it surpassed
and superseded the sober drama. The populace did not want more preaching
and instruction, but fun and frolic, relief from labor, thought, and
care. The take-off, caricature, burlesque, parody, discerns and sets
forth the truth against current humbug, and the pretenses of the
successful classes. The fool comes into prominence again, not by
inheritance but by rational utility. The fifteenth century offered him
plenty of material. As a fool he escaped responsibility. This
role,--that of the _badin_ in France, the _gracioso_ in Spain,
_arlequino_ in Italy, _Hanswurst_ in Germany,--becomes fixed like the
buffoon (_maccus_) in the classical comedy. In France, from the
beginning of the fourteenth century, the _basochiens_ were young clerks
and advocates who were studying law and who made fun of law proceedings.
They met with only limited toleration. Their satire was not relished by
the legal great men. In the fourteenth century they took up moralities
overweighted with allegory but broken up by farces. In the fifteenth
century the _Enfans sans Souci_ were another variety of _comediens_.
Their emblem was the cap with two horns or ass's ears.[2106] The life of
St. Louis was represented in tableaux at Marseilles in 1517.[2107] The
Passion was represented in the Coliseum until 1539, when Paul III
forbade it. Riots against the Jews had been provoked by the
exhibition.[2108]

+656. Protest against misuse of churches.+ It may be said that there was
never wanting a dissenting opinion and protest amongst the ecclesiastics
about the folk drama in the churches. In 1210 Innocent III forbade such
exhibitions by ecclesiastics. Then the fraternities began to represent
them on public market places. The "festival of fools" at Christmas time
was originally invented to turn the heathen festivals into ridicule.
When there were no more heathen it degenerated into extreme popular
farce. Thomas Aquinas consented to the _mimus_, if it was not
indecent.[2109] The synod of Worms, in 1316, forbade plays in churches.
Such plays seem to have reached their highest perfection in the
fourteenth century.[2110] Plays of this type gave way in the fifteenth
century to "moralities," with allegorical characters, which prevailed
for a long time, the taste for allegory marking the mental fashion of
the time. The council of Basle forbade plays in churches (1440).[2111]

+657. Toleration of jests by the ecclesiastics.+ The ecclesiastical
authorities wer