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The Politics of Playing Herod in Beaune *

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The Politics of Playing Herod in Beaune * THE POLITICS OF PLAYING HEROD IN BEAUNE * Kathleen Ashley The Christmas season was a period of sustained revelry in medieval and early modern cultures. The central sacred event, the birth of Christ, was interpreted liturgically as an example of the weak and humble triumphing over the world’s power and pride, an interpretation played out in performative traditions of ludic role reversal and grotesquerie within churches.1 As is well known, these rituals were especially popular in French ecclesiastical institutions, where a Boy Bishop and the tyrant Herod were annually elected to lead the festivities at the Feast of Innocents (December 28) and Epiphany (Jan. 6).2 Although the seasonal buffoonery provoked the condemnation of innumerable bishops and other officials,3 for a religious community this was often the one time of year when absent members returned to participate in the communal life, which held warm associations of bonding through feasting and boisterous entertainment.4 The festive framework within which the Herod play traditionally appeared thus explains both its strikingly transgressive features and the emotional investment that a religious community might have in its performance. The typical features of the liturgical “Herod scene” appear to have been established early. Peter Dronke notes that there are “no fewer than eleven Magi plays in eleventh-century MSS,” indicating that the genre had developed in tenth century towns with cathedral schools.5 In these liturgical dramas, Herod is always played as a tyrant -- impatient, arrogant, and prone to fits of rage.6 Furthermore, in the Freising Officium Stelle that Dronke analyzes, the transgressive behaviors of Herod are reflexive of medieval ecclesiastical festivity, as Herod becomes the Lord of Misrule for the Feast of Fools;7 Herod’s page-boys are also the “Innocents” or young boys who celebrate their power through ritual reversal. By the late Middle Ages, in a liturgical context, it would have been difficult to imagine Herod and the Innocents in any but a context of festive misrule. Although none of the texts for playing Herod at the Notre-Dame church in Beaune, Burgundy have survived, there are detailed registers containing the deliberations of the college of canons that document annual elections to the roles of Herod and the Boy Bishop.8 A record for 1432, for example, makes clear that the choice of a canon to play Herod was done in rotation according to the principle of seniority. Herod was both a role in the play (misterium or ministerium) of the Three Kings, long celebrated in accordance with custom (consuetudino) at Epiphany in the church (G2480 f. 147), and a political office for the year that was symbolic of canonical identity. The separability of the performative and symbolic roles, which will be discussed later in this paper, is indicated by the language of the records: misterium et personagem Regem Herodis (G 2489 f. 35), and personagium nec officium regis Herodis (G 2488 f. 229). Records for mid-fifteenth century show that occasionally the canon chosen to play King Herod tried to get out of the obligation and a substitute Herod was elected (G2482 f. 167v). However, the chapter attempted to make the substitution process as costly as possible. In 1512, Benôit Racolet asked to be exempt from the role of King Herod, to which he was expecting to be chosen in two years (in turno suo). His reason was that he had in Beaune neither relatives nor friends who could help with the necessary expenses and work (in villa Belnam nullos habebet parentis aut notis vel affines nec domus aptum ad s’onorifice faciendum expenses hoc necessarias). He offered a 70 livre compensation; the chapter added 80 fr., and Benôit accepted (G2488 f. 161v). Other canons objected to this deal, so the chapter had to take a second vote before the matter was concluded satisfactorily a month later. It seems that the main excuses accepted in the fifteenth century were old age or illness. Claiming his age, in 1473 Henri de Salins paid 10 francs to be replaced in the role of Herod by his nephew, the canon Antoine de Salins (G2483 f. 11v); likewise, in 1479 referring to his infirmities (infirmus est et debilis), canon Jean Courtois paid the usual 5 francs to be released from his assigned role of Herod (G2483 f. 89). By the sixteenth century, it was more common to buy one’s way out of the obligation to play Herod, though that option was made as difficult as possible by the chapter. For example, in 1511, the chapter decided that the election to the role of King Herod would be done among non- resident canons at the general winter meeting of the chapter, held at the feast of Saint Martin in November -- so that absent candidates couldn’t claim ignorance of their duty -- while election for residents would be at the feast of the Conception. Furthermore, those