipfull men’ are to ‘receyue at theire dores Seynt Kateryn’s pleyers, making them to drynk at their dores and rewardyng theym for theire playes.’ On Dec. 5 they are ‘to walke to Seynt Nicholas churche, there to hire theire even-song: and on the morowe to hire theire masse, and offre, and hire the bishop’s sermon, and have his blissyng.’ After dinner they are to play dice at the mayor’s counter, ‘and when the Bishope is come thedir, his chapell there to synge, and the bishope to geve them his blissyng, and then he and all his chapell to be serued there with brede and wyne.’ And so to even-song in St. Nicholas’ church.

[1292] _L. T. Accounts_, i. ccxlvi record annual payments by James IV (†1473-98) to Boy Bishops from Holyrood Abbey and St. Giles’s, Edinburgh.

[1293] Wilkins, ii. 38 ‘Puerilia autem solemnia, quae in festo solent fieri Innocentum post vesperas S. Iohannis, tantum inchoari permittimus, et in crastino in ipsa die Innocentum totaliter terminentur.’

[1294] _Archaeologia_, lii. 221 sqq.

[1295] _Transactions_ of _London and Middlesex Arch. Soc._ vols. iv, v.

[1296] _Athenæum_ (1900), ii. 655, 692 ‘data Pueris de Elemosinaria ludentibus coram Domino apud Westmonasterium, iij^{s.} iiij^{d.}’ Dr. E. J. L. Scott and Dr. Rutherford found in this entry a proof of the existence of the Westminster Latin play at ‘a period anterior to the foundation of Eton’!

[1297] Rimbault, xviii; _Finchale Priory_ (Surtees Soc.), ccccxxviii; _Durham Accounts_ (Surtees Soc.), iii. xliii, and passim.

[1298] _Hist. MSS._ xiv. 8. 124, 157.

[1299] _Computi_ of Cellarer (Warton, ii. 232, iii. 300) ‘1397, pro epulis Pueri celebrantis in festo S. Nicholai ... 1490, in larvis et aliis indumentis Puerorum visentium Dominum apud Wulsey, et Constabularium Castri Winton, in apparatu suo, necnon subintrantium omnia monasteria civitatis Winton, in festo sancti Nicholai.’

[1300] G. W. Kitchin, _Computus Rolls of St. Swithin’s_ (_Hampshire Rec. Soc._), passim; G. W. Kitchin and F. T. Madge, _Winchester Chapter Documents_ (_H. R. Soc._), 24.

[1301] Warton, ii. 231 ‘1441, pro pueris Eleemosynariae una cum pueris Capellae sanctae Elizabethae, ornatis more puellarum, et saltantibus, cantantibus, et ludentibus, coram domina Abbatissa et monialibus Abbathiae beatae Mariae virginis, in aula ibidem in die sanctorum Innocentium.’

[1302] Harpsfield, _Hist. Eccl. Angl._ (1622), 441, citing Peckham’s _Register_. He says the mandate was in French.

[1303] _Visitations of Diocese of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), 209 ‘Domina Iohanna Botulphe dicit ... quod ... habent in festo Natalis Domini iuniorem monialem in abbatissam assumptam, vocandi [? iocandi] gratia; cuius occasione ipsa consumere et dissipare cogitur quae vel elemosina vel aliorum amicorum largitione acquisierit ... Iniunctum est ... quod de cetero non observetur assumptio abbatissae vocandi causa.’

[1304] Gregory of Tours, x. 16 (_M. G. H. Script. Rerum Meroving._ i. 427), mentions among the complaints laid before the visitors of the convent of St. Radegund in Poitou, that the abbess ‘vittam de auro exornatam idem neptae suae superflue fecerit, barbaturias intus eo quod celebraverit.’ Ducange, s. v. _Barbatoriae_, finds here a reference to some kind of masquing, and Peter of Blois, _Epist._ 14, certainly uses _barbatores_ as a synonym for _mimi_. The M. G. H. editors of Gregory, however, explain ‘_barbatoria_’ as ‘_primam barbam ponere_’ the sense borne by the term in Petronius, _Sat._ lxxiii. 6. The abbess’s niece had probably no beard, but may not the reference be to the cutting of the hair of a novice when she takes the vows?

[1305] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_ (‘de monialibus Villae-Arcelli’), ‘Item inhibemus ne de caetero in festis Innocentum et B. M. Magdalenae ludibria exerceatis consueta, induendo vos scilicet vestibus saecularium aut inter vos seu cum secularibus choreas ducendo’; and again ‘in festo S. Iohannis et Innocentium mimia iocositate et scurrilibus cantibus utebantur, ut pote farsis, conductis, motulis; praecepimus quod honestius et cum maiori devotione alias se haberent’; Gasté, 36 (on Caen) ‘iuniores in festo Innocentium cantant lectiones suas cum farsis. Hoc inhibuimus.’ In 1423, the real abbess gave place to the little abbess at the _Deposuit_. Gasté, 44, describes a survival of the election of an ‘abbess’ from amongst the _pensionnaires_ on the days of St. Catherine and the Innocents in the Abbaye aux Bois, Faubourg St. Germain, from the _Mémoires_ of Hélène Massalska. This was about 1773.

[1306] Howlett, _Monumenta Franciscana_ (R. S.), ii. 93 ‘Caveant fratres in festo Sancti Nicolai seu Innocentium, vel quibuscunque aliis festis vestes extraneas religiosas seu seculares aut clericales vel muliebres sub specie devotionis induere; nec habitus fratrum secularibus pro ludis faciendis accommodentur sub poena amotionis confusibilis de conventu.’

[1307] Denifle, i. 532. It was forbidden ‘in eisdem festis vel aliis paramenta nec coreas duci in vico de die nec de nocte cum torticiis vel sine.’ But it was on Innocents’ Day that the _béjaunes_ or ‘freshmen’ of the Sorbonne were subjected to rites bearing a close analogy to the feast of fools; cf. Rigollot, 172 ‘1476 ... condemnatus fuit in crastino Innocentium capellanus abbas beiannorum ad octo solidos parisienses, eo quod non explevisset officium suum die Innocentium post prandium, in mundationem beiannorum per aspersionem aquae ut moris est, quanquam solemniter incoepisset exercere suum officium ante prandium inducendo beiannos per vicum super asinum.’

[1308] Denifle, iii. 166.

