iii. 140, lays stress on the primitive sacrificial character of the

‘rex,’ who is said still to have been annually slain in Lower Moesia at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.; cf. _Acta S. Dasii_, in _Acta Bollandiana_, xvi. (1897), 5; Parmentier et Cumont, _Le Roi des Saturnales_, in _R. de Philologie_, xxi (1897), 143.

[828] Frazer, iii. 144, suggests that the _Saturnalia_ may once have been in February, and have left a trace of themselves in the similar festival of the female slaves, the _Matronalia_, on March 1, which, like the winter feasts, came in for Christian censure; cf. Appendix N. No. (i).

[829] Preller, _R. M._ i. 64, 178; ii. 13; C. Dezobry, _Rome au Siècle d’Auguste_ (ed. 4, 1875), ii. 169; Mommsen and Marquardt, vi. 545; vii. 245; Roscher, _Lexicon_, ii. 37; W. W. Fowler, 278; Tille, _Y. and C._ 84; M. Lipenius, _Strenarum Historia_ in J. G. Graevius, _Thesaurus Antiq. Rom._ (1699), xii. 409. The last-named treatise contains a quantity of information set out with some obsolete learning. The most important contemporary account is that of Libanius (314-†95) in his είς τὰς καλάνδας and his καλανδῶν ἔκφρασις (ed. Reiske, i. 256; iv. 1053; cf. Sievers, _Das Leben der Libanius_, 170, 204). In the former speech he says ταύτην τὴν ἑορτὴν εὔροι τ’ ἂν τεταμένην ἐφ’ ἅπαν, ὅσον ἡ Ῥωμαίων ἀρχὴ τέταται, in the latter, μίαν δὲ οἶδα κοινὴν ἁπάντων ὁπόσοι ζῶσιν ὑπὸ τὴν Ῥωμαίων ἀρχήν. Under the emperors, who made much of the _strenae_ and _vota_, the importance of the Kalends grew, probably at the expense of the Saturnalia; cf. Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i. 2. 1 ‘adsunt feriae quas indulget magna pars mensis Iano dicati.’

[830] Preller, i. 180; Mommsen and Marquardt, vi. 14; vii. 245; W. W. Fowler, 278; Tille, _Y. and C._ 84, 104. _Strenia_ was interpreted in the sense of ‘strenuous’; cf. Symmachus, _Epist._ x. 15 ‘ab exortu paene urbis Martiae strenarum usus adolevit auctore Tatio rege, qui verbenas felicis arboris ex luco Streniae anni novi auspices primus accepit.... Nomen indicio est viris strenuis haec convenire virtute.’ Preller calls Strenia a Sabine _Segensgöttin_.

[831] Mommsen and Marquardt, vii. 245; Lipenius, 489. The gifts were often inscribed ‘anno novo faustum felix tibi.’ It is probable that the sweet cakes and the lamps like the _verbenae_ had originally a closer connexion with the rites of the feast than that of mere omens. The emperors expected liberal _strenae_, and from them the custom passed into mediaeval and Renaissance courts. Queen Elizabeth received sumptuous new year gifts from her subjects. For a money payment the later empire used the term καλανδικόν or _kalendaticum_. _Strenae_ survives in the French _étrennes_ (Müller, 150, 504).

[832] Appendix N, Nos. (i), (ii).

[833] The most recent authorities are Tille, _Y. and C._ 119; H. Usener, _Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen_, i, _Das Weihnachtsfest_ (1889); L. Duchesne, _Origines du Culte chrétien_ (ed. 2, 1898), 247, and in _Bulletin critique_ (1890), 41; F. C. Conybeare, _The History of Christmas_, in _American Journal of Theology_ (1899), iii. 1, and _Introduction_ to _The Key of Truth_ (1898); F. Cumont, _Textes et Monuments mithraïques_, i (1899), 342, 355. I have not been able to see an article praised by Mr. Conybeare, in P. de Lagarde, _Mittheilungen_ (1890), iv. 241.

[834] Conybeare, _Am. J. Th._ iii. 7, cites, without giving exact references, two ‘north Italian homilies’ of the fourth century, which seem to show this.

[835] _Sermo_ ccii (_P. L._ xxxviii. 1033).

[836] The _depositio martyrum_, attached to the _Fasti_ of Philocalus drawn up in 354, opens with the entry ‘viii kl. ianu. natus Christus in Bethleem Iudeae.’ December 25 was therefore kept as the birthday at least as early as 353. Usener, i. 267, argued that the change must have taken place in this very year, because Liberius, while veiling Marcellina, the sister of St. Ambrose, on the Epiphany, spoke of the day as ‘natalem Sponsi tui’ (_de Virginibus_, iii. 1, in _P. L._ xvi. 219). But it is not proved either that this event took place in 363, or that it was on Epiphany rather than Christmas day. Liberius refers to the Marriage at Cana and the Feeding of the Five Thousand. But the first allusion is directly led up to by the _sponsalia_ of Marcellina, and both events, although at a later date commemorated at Epiphany, may have belonged to Christmas at Rome, before Epiphany made its appearance (Duchesne, _Bulletin critique_ (1890), 41). Usener adds that Liberius built the _Basilica Liberii_, also known as _Sta. Maria ad Praesepe_ or _Sta. Maria Maggiore_, which is still a great station for the Christmas ceremonies, in honour of the new feast. But Duchesne shows that the dedication to St. Mary only dates from a rebuilding in the fifth century, that the _praesepe_ cannot be traced there before the seventh, and that the original Christmas _statio_ was at St. Peter’s.

[837] Duchesne, _Bulletin critique_ (1890), 44. This document also belongs to the collection of Philocalus.

[838] Conybeare, _Key of Truth_, clii-clvii, quoting an Armenian bishop Hippolytus in _Bodl. Armen. Marsh_ 467, f. 338^a, ‘as many as were disobedient have divided the two feasts.’ According to the _Catechism of the Syrian Doctors_ in the same MS., Sahak asked Afrem why the churches feast Dec. 25: the teacher replied, ‘The Roman world does so from idolatry, because of the worship of the Sun. And on the 25th of Dec., which is the first of Qanûn; when the day made a beginning out of the darkness they feasted the Sun with great joy, and declared that day to be the nuptials [? ‘natals,’ but cf. p. 241, n. 1] of the Sun. However, when the Son of God was born of the Virgin, they celebrated the same feast, although they had turned from their idols to God. And when their bishops (_or_ primates) saw this, they proceeded to take the Feast of the Birth of Christ, which was on the sixth of January, and placed it there (viz. on Dec. 25). And they abrogated the feast of the Sun, because it (the Sun) was nothing, as we said before.’ Mommsen, _C. I. L._ i^2. 338, quotes to the same effect another _Scriptor Syrus_ (in Assemanus, _Bibl. Orient._ ii. 164): cf. p. 235. The early apologists (Tertullian, _Apol._ 16; _ad Nationes_, i. 13; Origen, _contra Celsum_, viii. 67) defend Christianity against pagan charges of Sun-worship.

[839] Conybeare, _J. Am. Th._ iii. 8.

[840] Most of these dates were in the spring (Duchesne, 247). As late as †243 the Pseudo-Cyprianic _de Pascha computus_ gives March 28. On the other hand, December 25 is given early in the third century by Hippolytus, _Comm. super Danielem_, iv. 23 (p. 243, ed. Bonwetsch, 1897), although the text has been suspected of interpolation (Hilgenfeld, in _Berlin. phil. Wochenschrift_, 1897, p. 1324, s.). Ananias of Shirak (†600-50), _Hom. de Nat._ (transl. in _Expositor_, Nov. 1890), says that the followers of Cerinthus first separated the birth and baptism: cf. Conybeare, _Key of Truth_, cliv. This is further explained by Paul of Taron (ob. 1123), _adv. Theopistum_, 222 (quoted Conybeare, clvi), who says that Artemon calculated the dates of the Annunciation as March 25 and the Birth as December 25, ‘the birth, not however of the Divine Being, but only of the mere man.’ Both Cerinthus (end of 1st cent.) and Artemon (†202-17) appear to have held Adoptionist tenets: cf. Schaff, iv. 465, 574. Paul adds that Artemon calculated the dates from those for the conception and nativity of John the Baptist. This implies that St. John Baptist’s day was already June 24 by †200. It was traditional on that day by St. Augustine’s time, ‘Hoc maiorum traditione suscepimus’ (_Sermo_ ccxcii. 1, in Migne, _P. L._ xxxviii. 1320). The six months’ interval between the two nativities may be inferred from _St. Luke_ i. 26. St. Augustine refers to the symbolism of their relation to each other, and quotes with regard to their position on the solstices the words ascribed to the Baptist in _St. John_ iii. 30 ‘illum oportet crescere, me autem minui’ (_Sermo_ cxciv. 2; cclxxxvii. 3; cclxxxviii. 5; Migne, _P. L._ xxxviii. 1016, 1302, 1306). Duchesne, 250, conjectures that the varying dates of West (Dec. 25) and East (Jan. 6) depended on a similar variation in the date assigned to the Passion, it being assumed in each case that the life of Christ must have been a complete circle, and that therefore he must have died on the anniversary of his conception in the womb. Thus St. Augustine (_in Heptat._ ii. 90) upbraids the Jews, ‘non coques agnum in lacte matris suae.’ March 25 was widely accepted for the Passion from Tertullian onwards, and certain Montanists held to the date of April 6. Astronomy makes it impossible that March 25 can be historically correct, and therefore the whole calculation, if Duchesne is right, probably started from an arbitrary identification of a Christian date with the spring equinox, just as, if Ananias of Shirak is right, it started from a similar identification of another such date with the summer solstice. But it seems just as likely that the birth was fixed first, and the Annunciation and St. John Baptist’s day calculated back from that. If the Passion had been the starting-point, would not the feast of Christmas, as distinct from the traditional date for the event, have become a movable one?

