Part 9

Accordingly, the great Conqueror, solemn man as he sometimes was, did not think his household complete without the jester. Indeed, we hear of more than one. They were princely fellows, and had a right princely master. One of these, Gollet, or Gallet, a native of Bayeux, hearing of a conspiracy against William’s life, went to his chamber-door, and roused the great Duke out of his first sleep, by beating against it with an iron hammer, and crying out at the same time, according to the rhymed edition of the story, by Robert Waice:

“Ouvrez, dit-il, ouvrez, ouvrez! Jà morrez tout; levez, levez!”

This good turn merited great recompense; but we know not what Gollet got for his faithful service. On the other hand, we hear of a guerdon to another of William’s fools, but we are not told of any special act of which it was the reward. The lucky personage was Berdic, the _Joculator_, who retired from Court and merry duty, the lord of three towns, with five carucates of land, and all rent-free; notice of which will be found in Domesday Book, under the head of “Gloucester.” So cunning was Berdic in mixing sweet and pungent together, that he died a sort of Crœsus, but he was neither the first nor last of court fools who left land and gold-pieces, at his death. It is a pity that the Norman could not take a joke as readily as he could reward a jester. We all know how, by resenting the sarcasm of the French King Philip, on his obesity, he lost his own life.

We hear of no fool of merit at the bachelor and uproarious Court of William Rufus. That King, indeed, hardly needed one, for he was accustomed not only to make his own jokes, but to laugh louder at them than any other person. We know that the fool often combined the office of servant with that of jester, and it is, perhaps, not unreasonable to conclude that the chamberlain of Rufus was also his joculator. He certainly fooled his master. Witness the occasion when Rufus burst into a fit of fury at the chamberlain bringing him a pair of boots that had cost but three shillings. “Son of an ass!” exclaimed the ruby-faced and flaxen-haired monarch, “bring me a pair that costs a silver mark!” The chamberlain obeyed, after a court fool’s fashion. He changed the boots for a pair of inferior value, charged Rufus a higher price, and laughed in his sleeve at seeing the King well pleased, and unconscious that he had been tricked.

There was one other person at this Court who had something of the jester in him;--namely, that well-known priest Ralph, whose wit raised him to an eminence that cost England rather dear. When he was in power, and the King ordered a tribute to be levied, Ralph ordered one of double the amount, and exacted it with stringent severity. At this process Rufus would laugh heartily; and he had little cause to pay a fool, when he possessed a witty follower like Ralph, whose tricks were so much to the taste and so greatly to the profit of this rude but discriminating monarch.

The court of his brother and successor, Henry I., was less riotous, but not less luxurious or licentious, than his own. Henry was naturally prodigal, and in his Queen, Matilda, he possessed a partner who helped him pleasantly on the road to ruin. Matilda cared less for the jester than for the minstrel, and accordingly, she wasted much of her wealth, her husband’s, and that of the public, on melodious clerks, foreign joculators who could chant a merry stave, and “singing scholars,” who crowded to a Court where they found, in return, as good entertainment as they could give.

Among these gay fellows, or minstrels, was an individual of some celebrity, a Picard or Norman, it is not exactly known which, and who is sometimes described as a “barber.” His name was Rahere, and of all court minstrels or jesters he is the one above all others whose memory hundreds of living people have good reason to bless daily. Stow speaks of Rahere as “a pleasant-witted gentleman, and therefore, in his time, called the King’s Minstrel.” There have been writers who have questioned the correctness of this description, but it is, in a very great measure, supported by the author of a paper in the Cottonian Manuscripts.[D]

According to this valuable record, the writer of which relies on the authority of men who “saw Rahere, heard him, and were present in his works and deeds, of the which,” adds the writer, “some have taken their sleep in Christ, and some of them be yet alive, and witnesseth of that that we shall after say.” According, then, to the manuscripts above-named, “this man, Rahere, springing or born of low lineage, when he attained the flower of youth, he began to haunt the households of noble men and the palaces of princes.” The writer goes on to state that Rahere spared neither tricks, nor flattery, nor pleasant deceits, in order to draw towards him the friendship of those above him. Nor was he content with all this, says the chronicler, “but often haunted the King’s palace, and among the noiseful press of that tumultuous court, enforced himself with polite and carnal suavity, by the which he might draw to him the hearts of many one there; in spectacles, masks, and other courtly mockeries and devilish intendings, he led forth the business of all the day.” Rahere was constantly, we are told, in attendance on the King, or in the suite of noblemen; “proffering service that might please them, he busily so occupied his time that he might obtain the rather the petitions that he might desire of them. Thiswise, to King and great men, gentle and courteous, and knowing and familiar, he was.” In short, according to the manuscript writer, Rahere was an exceedingly joyous and cunning fellow, who, having played the fool at Court for great men’s pleasure and his own profit, was soon after made wise through Grace, by the intervention of Bartholomew the Apostle. He had spent half his days in harping and dancing and jesting, and then, growing weary of it, hurried to Rome, there to repent of his sins and be converted from his fiddling, dancing, drinking, jesting, and philandering ways. And this was so effectually accomplished, that on his road homeward he had a vision “full of dread and of sweetness.” The chief figure therein was the apostolic Bartholomew, who, intimating that Rahere had been taken from the foolery of an earthly to be an agent of a celestial Court, added with great topographic and indeed general lucidity, that he (the Apostle) “had chosen a place in the ‘Subburbs’ of London, at ‘Smythfeld,’ where in my name,” said he to the ex-jester, “thou shalt found a church, and it shall be the house of God, where there shall be the Tabernacle of the Lamb, the Temple of the Holy Ghost.” Rahere woke from his dream, and was inclined at first to take it all for a mere fantasy; but weighing the matter well, he ultimately, after long consideration, resolved to devote his fool’s gains to pious ends; and he founded, not without some little opposition on the part of those who

