tinuation of some pagan saturnalia; possibly the one during which the slaves exchanged places with their masters. On Madman’s-day the inferior clergy usurped the honours, privileges, and authority of the episcopacy. The curate donned the jewelled mitre—or at least a sham one; the deacon carried the pastoral crook; the verger wore the dean’s vestments; and the dean bore the train of the incense swinger, who was paraded about under a gorgeous canopy. Each had bells stitched to his clothes, in honour of the day, which the illuminated margins already mentioned called, with all due honour and solemnity, “Festum Fatuorum.”
The festival commenced at an early hour of the morning by the abdication of the archbishop, bishop, dean, or archdeacon, who resigned his honours for the space of twenty-four hours. The election of a successor or successors then took place; after which succeeded a serio-comic installation in the church or cathedral. Certain sees had a right to elect a pope from among the lowest in the scale of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, who was called Papa Fatuorum, and was bound, as such, to give the most striking example of buffoonery and coarse jollity. He drank in every tavern in the town, and, followed by a train of newly-made cardinals, snapped kisses from all the girls whom he met. To make amends for his vow of perpetual celibacy, he was allowed to make love to pretty girls, and go to whatever lengths he pleased in the way of courtship, or seeking love adventures. The only limit was, that none should attempt to pass off as a married man, or get married, which in those days did not require the formalities that are now gone through. Sometimes the French Pope or Abbot of Unreason wore a pasteboard tiara, adorned with tinsel, and vestments of stuff less costly than was worn by the churchman who had abdicated in his favour. After being installed in the episcopal chair, he was borne in it through the town. The populace cheered him tumultuously, and made ironical genuflexions as he passed along to the palace or chapter-house, which the real proprietor also abdicated to his mock successor. When the latter entered it, the former came forward and made a low obeisance to the lord of the day, for whom, as well as for his train, a sumptuous repast had been prepared. His sham Holiness or Lordship, attended by the other dignitaries, on partaking of the true bishop’s viands, proceeded to show himself on a balcony. There he got into a bottomless wine-barrel, and bestowed a suitable benediction upon the people who had assembled beneath. The whole of them then formed, as well as they were able, into a procession, and returned to the cathedral, where the sham pontiff seated himself upon a throne, which was the signal for the “Madmen’s office” to be intoned. Buffoonery then reached its highest pitch. Masked churchmen danced wildly round the pillars in the nave; false canons in vestments turned inside out, and wearing fools’ caps and bells, jerked their heads about as they chanted with their missals turned upside down. The Thurifers burned pitch, sulphur, and ducks’ feathers in the censers, in obedience to the ancient rubrics, which said: “Isto die Papa fatuorum incensabitur cum boudino;” and others blew ashes through long pipes at those who celebrated the office. When this was over, the Pope or Bishop stood up, and his chaplain, carrying on his head a square cushion, which was flanked with rows of bells, went through a burlesque of proclaiming indulgences.
All this was not very edifying. But no doubt it acted as a kind of moral safety valve, by allowing a re-action against a life of clerical restraint to show itself occasionally. The indulgences were next proclaimed, and all the clergy rushed pell-mell out of the cathedral and packed themselves into carts, which galloped through the streets, the occupants mobbing the mob, and the mob returning the compliment with full lungs and throat.
Cardinal Richelieu, when a young man, was remarkable for the comical way in which he acted on the Feast of Unreason. So was Rabelais; but the curé of Meudon, who was a radical in his way, always managed to throw ridicule upon the ecclesiastical power whenever he appeared among the “clerical madmen.” Catherine de Medicis laughed as heartily as a murderess can laugh when she was present at a benediction pronounced by him in Notre de Dame, where he always performed the part of bishop’s chaplain till within a year before his death. At Rouen, Beauvais, and Autun, the abuses of the Madmen’s Festival became so great, that contemporaneously with the Reformation it was transformed into the Festival of Asses, or Festum Asinorum. It has been told a thousand times how a young girl, with a child in her arms, seated on a richly caparisoned ass, was led to the high altar of the cathedral, conducted by bishop, dean, and chapter. The military or militia of the province lined the streets as she passed along, beating drums and blowing fanfares with all their might, and with the best possible will. The governor and all the seigneurs of the province and local authorities were present, and the ass bearing the representative of the Virgin was often lead to its place by no less a personage than the king’s constable. The pre-chanter ceremoniously saluted the animal, and intoned the famous “Prose of the Ass,” which was composed by Pierre de Corbeil:
Orientis partibus,
Adventavit asinus,
Pulchrer et fortissimus,
Salcinis aptissimus.
This ended, the object of these poetic effusions was led to a manger filled with thistles, and the canons proclaimed, amidst loud acclamations, the names of his commensaux. Mass was then chanted, and at the responses of the Gloria, Credo, and Kyrie, the choristers brayed. An old rubric says that “at the Fête of the Ass, the priest turns towards the people, and instead of chanting Ite missa est, brays three times, ‘ter hin—hannibit;’ and the people, instead of replying Deo Gratiais, &c., reply, ‘Hin han, hin han, hin han.’”
We give this as the illuminators drew the apes and monkeys on the borders of the curious missal in the “Bibliothêque Imperiale,” but as a simple record of mediæval practices, and with no more aim at proving the church a very guilty thing, than to