[841] The Armenian criticism just quoted only re-echoes that put by St. Augustine in the mouth of the Manichaeans in _Contra Faustum_, xx. 4 (_Corp. Script. Eccl._ xxv) ‘Faustus dixit ... solemnes gentium dies cum ipsis celebratis ut Kalendas et solstitia.’ Augustine answers other criticisms of the same order in the course of the book, but he does not take up this one.

[842] Augustine, in his sermons, uses a solar symbolism in two ways, besides drawing the parallel with St. John already quoted. Christ is _lux e tenebris_: ‘quoniam ipsa infidelitas quae totum mundum vice noctis obtexerat, minuenda fuerat fide crescente; ideo die Natalis Domini nostri Iesu Christi, et nox incipit perpeti detrimenta, et dies sumere augmenta’ (_Sermo_ cxc. 1 in _P. L._ xxxviii. 1007). He is also _sponsus procedens de thalamo suo_ (_Sermo_ cxcii. 3; cxcv. 3, in _P. L._ xxxviii. 1013, 1018). Following this Caesarius or another calls Christmas the _dies nuptialis Christi_, on which ‘sponsae suae Ecclesiae adiunctus est’ (_Serm. Pseudo-Aug._ cxvi. 2, in _P. L._ xxxix. 1975). Cumont, i. 355, gives other examples of _Le Soleil Symbole du Christ_ from an early date, and especially of the use of the phrase _Sol Iustitiae_ from _Malachi_, iv. 2.

[843] Pseudo-Chrysostom (Italian, 4th cent.), _de solstitiis et aequinoctiis_ (_Op._ Chrys. ed. 1588, ii. 118) ‘Sed et dominus nascitur mense Decembri, hiemis tempore, viii kal. Ianuarias.... Sed et invicti natalem appellant. Quis utique tam invictus nisi dominus noster qui Mortem subactam devicit? vel quod dicant Solis esse natalem, ipse est Sol iustitiae de quo Malachias propheta dixit’; St. Augustine, _Sermo_ cxc. 1 (_P. L._ xxxviii. 1007) ‘habeamus, igitur, fratres, solemnem istum diem; non sicut infideles propter hunc solem, sed propter eum qui fecit hunc solem’; _Tract. in Iohann._ xxxiv. 2 (_P. L._ xxxv. 1652) ‘numquid forte Dominus Christus est Sol iste qui ortu et occasu peragit diem? Non enim defuerunt heretici qui ita senserunt ... (c. 4) ne quis carnaliter sapiens solem istum intelligendum putaret’; Pseudo-Ambrose (perhaps Maximus of Turin, †412-65), _Sermo_ vi. (_P. L._ xvii. 614) ‘bene quodammodo sanctum hunc diem natalis Domini solem novum vulgus appellat ... quod libenter nobis amplectendum est; quia oriente Salvatore non solum humani generis salus, sed etiam solis ipsius claritas innovatur’; Leo Magnus, _Sermo_ xxii, _in Nativ. Dom._ (_P. L._ liv. 198) ‘Ne idem ille tentator, cuius iam a vobis dominationem Christus exclusit, aliquibus vos iterum seducat insidiis, et haec ipsa praesentis diei gaudia suae fallaciae arte corrumpat, illudens simplicioribus animis de quorumdam persuasione pestifera, quibus haec dies solemnitatis nostrae non tam de nativitate Christi quam de novi, ut dicunt, solis ortu honorabilis videatur’; _Sermo_ xxvii, _in Nat. Dom._ (_P. L._ liv. 218) ‘De talibus institutis etiam illa generatur impietas ut sol in inchoatione diurnae lucis exsurgens a quibusdam insipientioribus de locis eminentioribus adoretur; quod nonnulli etiam Christiani adeo se religiose facere putant, ut priusquam ad B. Petri apostoli basilicam, quae uni Deo vivo et vero est dedicata, perveniant, superatis gradibus quibus ad suggestum areae superioris ascenditur, converso corpore ad nascentem se solem reflectant, et curvatis cervicibus, in honorem se splendidi orbis inclinent. Quod fieri partim ignorantiae vitio, partim paganitatis spiritu, multum tabescimus et dolemus.’ Eusebius, _Sermo_ xxii. περὶ ἀστρονόμων (_P. G._ lxxxvi. 453), also refers to the adoration of the sun by professing Christians. The ‘tentator’ of Leo and the ‘heretici’ of Augustine are probably Manichaeus and his followers, against whose sun-worship Augustine argues at length in _Contra Faustum_, xx (_Corp. Script. Eccl._ xxv).

[844] Duchesne, 248.

[845] Cf. p. 14.

[846] _C. Agathense_, c. 21 (Mansi, viii. 328) ‘Pascha vero, natale domini, epiphania, ascensionem domini, pentecostem, et natalem S. Ioannis Baptistae, vel si qui maximi dies in festivitatibus habentur, non nisi in civitatibus aut in parochiis teneant.’

[847] _Conc. Bracarense_ (†560), Prop. 4 (Mansi, ix. 775) ‘Si quis natalem Christi secundum carnem non bene honorat, sed honorare se simulat, ieiunans in eodem die, et in dominico; quia Christum in vera hominis natura natum esse non credit, sicut Cerdon, Marcion, Manichaeus, et Priscillianus, anathema sit.’ A similar prohibition is given by Gregory II (†725), _Capitulare_, c. 10 (_P. L._ lxxxix. 534). To failings in the opposite direction the Church was more tender: cf. _Penitentiale Theodori_ (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 177), _de Crapula et Ebrietate_ ‘Si vero pro infirmitate aut quia longo tempore se abstinuerit, et in consuetudine non erit ei multum bibere vel manducare, aut pro gaudio in Natale Domini aut in Pascha aut pro alicuius Sanctorum commemoratione faciebat, et tunc plus non accipit quam decretum est a senioribus, nihil nocet. Si episcopus iuberit, non nocet illi, nisi ipse similiter faciat.’

[848] Tille, _Y. and C._ 122.

[849] Cf. Appendix N, No. xxii.

[850] _Epist. Gregorii ad Eulogium_ (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 12).

[851] _Epist. Bedae ad Egbertum_ (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 323).

[852] _Leges Ethelredi_ (Thorpe, _Ancient Laws_, i. 309) ‘Ordâl and âdhar sindon tocweden ... fram Adventum Domini odh octavas Epiphanie.... And beo tham hâlgum tîdan eal swa hit riht is, eallum cristenum mannum sib and sôm gemæne, and ælc sacu getwæmed.’ Cf. _Leges Edwardi_ (Thorpe, i. 443).

[853] _C. Moguntiacum_, c. 36 (Mansi, xiv. 73) ‘In natali Domini dies quatuor, octavas Domini, epiphaniam Domini.’

[854] Tille, _Y. and C._ 203.

[855] Cf. the collection of prohibitions in Appendix N.

[856] _C. of Tours_, c. 18 (Appendix N, No. xxii).

[857] R. Sinker, in _D. C. A._ s. v. Circumcision.

[858] On this difficult subject see Tille, _Y. and C._ 134; H. Grotefend, _Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung_ (1898), 11; F. Ruhl, _Chronologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit_ (1897), 23; C. Plummer, _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ii. cxxix; R. L. Poole, in _Eng. Hist. Review_ (1901), 719.