“Preferred, no doubt, A rogue with venison, to a saint without,”

and who hoped he had come back rather a merry sinner than a solemn saint, a church and priory, of which he was, as was due to him, appointed the first Prior. Kings of England, in after-time, learned to respect the holy place; but there was a world of trouble before the entire object was carried out. Rahere had adversaries of every sort; but he had not lost his wit for having acquired a sense of piety, and so he bent himself to every humour, still played the fool awhile in various forms, when he could draw help towards the attainment of his end, and had merry words for everybody, in order that everybody might in return lend him ready succour. He, of course, overcame all opposition; holy men assembled around him; he preached sermons of varied character, to suit his audiences; he worked pretty little miracles, wrought wonderful cures, and, if he was occasionally in a difficulty, and seemed for a moment no wiser than an ordinary mortal, St. Bartholomew stepped in and helped him through triumphantly. Nothing at last became too difficult for him to surmount, and a hidden thief or a secret sin could no more escape his bodily or mental eye, than the seat of disease can be concealed from the sight of Mr. Luther Holden, who now demonstrates anatomy on the spot where the ex-court-jester changed his mirth and motley for prayers, cassock, and good works.

The successors of old Rahere in the Priory had much of the spirit of their founder. They were at the head of a high-spirited corporation, full of zeal, cheerfulness, and indomitable independence. They enjoyed separate jurisdiction, and resisted all interference on the part of prying prelates who endeavoured to force-in the wedge of episcopal authority. When this was the case, the brotherhood cried, “Rahere to the rescue!” and defied the whole membership of bishops. One result was that they were let alone, and this immunity they purchased by their gallantry, having successfully resisted an attempt to meddle with their affairs, by sorely thrashing the offending bishop and terribly mauling his body of followers. The time came, however, when the downfall of their house was inevitable. It shared in the general dissolution of religious houses, and Henry VIII. founded it anew, out of the old prior-minstrel’s funds, as an hospital “for the combined relief and help of a hundred sore and diseased.” Much more than this is now effected in the establishment of St. Bartholomew, which has grown out of the pious foundation of Rahere. There is no disease or suffering that medical care can assuage, which is turned away from this great temple of charity. Let the call be made at any hour of the day or night, there is ready answer, and as ready help at hand. The sufferer has but to knock, or those who act for him in his helplessness, and “it is opened to him.” He has no need of a letter of recommendation to entitle him to receive balm for his wounds. There is now accommodation for about 600 in-door patients, of whom there are ten times that annual number, and among them a mortality of about one a day. The out-door patients amount to nearly twenty thousand; the casualty patients to some thousands more. It is a pleasing sight, to see the wards where anguish is soothed, and the mutilated made whole. It is almost a mirthful sight, to witness the busy crowd at the dispensary bar, carrying off their bottles of variously coloured liquids,--the _elixir_, and not the _aqua vitæ_, which is to pour strength into their veins and infuse it into their muscles. Let me add that it is a touching, solemn, and instructive sight, which may be looked upon silently and reverently, in that little dead-house, with its cover over it, as if it would be less obtrusive on the eye of idle passers by. There may be seen many a stalwart form that possessed, a few days since, the strength of giants, and which, crushed beyond the reach of science or art to repair, lie there prematurely ready for the inevitable grave.

In speaking of St. Bartholomew’s, it would be ungrateful to pass over the name of Dr. Radcliffe, the most munificent of its modern benefactors. But the establishment itself would probably never have existed, certainly would not have existed here, but for the King’s minstrel, the “pleasant-witted gentleman,” who was the gayest at the gay court of Henry Beauclerc, and whose bones lie in the adjacent church of St. Bartholomew the Great. The tomb is worth visiting, for it covers the dust of a noble man. His effigy, watched by an angel, and prayed for by two canons, lies under a canopy of great richness and elaborate workmanship. It was probably erected by his admirers of much later times than that which immediately followed his decease, for the shields upon it are those of England and France united, a combination that was not known for many years subsequent to the decease of the founder of the old priory. One can hardly stand altogether unmoved in presence of such a memento. There is great temptation, when looking at the effigy, and remembering the self-denial and charity, of the man, to fall into the pleasantest bit of Popery, on turning away, and to pray with all one’s heart that God may have mercy on the soul of the King’s minstrel, Rahere!