[1309] ‘Verbis nedum gallicis sed eciam latinis, ut ipsi qui de partibus alienis oriundi linguam gallicam nequaquam intelligebant plenarie.’

[1310] S. F. Hulton, _Rixae Oxonienses_, 68. There had been many earlier brawls.

[1311] _Statute_ xxix (T. F. Kirby, _Annals of Winchester College_, 503) ‘Permittimus tamen quod in festo Innocencium pueri vesperas matutinas et alia divina officia legenda et cantanda dicere et exsequi valeant secundum usum et consuetudinem ecclesiae Sarum.’ The same formula is used in _New College Statute_ xlii (_Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford_, vol. i).

[1312] Cf. Appendix E. Kirby, _op. cit._ 90, quotes an inventory of 1406 ‘Baculus pastoralis de cupro deaurato pro Epõ puerorum in die Innocencium ... Mitra de panno aureo ex dono Dñi. Fundatoris hernesiat (mounted) cum argento deaurato ex dono unius socii coll. [Robert Heete] pro Epõ puerorum.’

[1313] _The Charter of King’s College_ (1443), c. 42 (_Documents relating to the Univ. of Camb._ ii. 569; Heywood and Wright, _Ancient Laws of the Fifteenth Century for King’s Coll. Camb. and Eton Coll._ 112), closely follows Wykeham’s formula: ‘excepto festo S^{ti} Nicholai praedicto, in quo festo et nullatenus in festo Innocentium, permittimus quod pueri ... secundum usum in dicto Regali Collegio hactenus usitatum.’ The Eton formula (c. 31) in 1444 is slightly different (Heywood and Wright _op. cit._ 560) ‘excepto in festo Sancti Nicholai, in quo, et nullatenus in festo Sanctorum Innocentium, divina officia praeter missae secreta exequi et dici permittimus per episcopum puerorum scholarium, ad hoc de eisdem annis singulis eligendum.’

[1314] Warton, ii. 228; Leach, 133. The passage from the _Consuetudinarium_ is given from _Harl. MS._ 7044 f. 167 (apparently a transcript from a _C. C. C. C. MS._) by Heywood and Wright, _op. cit._ 632; E. S. Creasy, _Eminent Etonians_, 91 ‘in die S^{ti} Hugonis pontificis solebat Aetonae fieri electio Episcopi Nihilensis, sed consuetudo obsolevit. Olim episcopus ille puerorum habebatur nobilis, in cuius electione et literata et laudatissima exercitatio, ad ingeniorum vires et motus excitandos, Aetonae celebris erat.’

[1315] _Eton Audit Book_, 1507-8, quoted by H. C. Maxwell-Lyte, _Hist. of Eton_ (ed. 1899), 149 ‘Pro reparatione le rochet pro episcopo puerorum, xj^{d.}’ An inventory of Henry VIII’s reign says that this rochet was given by James Denton (K. S. 1486) for use at St. Nicholas’ time.

[1316] Maxwell-Lyte, _op. cit._ 450.

[1317] Hearne, _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, 674 ‘Item, unam Mitram de Cloth of goold habentem 2 knoppes arḡ. enameld, dat. ad occupand. per Barnebishop.’

[1318] John Stone, a monk of Canterbury, records in his _De Obitibus et aliis Memorabilibus sui Coenobii_ (_MS. C. C. C. C._, Q. 8, quoted Warton, ii. 230) ‘Hoc anno, 1464, in festo Sancti Nicolai non erat episcopus puerorum in schola grammatica in civitate Cantuariae ex defectu Magistrorum, viz. I. Sidney et T. Hikson.’

[1319] J. Stuart, _Extracts from Council Registers of Aberdeen_ (Spalding Club), i. 186. The council ordered on Nov. 27, 1542, ‘that the maister of thair grammar scuyll sell haf iiij^s Scottis, of the sobirest persoun that resauis him and the bischop at Sanct Nicolace day.’ This is to be held a legal fee, ‘he hes na uder fee to leif on.’

[1320] Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. 860 ‘And whereas heretofore dyverse and many superstitious and childysshe observations have been usid, and yet to this day are observed and kept in many and sondry parties of this realm, as upon sainte Nicolas, sainte Catheryne, sainte Clement, the holye Innocentes, and such like; children be strangelye decked and apparelid to counterfaite priestes, bysshopps, and women; and so ledde with songes and daunces from house to house, bleasing the people, and gatherynge of monye; and boyes doo singe masse, and preache in the pulpitt, with suche other unfittinge and inconvenyent usages, rather to the derision than to any true glory of God, or honour of his saints; the kyng’s majestie therefore mynding nothing so moche, as to avaunce the true glorye of God without vayne superstition, willith and commaundeth, that from henceforth all suche superstitions be loste and clyerlye extinguisshed throughowte all this his realmes and dominions, forasmoche as the same doo resemble rather the unlawfull superstition of gentilitie, than the pure and sincere religion of Christe.’ Brand, i. 236, suggests that there was an earlier proclamation of July 22, 1540, to the same effect. Johan Bale in his _Yet a Course at the Romyshe Foxe_ (1542), says that if Bonner’s censure of those who lay aside certain ‘auncyent rytes’ is justified, ‘then ought my Lorde also to suffer the same selfe ponnyshment, for not goynge abought with Saynt Nycolas clarkes.’ Thomas Becon, _Catechism_, 320 (ed. Parker Soc.), compares a bishop who does not preach, a ‘dumb dog,’ to a ‘Nicholas bishop.’ The _Articles_ put to bishop Gardiner in 1550 required him to declare ‘that the counterfeiting St. Nicholas, St. Clement, St. Catherine and St. Edmund, by children, heretofore brought into the church, was a mockery and foolishness’ (Froude, iv. 550).

[1321] _Machyn’s Diary_, 75 ‘The xij day of November [1554] was commondyd by the bysshope of London to all clarkes in the dyoses of London for to have Sant Necolas and to go a-brod, as mony as wold have ytt ... [the v day of December, the which was Saint Nicholas’ eve, at even-song time, came a commandment that St. Nicholas should not go abroad, nor about. But, notwithstanding, there went about these Saint Nicholases in divers parishes, as St. Andrew’s, Holborn, and St.] Nicolas Olyffe in Bredstret.’ Warton, iv. 237, says that during Mary’s reign Hugh Rhodes, a gentleman or musician of the Chapel royal, printed in black letter quarto a poem of thirty-six octave stanzas, entitled _The Song of the Chyldbysshop, as it was songe before the queenes maiestie in her privie chamber at her manour of saynt James in the Feeldes on Saynt Nicholas day and Innocents day this yeare nowe present, by the chylde bysshope of Poules churche with his company_.’ Warton apparently saw the poem, for he describes it as ‘a fulsome panegyric on the queen’s devotion, in which she is compared to Judith, Esther, the Queen of Sheba, and the Virgin Mary,’ but no copy of it is now known; cf. F. J. Furnivall, _The Babees Book_ (E. E. T. S.), lxxxv.