[859] The position of Christmas would have made it natural that it should attract observances from the spring festivals also, and, in fact, it did attract the Mummers’ play: cf. p. 226. It cannot of course be positively said whether the Epiphany fires and some of the other agricultural rites to be presently mentioned (ch. xii) came from the November or the ploughing festival.

[860] _C. of Auxerre_ (573-603), c. 11 (Appendix N. No. xxv).

[861] In the south of France Christmas is _Chalendes_, in Provence _Calendas_ or _Calenos_. The log is _calignau_, _chalendau_, _chalendal_, _calignaon_, or _culenos_, and the peasants sang round it ‘Calène vient’ (Tille, _D. W._ 286; Müller, 475, 478). Thiers, i. 264, speaks of ‘le pain de Calende.’ Christmas songs used to be known in Silesia as _Kolendelieder_ (Tille, _D. W._ 287). The Lithuanian term for Christmas is _Kalledos_ and the Czechic _Koleda_ (Polish _Kolenda_, Russian _Koljada_). A verb _colendisare_ appears as a Bohemian law term (Tille, _Y. and C._ 84); while in the fourteenth century the Christmas _quête_ at Prague was known as the _Koledasammeln_ (Tille, _D. W._ 112). The Bohemian Christmas procession described by Alsso (cf. ch. xii) was called _Calendizatio_, and according to tradition St. Adalbert (tenth century) transferred it from the Kalends to Christmas, and called it _colendizatio_ ‘_a colendo_.’

[862] _C. of Auxerre_ (573-603), c. 5 (Appendix N, No. xxv). Pfannenschmidt, 498, has collected a number of notices of _Martinalia_ from the tenth century onwards.

[863] Pfannenschmidt, 279; Dyer, 386, describe the ‘Horn Fair’ at Charlton, Kent, on St. Luke’s Day, Oct. 18. A king and queen were chosen, who went in procession to the church, wearing horns. The visitors wore masks or women’s clothes, and played practical jokes with water. Rams’ horns were sold at the fair, which lasted three days, and the gilt on the gingerbread took the same shape. It will be remembered that the symbol of St. Luke in Christian art is a horned ox.

[864] Cf. p. 114. According to Spence, 196, the Shetland Christmas begins on St. Thomas’s Day and ends on Jan. 18, known as ‘Four and Twenty Day.’ Candlemas (Feb. 2) is also often regarded as the end of the Christmas season. The Anglo-Saxon Christmas feast lasted to the Octave of Epiphany (Tille, _Y. and C._ 165).

[865] Dyer, 451; Ashton, 118, where the custom is said to have been ‘started by the Rev. J. Kenworthy, Rector of Ackworth, in Yorkshire, ... for the special benefit of the birds.’

[866] Frazer, i. 177, ii. 172, 286; Grimm, iv. 1783; Tille, _D. W._ 50, 178; Alsso, in Usener, ii. 61, 65.

[867] Lipenius, 423; cf. Appendix N, Nos. i, vi, xiii, xxiv.

[868] Tille, _Y. and C._ 103, 174; Philpot, 164; Jackson and Burne, 397; Dyer, 457; Stow, _Survey of London_ (ed. 1618), 149 ‘Against the feast of Christmas, euery mans house, as also their parish Churches, were decked with Holm, Iuy, Bayes, and whatsoever the season of the yeere aforded to be greene. The Conduits and Standards in the streetes were, likewise, garnished.’ He gives an example from 1444.

[869] Burne-Jackson, 245, 397, 411; Ashton, 95. Customs vary: here the evergreens must be burnt; there given to the cattle. They should not touch the ground (Grimm, iii. 1207). With this taboo compare that described by ancient writers, probably on the authority of Posidonius, as existing in a cult of a god identified with Dionysus amongst the Namnites on the west coast of Gaul. A temple on an island was unroofed and reroofed by the priestesses annually. Did one of them drop her materials on the ground, she was torn to pieces by her companions (Rhys, _C. H._ 196). They are replaced on Candlemas by snowdrops, or, according to Herrick, ‘the greener box.’ In Shropshire a garland made of blackthorn is left hanging from New Year to New Year, and then burnt in a festival fire (_F. L._ x. 489; xii. 349).

[870] The Christmas, rivalry between holly and ivy is the subject of carols, some dating from the fifteenth century; cf. Ashton, 92; Burne-Jackson, 245.

[871] Grimm, iii. 1205.

[872] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxi. 95.

[873] Ashton, 81, 92; Ditchfield, 18; Brand, i. 285; Dyer, 458; Philpot, 164. Mistletoe is the chief ingredient of the ‘kissing-bunch,’ sometimes a very elaborate affair, with apples and dolls hung in it. The ecclesiastical taboo is not universal; in York Minster, e.g., mistletoe was laid on the altar.

[874] Tille, _Y. and C._ 174; _D. W._ 256, and in _F. L._ iii. 166; Philpot, 164; Ashton, 189; Kempe, _Loseley MSS._ 75. The earliest English mention is in 1789.

[875] Tille, _Y. and C._ 170.

[876] Ibid. 172; Ashton, 105, quoting Aubrey, _Natural Hist. of Wilts_, ‘Mr. Anthony Hinton, one of the officers of the Earle of Pembroke, did inoculate, not long before the late civill warres (ten yeares or more), a bud of Glastonbury Thorne, on a thorne, at his farm house, at Wilton, which blossoms at Christmas, as the other did. My mother has had branches of them for a flower-pott, several Christmasses, which I have seen. Elias Ashmole, Esq., in his notes upon _Theatrum Chymicum_, saies that in the churchyard at Glastonbury grew a walnutt tree, that did putt out young leaves at Christmas, as doth the King’s Oake in the New Forest. In Parham Park, in Suffolk (Mr. Boutele’s), is a pretty ancient thorne, that blossomes like that at Glastonbury; the people flock hither to see it on Christmas day. But in the rode that leades from Worcester to Droitwiche is a black thorne hedge at Clayes, half a mile long or more, that blossoms about Christmas-day for a week or more together. Dr. Ezerel Tong sayd that about Rumly-Marsh in Kent, are thornes naturally like that near Glastonbury. The Soldiers did cutt downe that near Glastonbury: the stump remaines.’ Specimens are still found about Glastonbury of _Crataegus oxyacantha praecox_, a winter-flowering variety of hawthorn: some of the alleged slips from the Glastonbury thorn appear, however, to be _Prunus communis_, or blackthorn. A writer in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1753 reports that the opponents of the ‘New Style’ introduced in 1752 were encouraged by the refusal of the thorns at Glastonbury and Quainton in Buckinghamshire to flower before Old Christmas day. A Somerset woman told a writer in 3 _N. Q._ ix. 33 that the buds of the thorns burst into flower at midnight on Christmas Eve, ‘As they comed out, you could hear ‘um haffer.’

[877] Tille, _Y. and C._ 175.

[878] Usener, ii. 61. Alsso says that St. Adalbert substituted a crucifix for the idol, and the cry of ‘Vele, Vele,’ for that of ‘Bely, Bely.’

[879] Ashton, 244; Dyer, 483; Ditchfield, 15. The dolls sometimes represent the Virgin and Child. ‘Wesley-bob’ and the alternative ‘vessel-cup’ appear to be corruptions of ‘wassail.’

[880] Cf., however, the Burghead ceremony (p. 256).

[881] Brand, i. 217; Burne-Jackson, 381; Dyer, 405; Ditchfield, 25, 161; Northall, 216; Henderson, 66; Haddon, 476; Pfannenschmidt, 206. The _N. E. D._ plausibly explains ‘gooding,’ which seems to be used of any of these _quêtes_ as ‘wishing good,’ and ‘hooding’ may be a corruption of this.

[882] Brand, i. 1; Dyer, 501; Ditchfield, 42; Northall, 183. Skeat derives _wassail_, M.E. _wasseyl_, ‘a health-drinking,’ from N.E. _wæs hǽl_, A.-S. _wes hál_, ‘be whole.’