The reign of Stephen does not furnish us with the names of any fool of distinguished quality; though Stephen himself, and particularly previous to his accession to the throne, was remarkable for the affability with which he associated with men of every condition. This was more especially the case when he was keeping house with his bride in the Tower-Royal. But neither in court or castle was there much patronage of the jester during the nearly nineteen years of the calamitous reign of Stephen. The court of his successor saw the joyous brotherhood fully restored, and its members seem even, not merely to have practised before him at home, but to have accompanied him abroad. “When King Henry sets out of a morning,” says his secretary, Peter of Blois, “you see multitudes of people running up and down, as if they were distracted; horses rushing against horses, carriages overturning carriages, players, gamesters, cooks, confectioners, morris-dancers, barbers, courtesans, and parasites, making so much noise and, in a word, such an intolerable tumultuous jumble of horse and foot, that you imagine the great abyss hath opened, and that hell hath poured forth all its inhabitants.” The court of Henry’s consort, Eleanor of gay Guienne, was a not less joyous one than her husband’s; but the joy was only empty noise and outward show, and beneath all the glittering were grief and settled gloom.

During the reign of their lion-hearted successor, we meet with an illustration, showing how fools could be employed in order to support a vicious political system. Richard the First’s Chancellor, William Longchamp, may with propriety be called, the “proud,” for he sealed public acts, says Lord Campbell, “with his own signet seal, instead of the Great Seal of England.” Proud as he was, this Picard prelate (who was Bishop of Ely) was of very mean extraction. To him Richard left, conjointly with the Bishop of Durham, the guardianship of the realm, during the King’s absence in the Holy Land. Longchamp however clapped his colleague into prison, and ruled England by his sole authority. He maintained the state of the most ostentatious of sovereigns, and set such an example of arrogance and want of principle, that his body-guard became terrible for their rapine and licentiousness; and his servants, even when their master lodged for a night in a monastery, devoured in that one night the revenue of several years. The people at large suffered in proportion, and suffering was followed by grumbling, and that was succeeded by wrath. But, says the author of ‘The Lives of the Chancellors,’ (apparently translating a passage from Roger Hoveden _in Ricardo I._, p. 340,) “to drown the curses of the natives, he brought over from France, at a great expense, singers and jesters, who sang verses in places of public resort, declaring that the Chancellor never had his equal in the world.” The above, it will have been seen, is an example of jesters being employed, not with license to speak bold and droll truths to their master, but with commission to utter sorry jokes and dreary falsehoods, for the purpose of deceiving a nation.

I have previously noticed that Blondel, whom tradition makes the discoverer of his captive master, by means of a song, is called, by Bouchez, “that buffoon of a minstrel.” By others he is styled a “troubadour knight.” However much or little of the character of the jester may have entered into the character of the minstrel Blondel, it would not be easy to say. We may speak with more certainty of another of Richard’s minstrels, Anselme Fayditt, whose poetry the Provençal critics eulogized for its wit and good sense, “poésie à bons mots et de bon sens.” A third minstrel, Fouquet de Marseilles, is also celebrated for his ready wit, which made him the “delight of the court.” There probably was some difference of quality in the latter minstrels, for while Fayditt ultimately travelled about the country, on foot, in search of a livelihood, singing songs, and accompanied by a runaway nun who sang as well as Fayditt himself, Fouquet, in strong contrast with such a vagabond, abandoned minstrelsy, turned monk, and became Bishop of Toulouse.

Of the above quality were the most favoured _plaisants_ at the Court of Richard. The private households had their jesters of a less refined quality, and the following graphic description of one attached to a Saxon master, is probably as faithful a portrait as could be drawn of a Saxon nobleman’s fool in the days of King Richard the First.