[1322] _Machyn’s Diary_, 121 ‘The v day of Desember [1556] was Sant Necolas evyn, and Sant Necolas whentt a-brod in most partt in London syngyng after the old fassyon, and was reseyvyd with mony good pepulle in-to ther howses, and had myche good chere as ever they had, in mony plasses.’ Foxe, _Acts and Monuments_, viii. 726, celebrates the wit of a ‘godly matron,’ Mrs. Gertrude Crockhay, who shut ‘the foolish popish Saint Nicholas’ out of her house in this year, and told her brother-in-law, Dr. Mallet, when he remonstrated, that she had heard of men robbed by ‘Saint Nicholas’s clerks.’ This was a slang term for thieves, of whom, as of children, St. Nicholas was the patron; for the reason of which cf. _Golden Legend_, ii. 119. Another procession forbidden by the proclamation of 1541 was also revived in 1556; cf. _Machyn’s Diary_, 119 ‘[The xxiv day of November, being the eve of Saint Katharine, at six of the clock at night] sant Katheryn(’s) lyght [went about the battlements of Saint Paul’s with singing,] and Sant Katheryn gohying a prossessyon.’

[1323] At Exton in Rutlandshire, children were allowed at the beginning of the nineteenth century to play in the church on Innocents’ Day _(Leicester and Rutland Folk-Lore_, 96). Probably a few other examples could be collected.

[1324] At Mainz, not only the _pueri_, but also the _diaconi_ and the _sacerdotes_, had their _episcopus_ (Dürr, 71). On the other hand at Vienne the term used at all the feasts, of the _triduum_ and on January 1 and 6, was _rex_ (Pilot de Thorey, _Usages, Fêtes et Coutumes en Dauphiné_, i. 179). The Boy Bishops received, for their brief day, all the external marks of honour paid to real bishops. They are alleged to have occasionally enjoyed more solid privileges. Louvet (_Hist. et Ant. de Beauvais_, cited Rigollot, 142), says that at Beauvais the right of presentation to chapter benefices falling vacant on Innocents’ Day fell to the _pueri_. Jean Van der Muelen or Molanus (_De Canonicis_ (1587), ii. 43) makes a similar statement as to Cambrai: ‘Immo personatus hic episcopus in quibusdam locis reditus, census et capones, annue percipit: alibi mitram habet, multis episcoporum mitris sumptuosiorem. In Cameracensi ecclesia visus est vacantem, in mense episcopi, praebendam, quasi iure ad se devoluto, conferre; quam collationem beneficii vere magnifici, reverendissimus praesul, cum puer grato animo, magistrum suum, bene de ecclesia meritum, nominasset, gratam et raram habuit.’ At Mainz lost tradition had it that if an Elector died during the tenure of office by a Boy Bishop, the revenues _sede vacante_ would fall to him. Unfortunately the chapter and verse of history disprove this (Dürr, 67, 79). On the other hand it is certain that the Boy Bishops assumed the episcopal privilege of coinage. Rigollot, 52 sqq., describes and figures a long series of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century coins or medals mostly struck by ‘bishops’ of the various churches and monastic houses of Amiens. They are the more interesting, because some of them bear ‘fools’ as devices, and thus afford another proof of the relations between the feasts of Boys and Fools. Lille _monetae_ of the sixteenth century are figured by Vanhende, _Numismatique Lilloise_, 256, and others from Laon by C. Hidé, in _Bull. de la Soc. acad. de Laon_, xiii. 126. Some of Rigollot’s specimens seem to have belonged, not to Boy Bishops, but to _confréries_, who struck them as ‘jetons de présence’ (Chartier, _L’ancien Chapitre de N.-D. de Paris_, 178); and probably this is also the origin of the pieces found at Bury St. Edmunds, which have nothing in their devices to connect them with a Boy Bishop (Rimbault, xxvi).

[1325] Ivo Carnotensis, _Epist._ 67, _ad papam Urbanum_ (_P. L._ clxii. 87)

‘eligimus puerum, puerorum festa colentes,
non nostrum morem, sed regis iussa sequentes.’

Cf. Rigollot, 143.

[1326] Lucas Cusentinus (†1203-24) _Ordinarium_ (Martene, iii. 39): ‘Puero episcopello pontificalia conceduntur insignia, et ipse dicit orationes.’

[1327] _The Ritual_ (†1264) of St. Omer (_Mém. de la Soc. des Antiq. de la Morinie_, xx. 186) has the following rubric for St. Nicholas’ Day ‘in secundis vesperis ... a choristis incipitur prosa _Sospitati dedit egros_, in qua altercando cantatur iste versus _Ergo laudes_ novies tantum, ne immoderatum tedium generet vel derisum.’ The same rubric recurs on St. Catherine’s Day. At St. Omer, as at Paris (cf. p. 363), these were the two winter holidays for scholars. Cf. also p. 289, and A. Legrand, _Réjouissances des écoliers de N.-D. de St. Omer, le jour de St.-Nicholas, leur glorieux patron_ (_Mémoires_, _ut cit._ vii. 160). The St. Omer _Episcopus puerorum_ also officiated on Innocents’ Eve and the octave. Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xxi. 82, gives various _cantiones_ for St. Nicholas’ Day; e.g.

‘Nicolai praesulis
Festum celebremus,
. . . . .
In tanto natalitio
Patrum docet traditio
Ut consonet in gaudio
Fidelium devotio,
Est ergo superstitio
Vacare a tripudio.’

In England it is probable that the Beverley Boy Bishop also officiated on St. Nicholas’ Day. A chapter order of Jan. 7, 1313, directs the transfer of the ‘servitium sancti Nicholai in festo eiusdem per Magistrum Scholarum Beverlacensium celebrandum’ to the altar of St. Blaize during the building of a new nave (A. F. Leach, _Memorials of Beverley Minster_, Surtees Soc. i. 307).