[883] Ducange, _Gloss_, s. v. Kalendae Ianuarii, quoting _Cerem. Rom. ad calcem Cod. MS. eccl. Camerac._ ‘Hii sunt ludi Romani communes in Kalendis Ianuarii. In vigilia Kalendarum in sero surgunt pueri, et portant scutum. Quidam eorum est larvatus cum maza in collo; sibilando sonant timpanum, eunt per domos, circumdant scutum, timpanum sonat, larva sibilat. Quo ludo finito, accipiunt munus a domino domus, secundum quod placet ei. Sic faciunt per unamquamque domum. Eo die de omnibus leguminibus comedunt. Mane autem surgunt duo pueri ex illis, accipiunt ramos olivae et sal, et intrant per domos, salutant domum: Gaudium et laetitia sit in hac domo; tot filii, tot porcelli, tot agni, et de omnibus bonis optant, et antequam sol oriatur, comedunt vel favum mellis, vel aliquid dulce, ut totus annus procedat eis dulcis, sine lite et labore magno.’

[884] Du Tilliot, 67, quoting J. B. Thiers, _Traité des jeux et des divertissemens_, 452; Müller, 103. There are some Guillaneu songs in Bujeaud, ii. 153. The _quête_ was prohibited by two synods of Angers in 1595 and 1668.

[885] Brand, i. 247; Dyer, 505; Ditchfield, 44; Ashton, 217; Northall, 181; Henderson, 76; Tille, _Y. and C._ 204; Nicholson, _Golspie_, 100; Rhys, in _F. L._ ii. 308. Properly speaking, ‘Hogmanay’ is the gift of an oaten farl asked for in the _quête_. It is also applied to the day on which the _quête_ takes place, which is in Scotland generally New Year’s Eve. Besides the _quête_, Hogmanay night, like Halloween elsewhere, is the night for horse-play and practical joking. The name appears in many forms, ‘Hogmana,’ ‘Hogomanay,’ ‘Nog-money’ (Scotland), ‘Hogmina’ (Cumberland), ‘Hagmena’ (Northumberland), ‘Hagman heigh!’ ‘Hagman ha!’ (Yorkshire), ‘Agganow’ (Lancashire), ‘Hob dy naa,’ ‘Hob ju naa’ (Isle of Man). It is generally accepted as equivalent to the French _aguilanneuf_, _aguilanleu_, _guillaneu_, _hagui men lo_, _hoquinano_, &c., ad infin., the earliest form being _auguilanleu_ (1353). With the Scotch

‘Hogmanay, Trollolay, Give us of your white bread and none of your grey’!

may be compared the French,

‘Tire lire, Maint de blanc, et point du bis.’

On no word has amateur philology been more riotous. It has been derived from ‘au gui menez,’ ‘à gui l’an neuf,’ ‘au gueux menez,’ ‘Hálig monath,’ ἁγία μήνη, ‘Homme est né,’ and the like. Tille thinks that the whole of December was formerly Hogmanay, and derives from _monâth_ and either *_hoggva_, ‘hew,’ _hag_, ‘witch,’ or _hog_, ‘pig.’ Nicholson tries the other end, and traces _auguilanleu_ to the Spanish _aguinaldo_ or _aguilando_, ‘a New Year’s gift.’ This in turn he makes the gerund of *_aguilar_, an assumed corruption of _alquilar_, ‘to hire oneself out.’ Hogmanay will thus mean properly ‘handsel’ or hiring-money,’ and the first Monday in the New Year is actually called in Scotland ‘Handsel Monday.’ This is plausible, but, although no philologist, I think a case might be made out for regarding the terms as corruptions of the Celtic _Nos Galan-gaeaf_, ‘the night of the winter Calends’ (Rhys, 514). This is All Saints’ eve, while the Manx ‘Hob dy naa’ _quête_ is on Hollantide (November 12; cf. p. 230).

[886] A Gloucestershire wassail song in Dixon, _Ancient Poems_, 199, ends,

‘Come, butler, come bring us a bowl of the best: I hope your soul in heaven will rest; But if you do bring us a bowl of the small, Then down fall butler, bowl and all.’

[887] In Herefordshire and the south of Scotland it is lucky to draw ‘the cream of the well’ or ‘the flower of the well,’ i. e. the first pail of water after midnight on New Year’s eve (Dyer, 7, 17). In Germany _Heilwag_ similarly drawn at Christmas is medicinal (Grimm, iv. 1810). Pembroke folk sprinkle each other on New Year’s Day (_F. L._ iii. 263). St. Martin of Braga condemns amongst Kalends customs ‘panem in fontem mittere (Appendix N, No. xxiii), and this form of well-cult survives at Christmas in the Tyrol (Jahn, 283) and in France (Müller, 500). Tertullian chaffs the custom of early bathing at the _Saturnalia_ (Appendix N, No. ii). Gervase of Tilbury (ed. Liebrecht, ii. 12) mentions an English belief (†1200) in a wonder-working Christmas dew. This Tille (_Y. and C._ 168) thinks an outgrowth from the Advent chant _Rorate coeli_, but it seems closely parallel to the folk belief in May-dew.

[888] Burne-Jackson, 388; Simpson, 202; _F. L._ v. 38; Dyer, 410. The festival in its present form can only date from the reign of James I, but the Pope used to be burned in bonfires as early as 1570 upon the accession day of Elizabeth, Nov. 17 (Dyer, 422).

[889] Dyer, 389 (Sussex).

[890] Brand, i. 210, 215 (Buchan, Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, North Wales).

[891] Pfannenschmidt, 207; Jahn, 240.

[892] Ashton, 47 (Isle of Man, where the day is called ‘Fingan’s Eve’).

[893] Jahn, 253.

[894] _F. L._ xii. 349; W. Gregor, _Brit. Ass. Rept._ (1896), 620 (Minnigaff, Galloway; bones being saved up for this fire); Gomme, _Brit. Ass. Rept._ (1896), 633 (Biggar, Lanarkshire).

[895] Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22 (Gloucestershire, Herefordshire). Twelve small fires and one large one are made out in the wheat-fields.

[896] Dyer, 507; Ashton, 218; Simpson, 205; Gomme, _Brit. Ass. Rept._ (1896), 631; _F. L. J._ vii. 12; _Trans. Soc. Antiq. Scot._ x. 649.

[897] Simpson, 205, quoting Gordon Cumming, _From the Hebrides to the Himalayas_, i. 245.

[898] Bede, _D. T. R._ c. 17: cf. the A.-S. passage quoted by Pfannenschmidt, 495; Jahn, 252. Other Germanic names for the winter months are ‘Schlachtmonat,’ ‘Gormânaða’: cf. Weinhold, _Die deutschen Monatsnamen_, 54.

[899] Jahn, 229; Tille, _Y. and C._ 28, 65; Pfannenschmidt, 206, 217, 228.

[900] Dyer, 456, 470, 474, 477; Ashton, 171; Karl Blind, _The Boar’s Head Dinner at Oxford and an Old Teutonic Sun-God_, in _Saga Book_ of Viking Club for 1895.

[901] Dyer, 473.

[902] Hampson, i. 82.

[903] Gummere, _G. O._ 433.

[904] Tacitus, _Germ._ 45, of the Aestii, ‘matrem deum venerantur. insigne superstitionis formas aprorum gestant: id pro armis omnique tutela securum deae cultorem etiam inter hostis praestat.’

[905] Dyer, 439.

[906] Dyer, 492; Ashton, 204; Grimm, iv. 1816.

[907] Dyer, 481; N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 250. Cf. ch. xvii for the hunt of a cat and a fox at the ‘grand Christmas’ of the Inner Temple.

[908] Dyer, 494, 497; Frazer, ii. 442; Northall, 229.

[909] Ashton, 114 (Reculver); Dyer, 472 (Ramsgate); Ditchfield, 27 (Walmer), 28 (Cheshire: All Souls’ day).

[910] Dyer, 486.

[911] Ditchfield, 28.

[912] Bertrand, 314; Arbois de Jubainville, _Cycl. myth._ 385; Rhys, _C. H._ 77.

[913] Tille, _D. W._ 109.

[914] C. de Berger (1723), _Commentatio de personis vulgo larvis seu mascharis_, 218 ‘Vecolo aut cervolo facere; hoc est sub forma vitulae aut cervuli per plateas discurrere, ut apud nos in festis Bacchanalibus vulgo dicitur _correr la tora_’; J. Ihre (†1769), _Gloss. Suio-Gothicum_, s. v. Jul. ‘Julbock est ludicrum, quo tempore hoc pellem et formam arietis induunt adolescentuli et ita adstantibus incursant. Credo idem hoc esse quod exteri scriptores cervulum appellant.’ In the _Life of Bishop Arni_ (nat. 1237) it is recorded how in his youth he once joined in a _scinnleic_ or ‘hide-play’ (_C. P. B._ ii. 385). Frazer, ii. 447, describes the New Year custom of _colluinn_ in Scotland and St. Kilda. A man clad in a cowhide is driven _deasil_ round each house to bless it. Bits of hide are also burnt for amulets. Probably the favourite Christmas game of Blind Man’s Buff was originally a _scinnleic_ (N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 262).