elected to the Herod role could not resign their prebend without fulfilling the role (G2488 f. 153v). Debates over the role of Herod in the Beaune college of canons therefore suggest the centrality of this festive ritual to canonical identity as defined by the chapter. Playing Herod was taken very seriously as a key component of one’s role as a full member of the Notre-Dame collégiale at Beaune, an identity based on holding a prebend.9 A chapter meeting held in June, 1468 reiterated that even the chapter’s Dean, since he was a canon with a prebend, had to take the role of Herod in his turn; in suo turno is the phrase habitually used in fifteenth and sixteenth century records (G2482 f. 178v)10. A Dean, in fact, held two prebends -- one as canon and one as Dean -- making him eligible twice as often as other canons to play Herod. For example, in 1537, Louis Martin the Dean of the chapter was chosen to play King Herod (in suo turno) (G2495 f.33v). In the very next year, 1538, Louis Martin was again chosen to play King Herod -- the record explicitly saying that it was now his duty as a canon, since he had been chosen in his position as Dean before (Ludovico Martin decanum hec ratione decanatis dignitatis led. anno elapso fuerit iam electus ... electo fuit usi canonicus in suo turno existens cum honoribus et oneribus dictus Regno Incumben) (G2495 f. 88v). In addition to documenting over a century of choices to play the leading roles in Christmas festivity, the registers thus reveal how important such performances were in articulating the corporate identity of the canons, especially in relation to their nominal superior, the Bishop of Autun.11 After the Schism and throughout the fifteenth century, an evolving set of agreements regulated the power relations between the papacy, other ecclesiastical entities, and French royal authorities, agreements that often gave local church officials considerable power over their own practices. That independence was never uncontested, however, but was subject to continuing negotiation and even violent confrontation. One of these legal instruments was the Pragmatic Sanction, published in 1438 by Charles VII, which, among many other stipulations about the limits of papal and clerical authority, forbade the Feast of Fools because of its indecorous revelry.12 Numerous high church councils also banned the feast, and the Bishop of Autun joined the reformist effort, pressuring the Notre- Dame chapter for decades to control the seasonal festivity, including official orders to cease the popular celebrations of the Feast of Fools.13 The Burgundian legal historian Michel Petitjean has described the lengthy 15th century lawsuits between the Bishop of Autun and the chapter of Notre- Dame over their freedom from episcopal oversight and their right to select their own leadership in electing their Dean.14 Although he does not mention the performances that are the focus of this paper, Petitjean points out that the canons of Notre-Dame tended to belong to the most wealthy and the most elite classes. Their church and properties were located next to the palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, at the center of medieval ducal power before the court moved to Dijon.15 The chapter thus wielded immense ecclesiastical clout in Beaune and the surrounding area, where its nominees became vicars at the other five churches in town and at fifteen of the nineteen parishes in the region as well as in 2/3 of the 55 chapels in Beaune.16 Composed of highly educated legal experts, the Beaune collégiale was the source of the major 14th century commentary on Burgundian customary law.17 It’s not surprising, therefore, that over the centuries of litigation with the Bishop the chapter consistently won its law cases. Notre-Dame’s relations with Autun became significantly more tense in the decades after 1480, and the political power struggle that ensued eventually focused on the Christmas seasonal festivity. As Petitjean argues, the long-standing confrontation between the Notre-Dame canons and the bishop of Autun was brought to a head in 1483 (in a bull dated May 22) when the Pope agreed to be the direct supervisor of the chapter, nullifying the authority of the bishop: A la demande du roi Louis XI, qui portait une affection particulière à cette insigne et rich collégiale, le pape place sous la protection du Saint-Siège l’église de Beaune, les doyen, chapitre, chaonoines et chantre avec toutes les personnes qui en dépendent, vicaires, sacristains, marguilliers, scribes et organiste, les quatre sergents, appelés bâtonniers, les chapelains, les clercs choriaux, tous les serviteurs, les six enfants de choeur, leur préceptueur et les habitués de l’église, y compris leurs maisons et leurs biens.18 The Beaune church and chapter, all their personnel and their belongings as well as administrative and legal authority, were no longer under the power of other ecclesiastical officials, most notably the Bishop of Autun.
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