[1328] Tille, _D. W._ 32; Leach, 130. The connexion of St. Nicholas with children may be explained by, if it did not rather give rise to, either the legend of his early piety, ‘The first day that he was washed and bained, he addressed him right up in the bason, and he wold not take the breast nor the pap but once on the Wednesday and once on the Friday, and in his young age he eschewed the plays and japes of other young children’ (_Golden Legend_, ii. 110); or the various other legends which represent him as bringing children out of peril. Cf. _Golden Legend_, ii. 119 sqq., and especially the history of the resurrection of three boys from a pickle-tub narrated by Mr. Leach from Wace. A. Maury, (_Croyances et Légendes du Moyen Âge_ (ed. 1896), 149) tries to find the origin of this in misunderstood iconographic representations of the missionary saint at the baptismal font.

[1329] Leach, 130; _Golden Legend_, ii. 111.

[1330] Cf. ch. xi. The position of St. Nicholas’ Day in the ceremonies discussed in this chapter is sometimes shared by other feasts of the winter cycle: St. Edmund’s (Nov. 20), St. Clement’s (Nov. 23), St. Catherine’s (Nov. 25), St. Andrew’s (Nov. 30), St. Eloi’s (Dec. 1), St. Lucy’s (Dec. 13). Cf. pp. 349-51, 359, 366-8. The feast of St. Mary Magdalen, kept in a Norman convent (p. 362), was, however, in the summer (July 22).

[1331] Specht, 229; Tille, _D. W._ 300; Wetze and Welte, iv. 1411. Roman schoolmasters expected a present at the _Minervalia_ (March 18-23); cf. the passage from Tertullian in Appendix N (1).

[1332] Martin Franc, _Champion des dames_ (_Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, v. 58).

[1333] Du Tilliot, 87.

[1334] Julleville, _Les Com._ 241.

[1335] Julleville, _Les Com._ 193, 256; Du Tilliot, 97. The chief officers of the chapel _fous_ were the ‘bâtonnier’ and the ‘protonotaire et procureur des fous.’ In the _Infanterie_ these are replaced by the emblematical _Mère Folle_ and the ‘Procureur fiscal’ known as ‘Fiscal vert’ or ‘Griffon vert.’ Du Tilliot and others have collected a number of documents concerning the _Infanterie_, together with representations of seals, badges, &c., used by them. These may be compared in Du Tilliot with the _bâton_ belonging to the Chapel period (1482), which he also gives. The motto of the _Infanterie_ is worth noticing. It was _Numerus stultorum infinitus est_, and was taken from _Ecclesiastes_, i. 15. It was used also at Amiens (Julleville, _Les Com._ 234).

[1336] At Amiens the ‘feste du Prince des Sots’ existed in 1450 (Julleville, _Les Com._ 233), but the ‘Pope of Fools’ was not finally suppressed in the cathedral for another century. But at Amiens there was an immense multiplication of ‘fool’-organizations. Each church and convent had its ‘episcopus puerorum,’ and several of these show _fous_ on their coins. Rigollot, 77, 105, figures a coin with _fous_, which he assigns to a _confrérie_ in the parish of St. Remigius; also a coin, dated 1543, of an ‘Evesque des Griffons.’

[1337] Julleville, _Les Com._ 144.

[1338] The term _cornard_ seems to be derived from the ‘cornes’ of the traditional fool headdress. Leber, ix. 353, reprints from the _Mercure de France_ for April, 1725, an account of a procession made by the _abbas cornardorum_ at Evreux mounted upon an ass, which directly recalls the Feast of Fools. A macaronic _chanson_ used on the occasion of one of these processions is preserved:

‘_De asino bono nostro,_
_Meliori et optimo,_
_Debemus_ faire fête.
En revenant de Gravignariâ,
Un gros chardon _reperit in viâ_;
Il lui coupa la tête.
_Vir monachus, in mense Iulio,_
_Egressus est e monasterio_,
C’est dom de la Bucaille.
_Egressus est sine licentiâ_,
Pour aller voir donna Venissia,
Et faire la ripaille.’

Research has identified Dom de la Bucaille and Donna Venissia as respectively a prior of St. Taurin, and a prioress of St. Saviour’s, in Evreux.

[1339] A _coquille_ is a misprint, and this _société_ was composed of the printers of Lyon.

[1340] _Conc. of Avignon_ (1326), c. 37, _de societatibus colligationibus et coniurationibus quas confratrias appellant radicitus extirpandis_ (Labbé, xi. 1738), forbids both clerks and laymen ‘ne se confratres priores abbatas praedictae societatis appellent.’ The charges brought against the _confréries_ are of perverting justice, not of wanton revelry, and therefore it is probably not ‘sociétés joyeuses’ that are in question; cf. Ducange, s. v. _Abbas Confratriae_, quoting a Paris example. Grenier, 362, however, mentions a ‘confrérie’ in the Hôpital de Rue at Amiens (†1210) which was under an ‘évêque’; cf. the following note.

[1341] I find an ‘évesque des folz’ at Béthune, a ‘M. le Cardinal’ as head of the ‘Joyeux’ at Rheims (Julleville, _Les Com._ 242; _Rép. Com._ 340), and an ‘évesque des Griffons’ at Amiens (Rigollot, 105). Exceptional is, I believe, the _Société des Foux_ founded on the lines of a chivalric order by Adolphe, Comte de Clèves, in 1380 (Du Tilliot, 84).

[1342] Julleville, 236; Guy, 471.

[1343] Julleville, 88, 136. The Paris _Basoche_ was a ‘royaume’; those of Chambéry and Geneva were ‘abbayes.’

[1344] Cf. p. 304.

[1345] Julleville, _Les Com._ 152.

[1346] Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Paris_, v. 690; Julleville, _Les Com._ 297; Rashdall, _Universities of Europe_, ii. 611. It was probably to this student custom that the Tournai rioters of 1499 appealed (cf. p. 301). In 1470 the Faculty of Arts ordered the suppression of it. Cf. C. Jourdain, _Index Chartarum Paris_. 294 (No. 1369). On Jan. 5 they met ‘ad providendum remedium de electione regis fatuorum,’ and decreed ‘quod nullus scolaris assumeret habitum fatui pro illo anno, nec in collegio, nec extra collegium, nisi forsan duntaxat ludendo farsam vel moralitatem.’ Several scholars ‘portantes arma et assumentes habitus fatuorum’ were corrected on Jan. 24, and it was laid down that ‘reges vero fatuorum priventur penitus a gradu quocumque.’