[915] Brand, i. 210, 217; Jackson and Burne, 381, 392, 407; Ashton, 178; Jahn, 487, 500; Müller, 487, 500. Scandinavian countries bake the Christmas ‘Yule-boar.’ Often this is made from the last sheaf and the crumbs mixed with the seed-corn (Frazer, ii. 29). Germany has its _Martinshörner_ (Jahn, 250; Pfannenschmidt, 215).

[916] Dyer, 501; Ashton, 214.

[917] Brand, i. 19; Dyer, 21, 447; Ashton, 86, 233. Brand, i. 210, describes a Hallow-e’en custom in the Isle of Lewis of pouring a cup of ale in the sea to ‘Shony,’ a sea god.

[918] Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22, 448; Northall, 187. A cake with a hole in the middle is hung on the horn of the leading ox.

[919] Grimm, iv. 1808. Hens are fed on New Year’s day with mixed corn to make them lay well.

[920] Gregory, _Posthuma_, 113 ‘It hath been a Custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip up the Children upon Innocents-Day morning, that the memory of this Murther might stick the closer, and in a moderate proportion to act over the cruelty again in kind.’ In Germany, adults are beaten (Grimm, iv. 1820). In mediaeval France ‘innocenter,’ ‘donner les innocents,’ was a custom exactly parallel to the Easter _prisio_ (Rigollot, 138, 173).

[921] Dyer, 24; Cortet, 32; Frazer, iii. 143; Deslyons, _Traités contre le Paganisme du Roi boit_ (2nd ed. 1670). The accounts of Edward II record a gift to the _rex fabae_ on January 1, 1316 (_Archaeologia_, xxvi. 342). Payments to the ‘King of Bene’ and ‘for furnissing his graith’ were made by James IV of Scotland between 1490 and 1503 (_L. H. T. Accounts_, 1. ccxliii; 11. xxiv, xxxi, &c.). The familiar mode of choosing the king is thus described at Mont St. Michel ‘In vigilia Epyphaniae ad prandium habeant fratres gastellos et ponatur faba in uno; et frater qui inveniet fabam, vocabitur rex et sedebit ad magnam mensam, et scilicet sedebit ad vesperas ad matutinam et ad magnam missam in cathedra parata’ (Gasté, 53). The pre-eminence of the bean, largest of cereals, in the mixed cereal cake (cf. ch. vi) presents no great difficulty; on the religious significance attached to it in South Europe, cf. W. W. Fowler, 94, 110, 130. Lady Jane Grey was scornfully dubbed a Twelfth-day queen by Noailles (Froude, v. 206), just as the Bruce’s wife held her lord a summer king (ch. viii).

[922] _Accts. of St. Michael’s, Bath_, s. ann. 1487, 1490, 1492 (_Somerset Arch. Soc. Trans._ 1878, 1879, 1883). One entry is ‘pro corona conducta Regi Attumnali.’ The learned editor explains this as ‘a quest conducted by the King’s Attorney’!

[923] Ashton, 119; Dyer, 388, 423, 427.

[924] Brand, i. 261, prints from Leland, _Itinerary_ (ed. 1769), iv. 182, a description of the proclamation of Youle by the sheriffs at the ‘Youle-Girth’ and throughout the city. In Davies, 270, is a letter from Archbp. Grindal and other ecclesiastical commissioners to the Lord Mayor, dated November 13, 1572, blaming ‘a very rude and barbarouse custome maynteyned in this citie and in no other citie or towne of this realme to our knowledge, that yerely upon St. Thomas day before Christmas twoo disguysed persons, called Yule and Yule’s wife, shoulde ryde throughe the citie very undecently and uncomely....’ Hereupon the council suppressed the riding. Drake, _Eboracum_ (1736), 217, says that originally a friar rode backwards and ‘painted like a Jew.’ He gives an historical legend to account for the origin of the custom. Religious interludes were played on the same day: cf. _Representations_. The ‘Yule’ of York was perhaps less a ‘king’ than a symbolical personage like the modern ‘Old Father Christmas.’

[925] Ramsay, _Y. and L._ ii. 52; Blomefield, _Hist. of Norfolk_, iii. 149. The riot was against the Abbot of St. Benet’s Holm, and the monks declared that one John Gladman was set up as a king, an act of treason against Henry VI. The city was fined 1,000 marks. In 1448 they set forth their wrongs in a ‘Bill’ and explained that Gladman ‘who was ever, and at thys our is, a man of sad disposition, and trewe and feythfull to God and to the Kyng, of disporte as hath ben acustomed in ony cite or burgh thorowe alle this realme, on Tuesday in the last ende of Cristemesse, viz. Fastyngonge Tuesday, made a disport with hys neyghbours, havyng his hors trappyd with tynnsoyle and other nyse disgisy things, coronned as kyng of Crestemesse, in tokyn that seson should end with the twelve monethes of the yere, aforn hym yche moneth disguysed after the seson requiryd, and Lenton clad in whyte and red heryngs skinns, and his hors trapped with oystyr-shells after him, in token that sadnesse shuld folowe, and an holy tyme, and so rode in diverse stretis of the cite, with other people, with hym disguysed makyng myrth, disportes and plays.’

[926] Jevons, _Plutarch’s Romane Questions_, 86. The Ides (Jan. 9) must have practically been included in the Kalends festival. The Agonium, probably a sacrifice to Janus, was on that day (W. W. Fowler, 282).

[927] Appendix N, Nos. ix, xi, xiv, xvii, xviii, xxviii, xxxvi.

[928] G. L. Gomme, in _Brit. Ass. Rep._ (1896), 616 sqq.; Tille, _D. W._ 11, _Y. and C._ 90; Jahn, 253; Dyer, 446, 466; Ashton, 76, 219; Grimm, iv. 1793, 1798, 1812, 1826, 1839, 1841; Bertrand, 111, 404; Müller, 478.

[929] Tille, _Y. and C._ 95.

[930] Dyer, 456; Ashton, 125, 188. A Lombard _Capitulary_ (App. N, No. xxxviii) forbids a Christmas candle to be burnt beneath the kneading-trough.

[931] Müller, 236; Dyer, 430; Ashton, 54; Rigollot, 173; _Records of Aberdeen_ (Spalding Club), ii. 39, 45, 66. In Belgium the household keys are entrusted to the youngest child on Innocents’ day (Durr, 73).

[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.

[1087] Martene, iii. 41 ‘[at second Vespers] Cantor ... dicit ter _Deposuit_ baculum tenens, et si baculus capitur, _Te Deum Laudamus_ incipietur ... [at Compline] ascendunt duo clerici super formam thesaurarii et cantant _Haec est sancta dies_, &c. et post _Conserva Deus_, et dum canitur verberant eum clerici baculis, et ante eos cantores festi et erupitores.... Post incipit cantor novus _Verbum caro factum est_, et hoc cantando ducunt eum in domum suam per parietes cum baculis feriendo. Si autem baculus non accipitur, nihil de iis dicitur, sed vadunt, et extinguitur luminare.’

[1088] Cf. Appendix L.

[1089] Chérest, 9, 55, quoting _Acta Capit._ (1453) ‘item circa festum Innocentium ordinatum est quod in ecclesia nullae fient insolenciae seu derisiones potissime tempore divini servitii et quod pulsentur matutinae non ante quartam horam. Permittimus tamen quod reverenter et in habitu ecclesiastico per Innocentes et alios iuvenes de sedibus inferioribus dictum fiat officium, saltem circa ea quae sine sacris ordinibus possunt exerceri’; (1510) ‘item turpem illum abusum festi fatuorum in nostra hactenus ecclesia, proh dolor, frequentatum quo in celebritate sanctorum Innocentium quidam sub nomine patriarchali divinum celebrant officium, penitus detestamus, abolemus et interdicimus.’

[1090] Lebeuf, _Mém. concernant l’Histoire ... d’Auxerre_ (ed. Challe et Quantin, 1848-55), ii. 30; iv. 232 (quoting _Acta Capit._ partly extracted by Ducange, s.v. _Kalendae_); and in Leber, ix. 358, 375, 385.

[1091] ‘Cum domini nostri rex et alii regales Franciae sint valde dolorosi, propter nova armaturae factae in partibus Ungariae contra Saracenos et inimicos fidei’; cf. Bury-Gibbon, vii. 35.

