are still some small tribes of Bedouins in this country, who profess Christianity; they are chiefly to be met with about Zuan and that neigh bourhood. Among the ruins of Udena, are a great many deep wells, and in these the wild pigeons build their nests; by throwing stones down the wells, weight in the current coin of the country. I have very often enquired why they preferred ploughing amongst the ruins of ancient cities, but could never get a satisfactory answer. I have the honour to be, sir, Your most obedient servant, John Jackson. the pigeons flew up, by which means John Wilkinson, esq. M. D. F. R. S. we caught several. While examining the ruins of Udena, the strange infatuation of the ignorant Bedouins, to prefer sowing their corn in the midst of ruins, struck my mind very forcibly; these ruins being in a more perfect state than those of Carthage, there is, consequently, not so much arable land; but wherever they find a small patch amongst the ruins, they are sure to plough it. I could not easily account for this strange notion of the Bedouins, because it is certainly contrary to nature. In the kingdom of Tunis, the quantity of corn depends entirely on the quantity of rain, and it cannot be supposed that water can lodge much amongst ruins, where the whole is under mined; it must of course drain off almost as fast as it falls it cannot do so upon a good solid ground, which will naturally imbibe the moisture, and retain it a considerable time. : I imagined they might have some other inducement, more than the bare prospect of the crops of corn; and that was the prospect they had of finding treasure; was this their principal motive, they certainly would know how to turn whatever they found to a better account. A Bedouin will sell the most valuable antique to a Jew, for a caroob, (14d. English money) and the gold and Alver for much less than their and F. A. S. Some Remarks on the Ancient Ceremony of the Feast of Fools, and on a Sculptured Girdle worn at its Celebration. By Francis Douce, Esq. F. A. S. Read May 10, 1801. During the early ages of Christianity, when the minds of men were yet under the dominion of their prejudices for the Pagan superstitions, it had become necessary on the part of those who held the reins of civil and ecclesiastical government, either to endure the practice of certain ceremonies and amusements, to which the common people had been long accustomed, or to substitute others in their stead, which bore at least some resemblance to them. One of the most ancient of the latter kind, and which appears to have been the greatest favourite, was that known by the name of the "Feast of the Calends." It had arisen out of the Roman Saturnalia, and resembled, in a great degree, the excesses of a modern carnival. Amidst various other absurdities men ran through the streets disguised as old women, and even as brute-animals, whence this ceremony has been sometimes distinguished by the names of "Vetula," and "Cervu la." As it was attended by the .commission 3 commission of many crimes, and had In France a very singular cere become in all respects an object of ecclesiastical censure, we accordingly find the pious Tertullian, with many other fathers of the church, vehemently declaiming against it; and St. Augustine, in one of his sermons, menaces severe punishment against all who should encourage it; but the anathemas of these holy men appear to have no effect in, checking these impious fooleries, for they were continued without interruption even to the middle ages, the religious and other manuscripts of which, particularly those of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, furnish many allusions to them, depicted in their margins. The late ingenious Mr. Strutt, whose indefatigable but ill-rewarded services will be duly appreciated by every real antiquary, has preserved a memorial of these representations, but not aware of their precise significa tion, he has included them in the general mass of ancient mummeries. These festivities, which prevailed at the opening of the new year, were, it is to be hoped, originally confined to the laity; but it is certain that they were very soon imitated by the clergy. In the ninth century the acts of the eighth general council of Constantinople, indistinctly refer to some ecclesiastical mockeries, that seem to have relation to the beforementioned excesses. During the twelfth century, a festival remained, called "Libertas Decembrica," which in some degree resembled the Roman Saturnalia, inasmuch as the archbishops and bishops degraded themselves by playing at dice and other games, and dancing with the inferior clergy in the monasteries and episcopal houses. mony crept into the church about this time, under the name of “ La Fête des Foudiacres ;" or the feast of subdeacons. The learned M. Ducauge conjectures that this expression did not indicate that the subdeacons were exclusively the actors in this farce, but that it is to be literally expounded, diacres faouls, or drunken clerks, from their bacchanalian excesses; an opinion, which with great reverence to so high an authority, I cannot help regarding as very apocryphal. It is more generally known under the title of the Feast of Fools, on which occasion in the cathedrals, a mock bishop or archbishop was elected. Sometimes he was called an abbot, and in those churches that were more immediately under