[1347] Grenier, 365; Ducange, s. v. _Deposuit_, quoting _Stat. Hosp. S. Iacobi Paris._ (sixteenth century), ‘après le diner, on porte le baton au cueur, et là est le trésorier, qui chante et fait le _Deposuit_.’ _Stat. Syn. Petri de Broc. episc. Autiss._ (1642) ‘pendant que les bâtons de confrérie seront exposez, pour être enchéris, l’on ne chantera _Magnificat_, et n’appliquera-t-on point ces versets _Deposuit_ et _Suscepit_ à la délivrance d’iceux; ains on chantera quelque antienne et répons avec l’oraison propre en l’honneur du Saint, duquel on célèbre la feste.’

[1348] Cf. ch. iii and Appendix F; and on the general character of the _puys_, Julleville, _Les Com._ 42; Guy, xxxiv; Paris, 185. Some documents with regard to a fourteenth-century _puy_ in London are in Riley, _Liber Custumarum_, xlviii. 216, 479 (_Munim. Gildh. Lond._ in R. S.); _Memorials of London_, 42.

[1349] Julleville, _Les Com._ 92, 233, 236, 241.

[1350] Clément-Hémery, _Fêtes du Dép. du Nord_, 184, states on the authority of a MS. without title or signature that this _fête_ originated in a prose with a bray in it, sung by the canons of St. Peter’s. The lay form of the feast can be traced from †1476 to 1668. Leber, x. 135, puts the (clerical) origin before 1282.

[1351] Julleville, _Les Com._ 92, 204, 247.

[1352] F. Guérard, _Les Fous de Saint-Germain_, in _Mélanges d’Hist. et d’Arch._ (Amiens, 1861), 17. On the Saturday before the first Sunday in May children in the rue St. Germain carry boughs, singing

‘Saint Germain, coucou,
Ch’est l’fette d’chés fous, &c.’

In the church they used to place a bottle crowned with yellow primroses, called ‘coucous.’ The dwellers in the parish are locally known as ‘fous,’ and an historical myth is told to account for this. Probably May-day has here merged with St. Germain’s Day (May 2) in a ‘fête des fous.’ Payments for decking the church appear in old accounts.

[1353] Guérard, _op. cit._ 46.

[1354] Leber, x. 125, from _Mercure de France_ for April, 1726; Gasté, 46.

[1355] ‘ludunt ad quillas super voltas ecclesiae ... faciunt podia, choreas et choros ... et reliqua sicut in natalibus.’

[1356] Leber, ix. 261.

[1357] Julleville, _Les Com._ 233, quotes a decree of the municipality of Amiens in 1450, ‘Il a esté dit et declairié qu’il semble que ce sera tres grande recreacion, considéré les bonnes nouvelles que de jour en jour en disoit du Roy nostre sire, et que le ducée de Normendie est du tout reunye en sa main, de fere la feste du Prince des Sots.’

[1358] Ibid. 214.

[1359] Cf. ch. vii.

[1360] Julleville, _Les Com._ 209.

[1361] Leber, ix. 150, reprints the _Recueil de la Chevauchée faicte en la Ville de Lyon le dix septiesme de novembre_, 1578. Another Lyon _Recueil_ dates from 1566. Cf. Julleville, _Les Com._ 234 (Amiens), 243 (Lyon), 248 (Rouen).

[1362] Cf. chs. xiii, xiv. The _theatrales ludi_ of Pope Innocent III’s decree in 1207 probably refers only to the burlesque ‘offices’ of the feasts condemned; and even the terms used by the Theological Faculty in 1445--_spectacula_, _ludi theatrales_, _personagiorum ludi_--might mean no more, for at Troyes in the previous year the ‘_jeu du sacre de leur arcevesque_’ was called a ‘jeu de personnages,’ and this might have been a mere burlesque consecration. However, ‘jeu de personnages’ generally implies something distinctly dramatic (cf. ch. xxiv). It recurs in the Sens order of 1511. The Beauvais _Daniel_ was possibly played at a Feast of Fools: at Tours a _Prophetae_ and a _miraculum_ appear under similar conditions; at Autun a _Herod_ gave a name to the _dominus festi_. At Laon there were ‘mysteries’ in 1464 and 1465; by 1531 these had given way to ‘comedies.’ Farces were played at Tournai in 1498 and comedies at Lille in 1526.

[1363] Cf. ch. xv. The Toul _Statutes_ of 1497 mention the playing of miracles, morals, and farces. At Laon the playing of a comedy had been dropped before 1546.

[1364] Julleville, _Rép. Com._ 321 (_Catalogue des representations_), and elsewhere, gives many examples. The following decree (†1327) of Dominique Grima, bishop of Pamiers, is quoted by L. Delisle, in _Romania_, xxii. 274: ‘Dampnamus autem et anathematizamus ludum cenicum vocatum _Centum Drudorum_, vulgariter _Cent Drutz_, actenus observatum in nostra dyocesi, et specialiter in nostra civitate Appamiensi et villa de Fuxo, per clericos et laycos interdum magni status; in quo ludo effigiabantur prelati et religiosi graduum et ordinum diversorum, facientes processionem cum candelis de cepo, et vexilis in quibus depicta erant membra pudibunda hominis et mulieris. Induebant etiam confratres illius ludi masculos iuvenes habitu muliebri et deducebant eos processionaliter ad quendam quem vocabant priorem dicti ludi, cum carminibus inhonestissima verba continentes....’ The _confrates_ and the _prior_ here look like a _société joyeuse_, but the ‘ludus cenicus’ was probably less a regular play than a dramatized bit of folk-ritual, like the Troyes _Sacre de l’arcevesque_ and the _Charivaris_. The change of sex-costume is to be noted.

[1365] Cf. ch. xx.

[1366] Julleville, _Les Com._ 33; _La Com._ 73 ‘Le premier qui s’avisa, pendant l’ivresse bruyante de la fête, de monter dans la chaire chrétienne et d’y parodier le prédicateur dans une improvisation burlesque, débita le premier sermon joyeux. C’est à l’origine, comme nous avons dit, “une indécente plaisanterie de sacristain en goguette.”’ A list of extant _sermons joyeux_ is given by Julleville, _Rép. Com._ 259.

[1367] Julleville, _Les Com._ 32, 145; _La Com._ 68; E. Picot, _La Sottie en France_ (_Romania_, vii. 236). Jean Bouchet, _Épîtres morales et familières du Traverseur_ (1545), i. 32, thus defines the _Sottie_:

‘En France elle a de _sotie_ le nom,
Parce que sotz des gens de grand renom
Et des petits jouent les grands follies
Sur eschaffaux en parolles polies.’

[1368] Cf. ch. viii.

[1369] Creizenach, i. 395; Julleville, _Les Com._ 46; _La Com._ 19; _Rép. Com._ 20; E. Langlois, _Robin et Marion_, 13; Guy, 337; M. Sepet, _Le Jeu de la Feuillée_, in _Études romaines dédiées à G. Paris_, 69. The play is sometimes called _Le Jeu d’Adam_. The text is printed in Monmerque et Michel, _Théâtre français au Moyen Âge_, 55, and E. de Coussemaker, _Œuvres de Adam de la Halle_, 297.

[1370] The extant _sotties_ are catalogued by Julleville, _Rép. Com._ 104, and E. Picot, in _Romania_, vii. 249.

[1371] Creizenach, i. 406; G. Gregory Smith, _Transition Period_, 317; Goedeke, _Deutsche Dichtung_, i. 325; V. Michels, _Studien über die ältesten deutschen Fastnachtspiele_, 101. The latter writer inclines to consider the _Narr_ of these plays as substituted by fifteenth century for a more primitive _Teufel_. The plays themselves are collected by A. von Keller, _Fastnachtspiele aus dem 15. Jahrhundert_ (1853-8).

[1372] C. H. Herford, _Literary Relations of England and Germany_, 323 sqq.; cf. G. Gregory Smith, _op. cit._ 176. On an actual pseudo-chivalric Order of Fools cf. p. 375.

[1373] F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, _Register of Bishop Grandisson_, ii. 1055, _Litera pro iniqua fraternitate de Brothelyngham_. ‘Ad nostrum, siquidem, non sine inquietudine gravi, pervenit auditum, quod in Civitate nostra Exonie secta quedam abhominabilis quorundam hominum malignorum, sub nomine Ordinis, quin pocius erroris, de Brothelyngham, procurante satore malorum operum, noviter insurrexit; qui, non Conventum sed conventiculam facientes evidenter illicitam et suspectam, quemdam lunaticum et delirum, ipsorum utique operibus aptissime congruentem, sibi, sub Abbatis nomine, prefecerunt, ipsumque Monachali habitu induentes ac in Theatro constitutum velut ipsorum idolum adorantes, ad flatum cornu, quod sibi statuerunt pro campana, per Civitatis eiusdem vicos et plateas, aliquibus iam elapsis diebus, cum maxima equitum et peditum multitudine commitarunt [sic]; clericos eciam laicos ceperunt eis obviam tunc prestantes, ac aliquos de ipsorum domibus extraxerunt, et invitos tam diu ausu temerario et interdum sacrilego tenuerunt, donec certas pecuniarum summas loco sacrificii, quin verius sacrilegii, extorserunt ab eisdem. Et quamvis hec videantur sub colore et velamine ludi, immo ludibrii, attemptari, furtum est, tamen, proculdubio, in eo quod ab invitis capitur et rapina.’ There is no such place as Brothelyngham, but ‘brethelyng,’ ‘brethel,’ ‘brothel,’ mean ‘good-for-nothing’ (_N. E. D._, s. vv.).

[1374] Du Tilliot, pl. 4.

[1375] Ibid. pll. 1-12 passim.

[1376] Julleville, _Les Com._ 234.

[1377] Ibid. 246; Rigollot, lxxxiv.

[1378] Marot, _Epistre du Coq en l’Asne_ (ed. Jannet, i. 224; ed. Guiffrey, iii. 352):

‘Attachez moy une sonnette
Sur le front d’un moyne crotté,
Une aureille à chaque costé
Du capuchon de sa caboche;
Voyla un sot de la Basoche,
Aussi bien painct qu’il est possible.’

For other Paris evidence cf. Julleville, _Les Com._ 144, 147; E. Picot, in _Romania_, vii. 242.

[1379] Picot, in _Romania_, vii. 245; Keller, _Fastnachtspiele_, 258.

[1380] Rigollot, 73, 166, and passim; Strutt, 222; Douce, 516; Julleville, _Les Com._ 147. There are many examples in the literature referred to on p. 382.

[1381] Rigollot, lxxix.

[1382] F. de Ficoroni, _Le Maschere sceniche e le Figure comiche d’antichi Romani_, 186, pl. 72.

[1383] Dieterich, 237, traces the coxcomb to Italian comedy of the Atellane type; cf. ch. xxiii, on ‘Punch.’

[1384] Douce, pl. 3; cf. Leber, in Rigollot, lxi. 164, quoting the proverb ‘pisa in utre perstrepentia’ and a statement of Savaron, _Traité contre les Masques_ (1611), that at Clermont in Auvergne men disguised ‘en Fols’ ran through the streets at Christmas ‘tenant des masses à la main, farcies de paille ou de bourre, en forme de braiette, frappant hommes et femmes.’ I suppose the bauble, like the hood, was originally part of the sacrificial _exuviae_ and the _marotte_ a sophistication of it.

[1385] Julleville, _Les Com._ 147, quoting _Réponse d’Angoulevent à l’archipoète des pois pillez_ (1603):

‘Qu’après, dedans le char de la troupe idiotte
Ayant pour sceptre en main une peinte marotte,
Tu sois parmi Paris pourmené doucement,
Vestu de jaune et vert en ton accoustrement.’

[1386] Leber, in Rigollot, lxviii.

[1387] Julleville, _Les Com._ 195, 203.

[1388] Du Tilliot, 84.

[1389] See e.g. the plate (p. 9) and description (p. xii) of Touchstone in Miss E. Fogerty’s ‘costume edition’ of _As You Like It_.

[1390] _Twelfth Night_, i. 5. 95, 101; _Lear_, i. 4. 220.

