[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. 1vo of the MS. a fifteenth-century hand (Chérest, 18) has written the following quatrain:
and the following couplet:
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):
[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, 110v 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: ‘No. 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 iie 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 xiiith 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, 42v, but none for any queen of France.
[1010] Between ff. 40vo 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, no. .’ 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 1a 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 (No. 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 xiiie 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):
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, No. 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?