the papal jurisdiction, a pope. There was no unity of time in this election, for it is found to have been celebrated, according to variety of place, on Christmas-day, St. Stephen's, St. John's, and the Innocents' Days; the Circumcision, the Epiphany, and on some of the octaves of those festivals. An ancient ceremonial for the church of Viviers states, that the abbot was elected on the 17th of December. sary to observe, that an episcopus stultorum had been already elected on the Innocents' day of the preceding year, but he enjoyed his offi. cial rights only during the three days of St. Stephen, St. John, and the Innocents'. At Auxerre the ceremony took place on the 18th of July. In the celebrated Bedford Missal, now in the possession of Mr. Edwards, there is a calendar, in which, under the month of February, the following_inscription "Comment a Fevrier on souloit faire 3 S 3 It is neces occurs, la la feste aux fols et aux mors." One might be supposed at first sight to imagine that the Feast of Fools is here alluded to as celebrated in this month; but as the fabrication of this calendar uniformly refers to feasts and ceremonies in use among the ancients, it is evident that in this instance he applies the above expression to the Quirinalia, which were also termed feria stultorum, between which and the Feast of Fools in question, there is not the slightest connection. The illumination that belongs to this line, represents several men feasting in a church-yard, who have been supposed by an eminent antiquary, in his account of this invaluable manuscript, to wear fools' caps; but this will be found, on attentive exa. mination of the figures, to be a mistake, probably originating from a part of the above motto. The subject of it refers to another ancient festival, on the 21st of Feb. viz. the feralia, or feast of the dead, instituted by Numa, in honour of the manes, and sometimes called parentália. It is to be supposed that similar variations would arise in the manner of celebrating this indecorous violation of every thing that was sacred and solemn, yet the principal incidents were at least uniform, and these were, a ludicrous paraphrase of the service of the mass, performed by persons with blackened faces, disguised in masquerade habits of women, of fools, and of brute animals, exhibiting, in this respect, evident traces of the Veluta and Ceroula, already noticed. The bishop, or abbot, was arrayed in mock pontificals, partly borrowed from the dresses of jesters and buffoons, and after his election carried in procession through the streets, in a triumphal car, filled with ordure, with which be bespattered the spectators. His attendants threw themselves into all kinds of indecent attitudes, saluting the people in the grossest and most lascivious language. Sometimes they danced in the choirs in the churches, and chaunted dissolute songs. They even profaned the altars by converting them into tables for their provisions, carousing in the most riotous manner, and crowning their impious orgies with playing at dice and other games. Nor should it be omitted to state that the ceremony of burning incense was likewise ridiculed with the smoke of old shoes, which they burned for this purpose. In short, the excesses of these fools and madmen may very well warrant the expression of a writer on the subject, who has emphatically called them the abomination of desolation. The enormities of this idle ceremony became at length so excessive, that it might well be expected some effort would be made to curb and counteract, if not wholly to abolish it. Accordingly, many of the councils issued their decrees against them, but as it should seem to very little purpose; so deeply rooted were they become in the minds of the lower orders of the clergy, and of the common people every where, who always joined in and supported them. Mons. Du Tilliot, a writer who has given many curious particulars relating to this ceremony, but whose treatise is on the whole very confused and immethodical, from his indiscriminate admission of extraneous matter, has cited several ecclesiastical decrees for its abolition. Ducange supposes it to have been altogether altogether suppressed in France in the year 1444, when the faculty of theology at Paris issued circular letters for that purpose; but it seems impossible to state with any precision, when it disappeared entirely at any place, except at Sens, where it ceased in 1528, because it is said to be mentioned in edicts of a much later date, and particularly in one so low as 1620; but there is very good reason for supposing it to have been confounded with the Feast of the Innocents, which, from the best consideration I have been able to give it, appears to have been a very different ceremony, and to have existed long after the abolition of the Feast of Fools. M. Ducange has cited the ceremonial for this festival, belonging to the cathedral of Viviers, in 1365, and another for Sens has been described by M. Lancelot, in vol. 7, of the "Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres." The latter is a long folio, covered with ivory, on which some of the ceremonies of the festival itself are said to be rudely sculptured. Of this a transcript on vellum is preserved in the French national library at Paris. No. 1351, - which is thus described " Officium stultorum ad usum metropoleos et premitialis ecclesiæ Senonensis: cum notis musicis." At the beginning is written, "Transcriptus est liber sequens, vel potius officium, ex originali perantiquo in thesauro metropolitana Senonensis ecclesiæ conservato, ex utraque parte foliis eburneis munito, nunc in auctivis capitularibus incluso." Engravings from these ivory covers would be very desirable, and I shall take this opportunity of hazarding a remark, that many of the grotesque figures in the illuminated religious manuscripts generally, but erro. neously, called missals, as well as some of the sculptures in ancient cathedrals, have a reference to the subject in question. The Feast of Fools soon made its way into England, but its vestiges here are by no means so numerous as among our neighbours. The ear liest mention of it that I have traced, is under the reign of Henry III. when Grost head, bishop of Lincoln, in a letter addressed to the dean and chapter of that diocese, about the year 1240, thus speaks of it Execrabilem etiam consuetudinem que consuevit in quibusdam ecclesiis observari de faciendo festo stultorum, speciali authoritate rescripta apostolici penitus inhibemus, ne de domo orationis fiat domus ludibrii, et acerbitas circumcisionis Domini Jesu jocis et voluptatibus subsannetur. Qua propter vobis mandamus in virtute obedientiae firmiter injungentes, quatenus festum stultorum cum sit vanitate plenum et voluptatibus spurcum, Deo odibile et dæmonibus amabile, de cetero in ecclesia Lincoln die venerande solemnitatis circumcisionis Domini nullatenus permittatis fieri." Whatever effect this inhibition might have had in the place to which it immediately related, it is certain that the Feast of Fool's continued to be ob served in various parts of the kingdom, for more than a century afterwards. It was probably abolished about the end of the fourteenth century; for, in some statutes and ordinations, made by Thomas Arundel, archbishop of York, for the better government of the collegiate church of St. John, at Beverley, in 1391, there is the following regulation:-" In festis insuper sanctorum Stephani, Diaconis, et Johannis, Vicariis; ac sanctorum innocentium, Thuribulariis et Choristis; in die 3 S 4 etiam etiam circumcisionis domini, subdiaconis et clericis de secunda forma de victualibus annis singulis, secundum morem et consuetudinem ecclesiæ ab antiquo usitatos, debite ministrubit (i. e. præpositus) antiqua consuetudine immo cerius corruptela regis stultorum infra ecclesiam et extra hactenus usitata sublata et extirpata." This festival has by many writers been strangely confounded with the ceremony of electing a boy-bishop in cathedrals and other places. Ducange, followed by Du Tilliot, quotes from Dugdale's Monasticon, an inventory of ornaments, &c. belonging to the cathedral of York, in 1510, wherein are mentioned a small mitre and a ring, for the "episcopus puerorum," from which he has inferred that the Feast of Fools continued till that period in England but it is evident that this refers to the election of a boy-bishop, a ceremony not only of a serious nature, and instituted in honour of St. Nicholas, or, as some have, I think erroneously, conceived, in remembrance of the massacre of the Innocents, but which uniformly tock place on the 6th of December, St. Nicholas's Day, from which time to the Feast of the Innocents, this boy bishop remained in office. But I purposely wave any further discussion of this subject, because I feel much pleasure in reflecting that it will most probably find a place amidst a general exhibition of our popular customs and antiquities, by the masterly hand of my valuable and learned friend, the secretary of this society, and shall conclude my remarks on the Feast of Fools, with stating that numerous imitations of it arose in various places, and on the feast of the ass; the elections of an abbe des conards on cornards, of an abbe des esclaffards, of an abbe de malgouverne, whence our abbot, or lord of mis-rule, of a prince des sols, (sometimes called mere folle, or folie) of a prince de plaisance, a prince de l'estrille, a prevot des etourdis, ‘a roi des ribauds, and some others of a similar nature. It is now time to advert to the more immediate subject of the exhibition which has given rise to this imperfect communication. It is a girdle which tradition reports to have been worn by the abbot of fools, in the cathedral of Dijon, on his election into office. From the style of it, I conceive it. to belong to the fourteenth century. It consists of thirty-five square pieces of wood, so contrived as to let into each other, by which means it easily assumes a circular form. On these are carved a variety of ludicrous and grotesque figures, consisting of fools, tumblers, huntsmen, and animals, with others, that from their licentiousness do not admit of a particular description. They bear, on the whole, a very striking similitude to the sculptures on the seats of the stalls in our cathedrals and monastic buildings, which were, no doubt, conceived in ridicule of the clergy in general, but more particularly of the friars; or, as I have already observed, they may, in some instances at least, refer to the mockeries that were practised in celebrating the Feast of Fools. It only remains to add, that for the possession of this, perhaps unique curiosity, I am indebted to the liberality of monsieur l'abbe de Terson, of Paris. MISCELLANEOUS |