irst clear notice, though disorderly revels of the
same kind seem to have existed at Constantinople as early as the ninth
century. At first confined to the subdeacons, the Feast of Fools became
in its later developments a festival not only of that order but of the
|303| inferior clergy in general, of the vicars choral, the chaplains,
and the choir-clerks, as distinguished from the canons. For this rabble
of poor and low-class clergy it was no doubt a welcome relaxation, and
one can hardly wonder that they let themselves go in burlesquing the
sacred but often wearisome rites at which it was their business to be
present through many long hours, or that they delighted to usurp for once
in a way the functions ordinarily performed by their superiors. The
putting down of the mighty from their seat and the exalting of them of
low degree was the keynote of the festival. While "Deposuit potentes de
sede: et exaltavit humiles" was being sung at the "Magnificat," it would
appear that the precentor's _baculus_ or staff was handed over to the
clerk who was to be "lord of the feast" for the year, and throughout the
services of the day the inferior clergy predominated, under the
leadership of this chosen "lord." He was usually given some title of
ecclesiastical dignity, "bishop," "prelate," "archbishop," "cardinal," or
even "pope," was vested in full pontificals, and in some cases sat on the
real bishop's throne, gave benedictions, and issued indulgences.

These lower clergy, it must be remembered, belonged to the peasant or
small _bourgeois_ class and were probably for the most part but
ill-educated. They were likely to bring with them into the Church the
superstitions floating about among the people, and the Feast of Fools may
be regarded as a recoil of paganism upon Christianity in its very
sanctuary. "An ebullition of the natural lout beneath the cassock" it has
been called by Mr. Chambers, and many of its usages may be explained by
the reaction of coarse natures freed for once from restraint. It brought
to light, however, not merely personal vulgarity, but a whole range of
traditional customs, derived probably from a fusion of the Roman feast of
the Kalends of January with Teutonic or Celtic heathen festivities.

A general account of its usages is given in a letter addressed in 1445 by
the Paris Faculty of Theology to the bishops and chapters of France:--

"Priests and clerks may be seen wearing masks and monstrous visages