[1092] ‘Ordinavit quod de caetero omnes, qui de festo fatuorum fuerint, non pulsent campanam capituli sui post prandium, dempta prima die in qua suum episcopum eligent, et etiam quod in suis sermonibus fatuis non ponant seu dicant aliqua opprobria in vituperium alicuius personae.’

[1093] Lebeuf, _Hist. d’Auxerre_, ii. 30.

[1094] I suppose the intended action took shape in the _Quinque Conclusiones_ of Gerson (p. 292), in which he quotes the dictum of an Auxerre preacher that the feast of Fools was as _approbatum_ as that of the Conception. To this there seems to be a reference in the account of the Abbot of Pontigny’s sermon in the _Acta Capit._ ‘praedicavit ... quod dictum festum non erat, nec unquam fuerat a Deo nec Ecclesia approbandum seu approbatum.’ Lebeuf, in Leber, ix. 385, points out that Gerson was intimate with one member of the Auxerre chapter. This was Nicolas de Clamengis, whose _Opera_, 151 (ed. Lydius, 1613), include a treatise _De novis celebritatibus non instituendis_, in which the suppression of feasts in his diocese by Michael of Auxerre is alluded to.

[1095] These were canons of inferior rank at Auxerre (Ducange, s. v. _tortarius_).

[1096] Canons J. Boileaue, Devisco, Pavionis, Viandi and H. Desnoes. Was Viandi the canon John Vivien who, according to Lebeuf, _Hist. d’Auxerre_, iv. 234, noted on his Breviary (now _Bibl. Nat. Cod. Colbert._ 4227) that at first Vespers on the Circumcision, _Hodie Christus_ was sung after each Psalm, ‘quia Festum Circumcisionis vocatur in diversis ecclesiis festum Fatuorum’?

[1097] Chérest, 76; Julleville, _Les Com._ 234; Lebeuf, in Leber, ix. 358, 373, quoting a _Cry pour l’abbé de l’église d’Ausserre et ses supposts_, from the _Œuvres_ of Roger de Collerye (1536). This resembles the productions of the _confréries des fous_ (cf. ch. xvi) and begins,

‘Sortez, saillez, venez de toutes parts, Sottes et sots plus prompts que liépars.’

[1098] Dunot de Charnage, _Hist. de Besançon_, i. 227; Rigollot, 47; Leber, ix. 434; x. 40.

[1099] The anonymous author of the _Histoire de l’Église d’Autun_ (1774), 462, 628, gives _probata_ from the _Acta Capitularia_ for some, but not all of his statements. Du Tilliot, 24 and possibly Ducange, s. v. _Festum Asinorum_ appear also to have seen at least one register kept by the _rotarius_ which covered the period 1411 to 1416.

[1100] ‘Deliberaverunt super festo folorum quod fieri consuevit anno quolibet in festo Circumcisionis Domini, ad resecandum superfluitates et derisiones quae fieri consueverunt ... item quod amodo non adducatur asinus ad processionem dictae diei, ut fuit solitum fieri, nec dicatur cantilena quae dici solebat super dictum asinum, et supra officio quod fieri consuetum est dicta die in Ecclesia dicti Domini postea providebunt.’ Ducange says that the ass had a golden foot-cloth of which four of the principal canons held the corners. On the _cantilena_ cf. Appendix L.

[1101] ‘Ordinaverunt quod festum folorum penitus cesset.’

[1102] ‘Concluserunt ad requestum stultorum quod hoc anno fiat festum folorum ... cum solemnitatibus in dicto festo requisitis in libris dicti festi descriptis ... qui defecerit in matutinis et aliis horis statutis comburatur in fonte.’

[1103] ‘In fine Matutinarum nonnulli larvati alii inordinate vestiti choreas, tripudia et saltus in eadem ecclesia faciunt ... [aliquos] ad fontem deferunt et ibi aqua intinguntur.’

[1104] Cf. ch. xix. A representation of the ‘Flight into Egypt’ might well come into a play of Herod. The _Hist. d’Autun_, 462, says that, before the reform of 1411, the ass appeared as Balaam’s ass in connexion with a _Prophetae_ on a stage at the church door. There was a procession to church, and the Prose. The _rex_ received a cheese from the chapter.

[1105] Cf. ch. xv.

[1106] ‘Regna Herodis et Episcopatus Innocentium, seu fatuorum festa hactenus ... fieri solita ... abolentes.’

[1107] ‘Quod vulgo dicitur _Les Gaigizons_ ... amplius neminem balneare aut ... pignus aufferre.’ It is here only the choice of ‘bishop’ and ‘dean’ of Innocents, ‘quod festum fatuorum a nonnullis nuncupatur’ that is forbidden. Apparently ‘Herod’ had died out.

[1108] Du Tilliot, 100; Petit de Julleville, _Les Com._ 194. Amongst Du Tilliot’s woodcuts is one of a _bâton_ (No. 4) bearing this date 1482. It represents a nest of fools.

[1109] Ibid. 21.

[1110] Ibid. 74 ‘Icelle cour a ordonné et ordonne, que defenses seront faites aux Choriaux et habitués de ladite Église Saint-Vincent et de toutes autres Églises de son Ressort, et dorésnavant le jour de la Fête des Innocens, et autres jours faire aucunes insolences et tumultes esdites Églises, vacquer en icelles, et courir parmi les villes avec danses et habits indécens à leur état ecclésiastique.’

[1111] Pilot de Thorey, i. 177.

[1112] Pilot de Thorey, i. 178 (_Statuta_, c. 40) ‘Item statuimus et ordinamus, quod ex nunc cessent abusus qui fieri consueverunt per abbatem vulgariter vocatum stultorum seu sociorum ... Item statuimus et ordinamus, cum in ecclesia Dei non deceat fieri ludibria vel inhonesta committi, quod, in festis Sanctorum Stephani, Iohannis evangelistae, Innocentium et Epiphaniae, domino de cetero officiatur et desserviatur in divinis, prout in aliis diebus infra fieri statuetur, et quod nullus, de cetero, ut quandoque factum fuisse audivimus, portetur in Rost, et quod, de nulla persona ecclesiastica vel seculari cuiuscumque status existat, inhonesti vel diffamatorii rithmi recitentur, et quod nullus pignoret aut aliena rapiat quovisimodo.’ A Vienne writer, in Leber, ix. 259, adds that the performance of the office on the three post-Nativity feasts by deacons, priests, and choir in the high stalls was continued by these Statutes, but suppressed about 1670.

[1113] Lancelot, in _Hist. de l’Académie des Inscriptions_ (ed. 4to), vii. 255, (ed. 12mo), iv. 397; Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_; Du Tilliot, 46.

[1114] ‘... _Te Deum_, et tunc per consocios subtollitur, et elevatur, ac super humeros ad domum, ubi caeteri pro potu sunt congregati, laetanter deportatur, atque in loco ad hoc specialiter ornato et praeparato ponitur, statuitur et collocatur. Ad eius introitum omnes debent assurgere, etiam dominus Episcopus, si fuerit praesens, ac impensa reverentia consueta per consodales et consocios electo, fructus species et vinum cum credentia ei dentur, &c. Sumpto autem potu idem Abbas vel maior succentor ex eius officio absente Abbate incipit cantando ea quae secuntur; ab ista enim parte sclafardi, clericuli ceterique de suptus chorum debent esse simulque canere, ceteri vero desuper chorum ab alia parte simul debent respondere.... Sed dum eorum cantus saepius et frequentius per partes continuando cantatu tanto amplius ascendendo elevatur in tantum quod una pars cantando, clamando, _è fort cridar_, vincit aliam. Tunc enim inter se ad invicem clamando, sibilando, ululando, cachinnando, deridendo ac cum manibus demonstrando, pars victrix quantum potest partem adversam deridere conatur ac superare, iocosasque trufas sine taedio breviter inferre.

A parte Abbatis. _Heros._

Alter chorus. _Et nolic. nolierno._

A parte Abbatis. _Ad fons sancti bacon._

Alii. _Kyrie Eleison._

Quo finito illico gachia ex eius officio facit praeconizationem sic dicendo: _De par Mossenhor Labat è sos Cosselliers vos fam assaber que tot homs lo sequa, lay on voura anar, ea quo sus la pena de talhar lo braye_. Tunc Abbas aliique domum exeunt impetum facientes. Iuniores canonici chorarii scutiferique domini Episcopi et canonicorum Abbatem comitantur per urbem, cui transeunti salutem omnes impertiunt. In istis vero visitationibus (quae usque ad vigiliam Natalis Domini quotidie vespere fiunt) Abbas debet semper deportare habitum, sive fuerit manta, sive tabardum, sive cappa una cum capputio de variis folrato.’ It is curious how the characteristic meridional love of sheer noise and of gesture comes out.

