FREE FEAST OF FOOLS PDF Rachael Caine | 242 pages | 22 Jul 2011 | Penguin Putnam Inc | 9780451224637 | English | New York, United States CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Feast of Fools Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. A celebration marked by much license and buffoonery, which in many parts of Europeand particularly in Franceduring the later middle ages took place every year on or about the feast of the Circumcision 1 Jan. So far as the Feast of Fools of Fools had an independent existence, it seems to have grown out of a special "festival of the subdeacons", which Feast of Fools Beleth, a liturgical writer of the twelfth century and an Englishman by birth, assigns to the day of the Circumcision. He is among the earliest to draw attention to the fact that, as the deacons had a special celebration on St. Stephen's day 26 Dec. John the Evangelist's day This feast of the subdeacons afterwards developed into the feast of the lower clergy esclaffardiand was later taken up by certain brotherhoods or guilds of "fools" with a definite organization of their own Chambers, I, sqq. John Beleth, when he discusses these matters, entitles his chapter "De quadam libertate Decembrica", and goes on to explain: "now the license which is then permitted is called Decembrian, because it was customary of old among the pagans that during this month slaves and serving-maids should have a sort of liberty given them, and should be put upon an equality with their masters, in celebrating a common festivity. CCII, The Feast of Fools and the almost blasphemous extravagances in some instances associated with it Feast of Fools constantly been made the occasion of a sweeping condemnation of the medieval Church. On the other hand some Catholic writers have thought it necessary to try to deny the existence of such abuses. There can be no question that ecclesiastical authority repeatedly condemned the license of the Feast of Fools in the strongest terms, no one being more determined in his efforts to suppress it than the great Robert GrossetesteBishop of Lincoln. But these customs were so firmly rooted that centuries passed away before they were entirely eradicated. Secondly, it is equally certain that the institution did lend itself to abuses of a very serious character, even though the nature and gravity of these varied considerably at different epochs. In defense of the medieval Church one point must not be lost sight of. We possess hundreds, not to say thousands, of liturgical manuscripts of all countries and all descriptions. Amongst them the occurrence of anything which has to do with the Feast of Fools is extraordinarily rare. In missals and breviaries we may say that it never occurs. At best a prose or a trope composed Feast of Fools such an occasion is here and there to be found in a Feast of Fools or an antiphonary Dreves, p. It is reasonable to infer from this circumstance that though these extravagances took place in church and were attached to the ordinary Feast of Fools, the official sanction was of the slenderest. The same Feast of Fools follows from two well-known cases which Father Dreves has carefully studied. The celebration was not entirely banned, but the part of the "Lord of Misrule" or "Precentor Stultorum" was restrained within decorous limits. He was to be allowed to intone the prose "Laetemur gaudiis" in the cathedraland to wield the precentor's staff, but this was to take place before the first Vespers of the feast were sung. Feast of Fools from this, the Church offices proper were to be performed as usual, with, however, some concessions in the way of extra solemnity. During Feast of Fools second Vespersit had been the custom that the precentor of the fools should be deprived of his staff when the verse "Deposuit potentes de sede" He hath put down the mighty from their seat was sung at the Magnificat. Seemingly this was the dramatic moment, and the feast was hence often known as the "Festum 'Deposuit'". Eudes Feast of Fools Sully permitted that the staff might here be taken from the mock precentorbut enacted that the verse "Deposuit" was not be repeated more than five times. A similar case of a legitimized Feast of Fools at Sens c. The whole text of the office is in this case preserved to us. There are many proses and interpolations farsurae added Feast of Fools the ordinary liturgy of the Churchbut nothing which could give offense as unseemly, except the prose "Orientis partibus", etc. This prose or "conductus", however, was not a part of the office, but only a preliminary to Vespers sung while the procession of subdeacons moved from the church door to the choir. Still, as already stated, there can be no question of the reality of the abuses which followed in the wake of celebrations of this kind. The central idea seems always to have been that of the old Saturnalia, i. Whether it took the form of the boy bishop or the subdeacon conducting the cathedral office, the parody must always have trembled on the brink of burlesque, Feast of Fools not of the profane. We can trace the same idea at St. Gall in the tenth century, where a student, on the thirteenth of December each year, enacted the part of the abbot. It will be sufficient here to notice that Feast of Fools continuance of the celebration of the Feast of Fools was finally forbidden under the very severest penalties by the Council of Basle inand that this condemnation was supported by a strongly-worded document issued by the theological faculty of the University of Feast of Fools in Feast of Fools, as well as by numerous decrees of various provincial councils. In this way it seems that the abuse had practically disappeared before the time of the Council of Trent. Sources A very large number of monographs and papers in the Feast of Fools of learned societies have been devoted to this subject. Many articles written on the subject are more lampoons directed against the medieval Church, and betray a complete ignorance of the facts. APA citation. Thurston, H. Feast of Fools. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. MLA citation. Thurston, Herbert. New York: Robert Feast of Fools Company, This article was transcribed for New Advent by Vicky Gordon. Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. September 1, Remy Lafort, Censor. Farley, Archbishop of New York. Contact information. The Feast of Fools of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster at newadvent. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads. About this page APA citation. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Feast Of Fools | The celebrations are directly traceable to the pagan Saturnalia of ancient Rome, which in spite of the conversion of the Empire to Christianity, Feast of Fools of the denunciation of bishops and ecclesiastical councils, continued to be celebrated by the people on the Kalends of January with all their old licence. The custom, indeed, so Feast of Fools from dying out, was adopted by the barbarian conquerors and spread among the Christian Goths in Spain, Franks in Gaul, Alemanni in Germany, and Anglo-Saxons in Britain. So late as the 11th century Bishop Burchard of Worms thought it necessary to fulminate against the excesses connected with it Decretum, xix. Then, just as it appears to have been sinking into oblivion among the people, the clergy themselves gave it the character of a specific religious festival. Certain days seem early to Feast of Fools been set apart as special festivals for different orders of the clergy: the feast of St Stephen December 26 for the deacons, St John's day December 27 for the priests, Holy Innocents' Day for Feast of Fools boys, Feast of Fools for the sub-deacons Circumcision, the Epiphany, or the 11th of January. The Feast of Holy Innocents became a regular festival of children, in which a boy, elected by his fellows of the choir school, functioned solemnly as bishop or archbishop, surrounded by the elder choir-boys as his clergy, while the canons and other clergy took the humbler seats. At first there is no evidence to prove that these celebrations were characterized by any specially indecorous behaviour; but in the 12th century such behaviour had Feast of Fools the rule. In Jean Beleth, of the diocese of Amiens, calls the festival of the sub-deacons festum stultorum Migne, Patrol. The burlesque ritual which characterized the Feast of Fools throughout the middle ages was now at its height. A young sub-deacon was elected bishop, vested in the episcopal insignia except the mitre and conducted by his fellows to the sanctuary. A mock mass was begun, during which the lections were read cum farsia, obscene songs were sung and dances performed, cakes and sausages eaten at the altar, and cards and dice played upon it. This burlesquing of things universally held sacred, though condemned by serious-minded theologians, conveyed to the child-like popular mind of the middle ages no suggestion of contempt, though Feast of Fools belief in the doctrines and rites of the medieval Church was shaken it became a ready instrument in the hands of those who sought to destroy them. Of this kind of retribution Scott in The Abbot gives a vivid picture, the Protestants interrupting the mass celebrated by the trembling remnant of the monks in the ruined abbey church, and insisting on substituting the traditional Feast of Fools.