[1391] To the English data given by the historians of court fools may be added _Wardrobe Account_ 28 _Edw. I_, 1299-1300 (Soc. Antiq.), 166 ‘Martinetto de Vasconia fatuo ludenti coram dicto domino Edwardo,’ and _Lib. de Comp. Garderobae_, temp. Edw. II (_MS. Cotton, Nero_, C. viii. ff. 83, 85), quoted by Strutt, 194 ‘twenty shillings paid to Robert le Foll to buy a _boclarium ad ludendum_ before the king.’ Robert le Foll had also a _garcio_. For fools at the Scottish court of James IV cf. _L. H. T._ i. cxcix, &c.; iii. xcii, &c.; and on Thomas, the fool of Durham Priory in the fourteenth century, Appendix E (1).

[1392] Rigollot, 74; Moreau, 180, quoting a (clearly misdated) letter of Charles V to the municipality of Troyes, which requires the provision of a new ‘fol de cour’ by that city as a royal _droit_. The king’s eulogy of his fool is rather touching: ‘savoir faisons à leurs dessus dictes seigneuries que Thévenin nostre fol de cour vient de trespasser de celluy monde dedans l’aultre. Le Seigneur Dieu veuille avoir en gré l’âme de luy qui oneques ne faillit en sa charge et fonction emprès nostre royale Seigneurie et mesmement ne voult si trespasser sans faire quelque joyeuseté et gentille farce de son métier.’

[1393] Moreau, 177, 197.

[1394] Quoted by Julleville, _Les Com._ 148:

‘L’un [le poète] a la teste verte; et l’autre va couvert
D’un joli chapperon, fait de jaune et de vert;
L’un s’amuse aux grelots, et l’autre à des sornettes.’

[1395] _Requestes présentées au Roy ... par le S. de Vertau_ (1605), quoted by Leber, in Rigollot, lxvi; Julleville, _Les Com._ 147 ‘un habit ... qui estoit faict par bandes de serge, moitié de couleur verte et l’autre de jaune; et là où il y avoit des bandes jaunes, il y avoit des passemens verts, et sur les vertes des passemens jaunes ... et un bonnet aussi moitié de jaune et vert, avec des oreilles, &c.’

[1396] Kempe, _Loseley MSS_, 35, 47, 85.

[1397] Douce, 512; Doran, 293. Lodge, _Wits Miserie_ (1599), describes a fool as ‘in person comely, in apparell courtly.’ The Durham accounts (Appendix E (1)) contain several entries of cloth and shoes purchased for the fool Thomas, but there is no mention of a hood.

[1398] Douce, 510.

[1399] Ibid. 510, 511. Hence the common derived sense of ‘coxcomb’ for a foolish, vain fellow.

[1400] Douce, 509, quoting ‘the second tale of the priests of Peblis,’ which, for all I know, may be a translation, ‘a man who counterfeits a fool is described “with club and bel and partie cote with eiris”; but it afterwards appears that he had both a club and a bauble.’

[1401] Douce, 510.

[1402] Douce, 512, quoting _Gesta Grayorum_, ‘the scribe claims the manor of Noverinte, by providing sheepskins and calves-skins to wrappe his highness wards and idiotts in’; cf. _King John_, iii. 1. 129 ‘And hang a calf’s-skin on those recreant limbs.’

[1403] Douce, 511.

[1404] _Twelfth Night_, i. 5. 63; _As You Like It_, ii. 7. 13, 43; _King Lear_, i. 4. 160; _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, iv. 1. 215. But the ‘long motley coat guarded with yellow’ of _Hen. VIII_, prol. 16, does not quite correspond to anything in the ‘habit de fou.’

[1405] _King Lear_, i. 4. 106. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, ii. 1. 226 ‘What is your crest? a coxcomb?’

[1406] _All’s Well that Ends Well_, iv. 5. 32. There are _double entendre’s_ here and in the allusion to the ‘bauble’ of a ‘natural’ in _Romeo and Juliet_, ii. 4. 97, which suggest less a ‘marotte’ than a bauble of the bladder type; cf. p. 197.

[1407] _As You Like It_, ii. 4. 47.

[1408] Cf. ch. xxv.

[1409] _Twelfth Night_, ii. 3. 22.

[1410] Fools appear in _As You Like It_ (†1599), _All’s Well that Ends Well_ (†1601), _Twelfth Night_ (†1601), _King Lear_ (†1605); cf. the allusion to Yorick, the king’s jester in _Hamlet_, v. 1. 198 (†1603). Kempe seems to have left the Shakespearian company in 1598 or 1599.

[1411] According to Fleay, _Biog. Chron._ i. 25, Armin’s _Nest of Ninnies_, of 1608 (ed. Shakes. Soc.), is a revision of his _Fool upon Fool_ of 1605.

[1412] _As You Like It_, v. 4. 111. Cf. Lionel Johnson, _The Fools of Shakespeare_, in _Noctes Shakespearianae_ (Winchester Sh. Soc.); J. Thümmel, _Ueber Sh.’s Narren_ (_Sh.-Jahrbuch_, ix. 87).

[1413] Tille, _Y. and C._ 162; Sandys, 20. At Christmas, 1065, Edward the Confessor ‘curiam tenuit’ at London, and dedicated Westminster Abbey on Innocents’ day (Florence of Worcester, _Chronicle_, ed. Thorpe, i. 224).

[1414] Tille, _Y. and C._ 160; Ramsay, _F. of E._ ii. 43.

[1415] Sandys, 23; Ashton, 9.

[1416] Sandys, 53; Ashton, 14; Drake, 94.

[1417] Ashton, 26; Stubbes, i. 173. Cf. Vaughan’s _Poems_ (_Muses Library_, i. 107):

‘Alas, my God! Thy birth now here
Must not be number’d in the year.’

[1418] Cf. ch. xiii. There is much learning on the use of masks in seasonal festivals in C. Noirot, _Traité de l’origine des masques_ (1609, reprinted in Leber, ix. 5); Savaron, _Traité contre les masques_ (1611); J. G. Drechssler, _de larvis natalitiis_ (1683); C. H. de Berger, _Commentatio de personis vulgo larvis seu mascheratis_ (1723); Pfannenschmidt, 617; Fr. Back, _de Graecorum caeremoniis in quibus homines deorum vice fungebantur_ (1883); W. H. Dall, _On masks, labrets and certain aboriginal customs_ (_Third Annual Report of American Bureau of Ethnology_, 1884, p. 73); Frazer, _Pausanias_, iv. 239.

[1419] _Archaeologia_, xxxi, 37, 43, 44, 120, 122.