[1115] _De indulgentiis dandis_:

[St. Stephen’s Day]

De par Mossenhor l’Evesque, Que Dieus vos donne gran mal al bescle, Avec una plena balasta de pardos E dos das de raycha de sot lo mento.

[St. John’s Day]

Mossenhor ques ayssi presenz Vos dona xx balastas de mal de dens, Et à vos autras donas atressi Dona 1^a coa de rossi.

[1116] ‘Deinde electus per sclafardos subtollitur et campanilla precedente portatur ad domum episcopalem, ad cuius adventum ianuae domus, absente vel praesente ipso domino Episcopo, debent totaliter aperiri, ac in una de fenestris magni tinelli debet deponi, et stans dat ibi iterum benedictionem versus villam.’

[1117] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_; Bérenger-Féraud, iv. 14.

[1118] Papon, _Hist. de Provence_ (1784), iv. 212.

[1119] Rigollot, 125.

[1120] Bérenger-Féraud, iv. 131, quoting Mireur, _Bull. hist. et philos. du Comité des Travaux hist._ (1885), N^{os}. 3, 4.

[1121] Rigollot, 171; Fauris de Saint-Vincent, in _Magasin encyclopédique_ (1814), i. 24. A chapter inventory mentions a ‘mitra episcopi fatuorum.’ The _Council of Aix_ in 1585 (Labbé, xv. 1146) ordered the suppression of ‘ludibria omnia et puériles ac theatrales lusus’ on Innocent’s day.

[1122] Thiers, _Traité des Jeux et des Divertissements_, 449; Du Tilliot, 33, 39, quoting [Mathurin de Neuré] _Querela ad Gassendum, de parum Christianis Provincialium suorum ritibus ... &c._ (1645) ‘Choro cedunt omnes Therapeutae Sacerdotes, et ipse Archimandrita; in quorum omnium locos sufficiuntur Coenobii mediastini viles, quorum aliis manticae explendae cura est, aliis culina, aliis hortus colendus: Fratres Laicos vocant, qui tunc occupatis hinc et inde Initiatorum ac Mystarum sedibus, ... Sacerdotalibus nempe induuntur vestibus, sed laceris, si quae suppetant, ac praepostere aptatis, inversisque; inversos etiam tenent libros in quibus se fingunt legere, appensis ad nasum perspicillis, quibus detractum vitrum, eiusque loco mali aurati putamen insertum.... Thuricremi Sanniones in cuiusque faciem cineres exsufflarunt, et favillas ex acerris, quas per ludibrium temere iactantes, stolidis quandoque capitibus affundunt; sic autem instructi non hymnos, non Psalmos, non liturgias de more concinunt, sed confusa ac inarticula verba demurmurant, insanasque prorsus vociferationes derudunt.’ The same M. de Neuré (whose real name was Laurent Mesme) says more generally that in many towns of the province on Innocents’ day, ‘Stolidorum se Divorum celebrare festa putant, quibus stolide litandum sit, nec aliis quam stolidis illius diei sacra ceremoniis peragenda.’ He quotes (p. 72) from a _Rituale_ a direction for the singing of the _Magnificat_ to the tune ‘Que ne vous requinquez-vous, vielle? Que ne vous requinquez-vous donc?’

[1123] Bérenger-Féraud, iv. 17.

[1124] _C. of Toledo_, N^o. 38, in 1582 (Aguirre, _Coll. Conc. Hisp._ vi. 12); _C. of Oriolana_, in 1600 (Aguirre, vi. 452): cf. pp. 162, 350.

[1125] Pearson, ii. 285; C. M. Engelhardt, _H. von Landsberg_ (1818), 104; C. Schmidt, _H. von Landsberg_, 40. Herrad was abbess of Hohenburg, near Strasburg, 1167-95. The MS. of her _Hortus Deliciarum_ was destroyed at Strasburg in 1870, but Engelhardt, and from him Pearson, translated the bit about the Epiphany feasts: cf. ch. xx.

[1126] Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 22 (from the Gradual, _Cod. Monacens._ 157, f. 231^{vo}); after quoting a decree against _cantiones_ of the _C. of Lyons_ in 1274; ‘ne igitur propter scholarium episcopum, cum quo in multis ecclesiis a iuniore clero ad specialem laudem et devotionem natalis Domini solet tripudiari, saecularia parliamenta nec non strepitus clamorque et cachitus mundanarum cantionum in nostro choro invalescant ... ego Iohannes, cognomine de Perchausen, Decanus ecclesiae Mosburgensis, antequam in decanum essem assumptus ... infra scriptas cantiones, olim ab antiquis etiam in maioribus ecclesiis cum scholarium episcopo decantatas, paucis modernis, etiam aliquibus propriis, quas olim, cum rector fuissem scholarium, pro laude nativitatis Domini et beatae Virginis composui, adiunctis, coepi in unum colligere et praesenti libro adnectere pro speciali reverentia infantiae Salvatoris, ut sibi tempore suae nativitatis his cantionibus a novellis clericulis quasi ex ore infantium et lactentium laus et hymnizans devotio postposita vulgarium lascivia possit tam decenter quam reverenter exhiberi.’

[1127] The following may all be for Jan. 1, and I do not think that there was a _scholarium episcopus_ on any other day at Mosburg: _Gregis pastor Tityrus_ (Dreves, _op. cit._ 110), _Ecce novus annus est_ (Dreves, 131, headed in MS. ‘ad novum annum’), _Nostri festi gaudium_ (Dreves, 131, ‘in circumcisione Domini’), _Castis psallamus mentibus_ (Dreves, 135, 251, ‘cum episcopus eligitur’), _Mos florentis venustatis_ (Dreves, 135 ‘dum itur extra ecclesiam ad choream’), _Anni novi novitas_ (Dreves, 136 ‘cum infulatus et vestitus praesul inthronizatur’). Some other New Year _cantiones_ found elsewhere by Dreves (pp. 130, 131) have no special reference to the feast.

[1128] Dreves, _op. cit._ 136 (beginning _anni novi novitas_), 250, with musical notation.

[1129] Dreves, _op. cit._ 110, 254, with notation.

[1130] Wetzer und Welte, _Kirchenlexicon_, s. v. _Epiphany_, quoting Crombach, _Hist. Trium Regum_ (1654), 752; Galenius, _de admir. Coloniae_ (1645), 661. The date of the _Ritual_ is not given, but the ceremony had disappeared by 1645.

[1131] ‘Admiscent autem natalitias cantiones, non sine gestientis animi voluptate.’

[1132] _Tractatus de precatione Dei_, i. 302 (†1406-15), in F. Palacký, _Documenta Mag. Ioannis Hus vitam illustrantia_ (1869), 722: ‘Quantam autem quamque manifestam licentiam in ecclesia committant, larvas induentes--sicut ipse quoque adolescens proh dolor larva fui--quis Pragae describat? Namque clericum monstrosis vestibus indutum facientes episcopum, imponunt asinae, facie ad caudam conversa, in ecclesiam eum ad missam ducunt, praeferentes lancem iusculi et cantharum vel amphoram cerevisiae; atque dum haec praetendunt, ille cibum potionemque in ecclesia capit. Vidi quoque eum aras suffientem et pedem sursum tollentem audivique magna voce clamantem: bú! Clerici autem magnas faces cereorum loco ei praeferebant, singulas aras obeunti et suffienti. Deinde vidi clericos cucullos pellicios aversa parte induentes et in ecclesia tripudiantes. Spectatores autem rident atque haec omnia religiosa et iusta esse putant; opinantur enim, hos esse in eorum rubricis, id est institutis. Praeclarum vero institutum: pravitas, foeditas!--Atque quum tenera aetate et mente essem, ipse quoque talium nugarum socius eram; sed ut primum dei auxilio adiutus sacras literas intelligere coepi, statim hanc rubricam, id est institutum huius insaniae, ex stultitia mea delevi. Ac sanctae memoriae dominus Ioannes archiepiscopus, is quidem excommunicationis poena proposita hanc licentiam ludosque fieri vetuit, idque summo iure, &c.’

[1133] The quotation given above is a translation by J. Kvíčala from the Bohemian of Huss. There seems to be a confusion between the ‘bishop’ and his steed. It was probably the latter who lifted up his leg and cried _bú_.