“Beside the swineherd was seated, on one of the fallen Druidical monuments, a person about ten years younger in appearance, and whose dress was of a fantastic appearance. His jacket had been stained of a bright purple hue, upon which there had been some attempts to paint grotesque ornaments of different colours. To the jacket he added a short cloak, which scarcely reached halfway down his thigh. It was of crimson cloth, though a good deal soiled, lined with bright yellow; and as he could transfer it from one shoulder to the other, or at his pleasure throw it all around him, its width contrasted with its want of longitude, formed a fantastic piece of drapery. He had thin silver bracelets on his arms; and on his neck a collar of the same metal; bearing the inscription, ‘Wamba, the son of Witless, is the Thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood.’ This personage had sandals, and his legs were encased in a sort of gaiters, of which one was red and the other yellow. He was provided also with a cap having around it more than one bell, about the size of those attached to hawks, which jingled as he turned his head from one side to the other. And, as he seldom remained a minute in the same posture, the sound might be considered as incessant. Around the edge of this cap was a stiff bandeau of leather, cut at the top into open work, resembling a coronet, while a prolonged bag arose from within it, and fell down on one shoulder, like an old-fashioned night-cap or jelly-bag, or the head-gear of a modern hussar. It was to this part of the cap that the bells were attached, which circumstance, as well as the shape of his head-dress, and his own half-crazed, half-cunning, expression of countenance, sufficiently pointed him out as belonging to the race of domestic clowns or jesters maintained in the houses of the wealthy, to help away the tedium of those lingering hours which they were obliged to spend within-doors. He bore a scrip attached to his belt, but had neither horn nor knife, being probably considered as belonging to a class whom it is esteemed dangerous to entrust with edge-tools. In place of these he was equipped with a sword of lath, resembling that with which Harlequin operates his wonders upon the modern stage.”

Of what quality was the wit of Wamba, may be seen in the romance of ‘Ivanhoe,’ from which, it is hardly necessary to say, the above extract is made. We come now to the successor of Richard, whom we shall find a liberal master to his fool.

King John was a very lugubrious joker himself; but he not only kept a merry jester,--he also knew how to be exceedingly liberal to him. Of the King’s deadly practical joking we have an instance in his conduct to Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Norwich, who had retired from his office in the Exchequer in obedience to the terms of the Papal edict. The King shut him up in prison, and, making him wear a ponderous sacerdotal cope of lead, which covered him from the head to the heels, left him thus helpless, to die of famine. It was after another fashion that John rewarded his fool. The name of this official was William Piculph (or Picol), and he received from the monarch who possessed so little land of his own, a landed estate. This fool by feudal tenure held his territory and its dependencies at Fons Ossane, in Mortain, of John, under an easy quit-rent; namely, that during his life he should act as jester to the King, providing his Grace with as much fun as could make him smile. After the death of Piculph, the domain was to descend to his heirs, on condition of their presenting the sovereign annually with a pair of gilt spurs. A copy of the original deed is to be found in the ‘Monnaies Inconnues des Évêques, des Innocents, et des Fous.’

It is just twenty years ago, since M. Rigollet, under the modest appellation of “M. J. R. D’Amiens,” published in his work on the then hitherto unknown coins and tokens of various Brotherhoods of the olden time who took Folly for their patron, a copy of the document by which our King John may be said to have ennobled his fool. This document has not escaped the acute vision of Mr. W. J. Thoms, who has cited it, in his selections from the L’Estrange papers; but as its singularity is fully equal to its brevity, my readers will, I hope, approve of my venturing to place it before them. It is to this effect:--“Joannes, D. G., etc. Sciatis nos dedisse et presenti chartâ confirmasse WILL. PICOL, _Follo_ nostro, Fontem Ossane (Menil-Ozenne, pays de Mortain), cum omnibus pertinenciis suis, habend. et tenend. sibi et heredibus suis, faciendo inde nobis annuatim servitium _unius Folli_ quoad vixerit; et post ejus decessum heredes sui eam de nobis tenebunt, et per servitium unius paris calcarium deauratorum nobis annuatim reddendo. Quare volumus et firmiter precipimus quod predict. Piculphus et heredes sui habeant et teneant in perpetuum, bene et in pace, libere et quiete, predictam terram.”

The substance of this document, the original of which was found in the then Royal Library of France, is given in my description of it, above; I will only add, therefore, that ample pains seem to have been taken to settle this estate upon Picol the fool. It may be doubted, however, whether the fools of Edmund Ironside, William the Conqueror and John were the only merry officials who held land. The celebrated Baldwin Lepetteur (in another reign) must have belonged to the profession, and we know that, in return for some royal grace, he was bound on every Christmas-day to execute before his lord the King, at Hemmingston Manor, a _saltus_, a _sufflatus_, and a _bumbulus_. At no time, indeed, do our Kings seem to have been reluctant to pay for mirth. Henry III. once gave a crown to a witty fellow who had caused him to laugh; but we are not told what the jest was that earned so great a guerdon. Edward II. was even more liberal, for he gave _four_ crowns for the same cause. It does not appear that wit was always the provocation to royal laughter, a fool’s trick would do as well. We see as much by an entry in one of the last King’s accounts, cited in the ‘Antiquary’s Repertory.’ “Item--When the King was at Woolmer, to Morris, then clerk of the kitchen, who, when the King was hunting, did ride before the King, and often fall down from his horse, whereat the King laughed greatly: 20_s._”