[1420] ‘Et ad faciendum ludos domini Regis ad festum Natalis domini celebratum apud Guldefordum anno Regis xxj^o, in quo expendebantur iiij^{xx}. iiij. tunicae de bokeram diversorum colorum, xlij viseres diversorum similitudinum (_specified as_ xiiij similitudines facierum mulierum, xiiij similitudines facierum hominum cum barbis, xiiij similitudines capitum angelorum de argento) xxviij crestes (_specified as_ xiiij crestes cum tibiis reversatis et calciatis, xiiij crestes cum montibus et cuniculis), xiiij clocae depictae, xiiij capita draconum, xiiij tunicae albae, xiiij capita pavonum cum alis, xiiij tunicae depictae cum oculis pavonum, xiiij capita cygnorum cum suis alis, xiiij tunicae de tela linea depictae, xiiij tunicae depictae cum stellis de auro et argento vapulatis.’ The performers seem to have made six groups of fourteen each, representing respectively men, women, angels, dragons, peacocks, and swans. A notion of their appearance is given by the cuts from miniatures (†1343) in Strutt, 160.

[1421] ‘Et ad faciendum ludos Regis ad festum Natalis domini anno Regis xxij^{do} celebratum apud Ottefordum ubi expendebantur viseres videlicet xij capita hominum et desuper tot capita leonum, xij capita hominum et tot capita elephantum, xij capita hominum cum alis vespertilionum, xij capita de wodewose [cf. p. 185], xvij capita virginum, xiiij supertunicae de worsted rubro guttatae cum auro et lineatae et reversatae et totidem tunicae de worsted viridi.... Et ad faciendum ludos Regis in festo Epiphaniae domini celebrato apud Mertonum ubi expendebantur xiij visers cum capitibus draconum et xiij visers cum capitibus hominum habentibus diademata, x c^r tepies de bokeram nigro et tela linea Anglica.’

[1422] _Archaeologia_, xxxi. 29, 30, 118. The element of semi-dramatic _spectacle_ was already getting into the fourteenth-century tournament. In 1331 Edward III and his court rode to the lists in Cheap, ‘omnes splendido apparatu vestiti et ad similitudinem Tartarorum larvati’ (_Annales Paulini_ in _Chron. Edw. I and II_, R. S. i. 354). In 1375 ‘rood dame Alice Perrers, as lady of the sune, fro the tour of London thorugh Chepe; and alwey a lady ledynge a lordys brydell. And thanne begun the grete justes in Smythefeld’ (_London Chronicle_, 70). These ridings closely resemble the ‘mummings’ proper. But they were a prelude to _hastiludia_, which from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century constantly grew less actual and more mimetic. In 1343 ‘fuerunt pulchra hastiludia in Smethfield, ubi papa et duodecim cardinales per tres dies contra quoscumque tirocinium habuerunt’ (Murimuth, _Continuatio Chronicarum_, R. S. 146). And so on, through the jousts of Pallas and Diana at the coronation of Henry VIII (Hall, 511) to the regular Elizabethan ‘Barriers,’ such as the siege of the ‘Fortress of Perfect Beauty’ by the ‘Four Foster Children of Desire,’ in which Sidney took part in 1581.

[1423] This seems to be clearly the sense of the _ludi Domini Prioris_ in the accounts of Durham Priory (cf. Appendix E). The Scottish Exchequer Rolls between 1446 and 1478 contain such entries as ‘iocis et ludis,’ ‘ludis et interludiis,’ ‘ioculancium et ludencium,’ ‘ludos et disportus suos,’ where all the terms used, except ‘interludiis’ (cf. ch. xxiv), appear to be more or less equivalent (_Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland_, i. ccxxxix). The _Liber Niger_ of Edward IV declares that in the _Domus_ of Henry I were allowed ‘ludi honesti,’ such as military sports ‘cum ceterorum iocorum diversitate’ (_Household Ordinances_, 18). ‘Ioca’ is here exactly the French ‘jeux.’ Polydore Vergil, _Hist. Anglica_ (ed. Thysius), 772, says of the weddings of the children of Henry VII ‘utriusque puellae nuptiae omnium generum ludis factae.’ For ‘disports’ cf. Hall, 774, ‘enterludes ... maskes and disportes,’ and _Paston Letters_, iii. 314, where Lady Morley is said to have ordered in 1476 that on account of her husband’s death there should be at Christmas ‘non dysgysyngs, ner harpyng, ner lutyng, ner syngyn, ner non lowde dysports, but pleyng at the tabyllys, and schesse, and cards. Sweche dysports sche gave her folkys leve to play, and non odyr.’ I find the first use of ‘revels’ in the Household Books of Henry VII for 1493 (Collier, i. 50). In 1496 the same source gives the Latin ‘revelliones’ (Collier, i. 46). Sir Thomas Cawarden (1545) was patented ‘magister iocorum, revellorum et mascorum’ (Rymer, xv. 62). Another synonym is ‘triumph,’ used in 1511 (Arnold, _Chronicle_, xlv). The latter means properly a royal entry or reception; cf. ch. xxiii.

[1424] Warton, ii. 220, from _Compotus Magn. Garderobae_, 14 Ric. II, f. 198^b ‘pro xxi coifs de tela linea pro hominibus de lege contrafactis pro ludo regis tempore natalis domini anno xii.’

[1425] Froissart (ed. Buchon, iii. 176), Bk. iv, ch. 32, describes the dance of 1393, in which Charles VI dressed in flax as a wild man was nearly burnt to death.

[1426] The English _William of Palerne_, 1620 (†1350, ed. Skeat, E. E. T. S.), has ‘daunces disgisi.’

[1427] H. T. Riley, _Liber Albus_ (R. S. xii), i. 644, 645, 647, 673, 676; _Memorials of London_, 193, 534, 561. For similar orders elsewhere cf. L. T. Smith, _Ricart’s Calendar_, 85 (Bristol), and _Harl. MS._ 2015, f. 64 (Chester).

[1428] Riley, _Memorials_, 658.

[1429] Ibid. 669. It was proclaimed ‘that no manere persone, of what astate, degre, or condicioun that euere he be, duryng this holy tyme of Cristemes be so hardy in eny wyse to walk by nyght in any manere mommyng, pleyes, enterludes, or eny other disgisynges with eny feynyd berdis, peyntid visers, diffourmyd or colourid visages in eny wyse ... outake that hit be leful to eche persone for to be honestly mery as he can, with in his owne hous dwellyng.’