[1134] Grosseteste, _Epistolae_ (ed. Luard, R. S.), 118 ‘vobis mandamus in virtute obedientiae firmiter iniungentes, quatenus festum stultorum cum sit vanitate plenum et voluptatibus spurcum, Deo odibile et daemonibus amabile, ne de caetero in ecclesia Lincolniensi die venerandae circumcisionis Domini nullatenus permittatis fieri.’

[1135] Ibid. _op. cit._ 161 ‘execrabilem etiam consuetudinem, quae consuevit in quibusdam ecclesiis observari de faciendo festo stultorum, speciali authoritate rescripti apostolici penitus inhibemus; ne de domo orationis fiat domus ludibrii, et acerbitas circumcisionis Domini Iesu Christi iocis et voluptatibus subsannetur.’ The ‘rescript’ will be Innocent III’s decretal of 1207, just republished in Gregory IX’s _Decretales_ of 1234; cf. p. 279.

[1136] _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 247 ‘quia in eadem visitacione nostra coram nobis a nonnullis fide dignis delatum extitit quod vicarii et clerici ipsius ecclesiae in die Circumcisionis Domini induti veste laicali per eorum strepitus truffas garulaciones et ludos, quos festa stultorum communiter et convenienter appellant, divinum officium multipliciter et consuete impediunt, tenore presencium. Inhibemus ne ipsi vicarii qui nunc sunt, vel erunt pro tempore, talibus uti de caetero non praesumant nec idem vicarii seu quivis alii ecclesiae ministri publicas potaciones aut insolencias alias in ecclesia, quae domus oracionis existit, contra honestatem eiusdem faciant quouismodo.’ Mr. Leach, in _Furnivall Miscellany_, 222, notes ‘a sarcastic vicar has written in the margin, “Harrow barrow. Here goes the Feast of Fools (_hic subducitur festum stultorum_).”’

[1137] What was _ly ffolcfeste_ of which Canon John Marchall complained in Bishop Alnwick’s visitation of 1437 that he was called upon to bear the expense? Cf. _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 388 ‘item dicit quod subtrahuntur ab ipso expensae per eum factae pascendo ly ffolcfeste in ultimo Natali, quod non erat in propria, nec in cursu, sed tamen rogatus fecit cum promisso sibi facto de effusione expensarum et non est sibi satisfactum.’

[1138] _Statutes_ of Thos. abp. of York (1391) in _Monasticon_, vi. 1310 ‘in die etiam Circumcisionis Domini subdiaconis et clericis de secunda forma de victualibus annis singulis, secundum morem et consuetudinem ecclesiae ab antiquo usitatos, debite ministrabit [praepositus], antiqua consuetudine immo verius corruptela regis stultorum infra ecclesiam et extra hactenus usitata sublata penitus et extirpata.’

[1139] _Inventory_ of St. Paul’s (1245) in _Archaeologia_, l. 472, 480 ‘Baculus stultorum est de ebore et sine cambuca, cum pomello de ebore subtus indentatus ebore et cornu: ... capa et mantella puerorum ad festum Innocentum et Stultorum sunt xxviij debiles et contritae.’

[1140] Sarum _Inventory_ of 1222 in W. H. R. Jones, _Vetus Registr. Sarisb._ (R. S.), ii. 135 ‘Item baculi ii ad “Festum Folorum.”’

[1141] N^o. 27 in the list given for ch. x. Father Christmas says ‘Here comes in “The Feast of Fools.”’

[1142] Cf. the further account of these post-Nativity feasts in ch. xv.

[1143] The _C. of Paris_ in 1212 (p. 279) forbids the Feast of Fools in religious houses. But that in the Franciscan convent at Antibes is the only actual instance I have come across.

[1144] There were _canonici presbiteri_, _diaconi_, _subdiaconi_ and even _pueri_ at Salisbury (W. H. Frere, _Use of Sarum_, i. 51).

[1145] On the nature and growth of vicars choral, cf. Cutts, 341; W. H. Frere, _Use of Sarum_, i. xvii; _Lincoln Statutes_, passim; A. R. Maddison, _Vicars Choral of Lincoln_ (1878); H. E. Reynolds, _Wells Cathedral_, xxix, cvii, clxx. Vicars choral make their appearance in the eleventh century as choir substitutes for non-resident canons. At Lincoln they got benefactions from about 1190, and in the thirteenth century formed a regularly organized _communitas_. The _vicarii_ were often at the same time _capellani_ or chantry-priests. On chantries see Cutts, 438.

[1146] The Lincoln vicars chose two Provosts yearly (Maddison, _op. cit._); the Wells vicars two Principals (Reynolds, _op. cit._ clxxi).

[1147] Reynolds, _op. cit._, gives numerous and interesting notices of chapter discipline from the Wells _Liber Ruber_.

[1148] In Leber, ix. 379, 407, is described a curious way of raising funds for choir suppers, known at Auxerre and in Auvergne, and not quite extinct in the eighteenth century. It has a certain analogy to the _Deposuit_. From Christmas to Epiphany the Psalm _Memento_ was sung at Vespers, and the anthem _De fructu ventris_ inserted in it. When this began the ruler of the choir advanced and presented a bouquet to some canon or _bourgeois_ as a sign that the choir would sup with him. This was called ‘annonce en forme d’antienne,’ and the suppers _defructus_. The _C. of Narbonne_ (1551), c. 47, forbade ‘parochis ... ne ... ad commessationes quas defructus appellant, ullo modo parochianos suos admittant, nec permittant quempiam canere ut dicunt: Memento, Domine, _David sans truffe_, &c. Nec alia huiusmodi ridenda, quae in contemptum divini officii ac in dedecus et probrum totius cleri et fiunt et cantantur.’

[1149] When, however, Ducange says that the feast was not called _Subdiaconorum_, because the sub-deacons held it, but rather as being ‘ebriorum Clericorum seu Diaconorum: id enim evincit vox _Soudiacres_, id est, ad litteram, _Saturi Diaconi_, quasi _Diacres Saouls_,’ we must take it for a ‘sole joke of Thucydides.’ I believe there is also a joke somewhere in Liddell and Scott.

[1150] Cf. p. 60; Gautier, _Les Tropaires_, i. 186; and _C. of Treves_ in 1227 (J. F. Schannat, _Conc. Germ._ iii. 532) ‘praecipimus ut omnes Sacerdotes non permittant trutannos et alios vagos scolares aut goliardos cantare versus super _Sanctus_ et _Agnus Dei_.’

[1151] The ‘abbot’ appears to have been sometimes charged with choir discipline throughout the year, and at Vienne and Viviers exists side by side with another _dominus festi_. Similarly at St. Omer there was a ‘dean’ as well as a ‘bishop.’ The vicars of Lincoln and Wells also chose two officers.

[1152] I suppose that ‘portetur in rost’ at Vienne means that the victims were roasted like the fags in _Tom Brown_.

[1153] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_.

[1154] Gibbon-Bury, v. 201. The Byzantine authorities are Genesius, iv. p. 49 B (_Corp. Hist. Byz._ xi. 2. 102); Paphlagon (Migne, _P. G._ cv. 527); Theophanes Continuatus, iv. 38 (_Corp. Hist. Byz._ xxii. 200); Symeon Magister, p. 437 D (_Corp. Hist. Byz._ xxii. 661), on all of whom see Bury, App. I to tom. cit.

[1155] _C. of Constantinople_ (869-70), c. 16 (Mansi, xvi. 169, _ex versione Latina, abest in Graeca_) ‘fuisse quosdam laicos, qui secundum diversam imperatoriam dignitatem videbantur capillorum comam circumplexam involvere atque reponere, et gradum quasi sacerdotalem per quaedam inducia et vestimenta sacerdotalia sumere, et, ut putabatur, episcopos constituere, superhumeralibus, id est, palliis, circumamictos, et omnem aliam Pontificalem indutos stolam, qui etiam proprium patriarcham adscribentes eum qui in adinventionibus risum moventibus praelatus et princeps erat, et insultabant et illudebant quibusque divinis, modo quidem electiones, promotiones et consecrationes, modo autem acute calumnias, damnationes et depositiones episcoporum quasi ab invicem et per invicem miserabiliter et praevaricatorie agentes et patientes. Talis autem actio nec apud gentes a saeculo unquam audita est.’

[1156] Cedrenus, _Historiarum Compendium_, p. 639 B (ed. Bekker, in _Corp. Hist. Byz._ xxiv. 2. 333), follows verbatim the still unprinted eleventh-century John Scylitzes (Gibbon-Bury, v. 508). Theophylactus was Patriarch from 933 to 956.

[1157] Theodorus Balsamon, _In Can. lxii Conc. in Trullo_ (_P. G._