FEAST OF FOOLS. A survival into and through the Middle Ages of the spirit of the Roman Saturnalia (q.v.). The details of its observance varied much in different places, but it was everywhere marked by the same broad, boisterous drollery. The donkey played so frequent a part in the pageantry that he often imposed his name on the celebration. (See Ass, FEAST OF THE.) In every instance there was more or less attempt at dramatic representation, the theatre being generally the chief church of the place, and the words and action of the drama being often ordered by its book of ceremonies. Several rituals of this sort are still preserved. That which was in use at Beauvais, in France, has a rubric ordering the priest when he dismisses the congregation to bray three times, and ordering the people to bray three times in answer. As the ass was led toward the altar he was greeted with a hymn of nine stanzas, of which the first runs thus: Where the ass did not come upon the stage the chief point of the farce lay in the election of a mock pope, patriarch, cardinal, archbishop, bishop. or abbot. These mimic dignitaries took
such titles as 'Pope of Fools,' 'Boy Bishop,' 'Patriarch of Sets,' Abbot of Unreason.' and the like. On the day of their election they often took possession of the churches, and even occasionally travestied the performance of the Church's high est oflice. The license which finally prevailed in those mummeries at length called for the inter void ion of ecclesiastical authority, and the bish ops and popes began to prohibit them. The feast of fools maintained itself in many places till the middle of the sixteenth century. Al Antibes, in the south of France, it survived till the year 11141. The ti(q.11e was a church; and the actors, dressing themselves in priests' robes turned inside out, read prayers from hooks turned upside down. through spectacles of orange-peel: using coal or flour for incense, amid a babldement of confused cries, and the mimie bellowings of cattle and grunting of pigs. Consult Tilliot, moires pour .-eerie dr Ire fi'le des fous 1 Lausanne. 1741), and see also Boy 10snoe; Nlisnt Imito