ANTIQUITIES. 
altogether suppressed in France in 
the year 1444, when the faculty of 
theology at Paris issued circular 
letters for that purpose ; but it seems 
impossible to state with any precision, 
when it disappeared entirely at any 
place, except at Sens, where it 
~ ceased in 1528, because it is said to 
be mentioned in edicts of a much 
later daie, and particularly in one 
so low as 1620; but there is very 
good reason for supposing it to have 
been confounded with the Feast of 
the Innocents, which, from the best 
consideration I have been able to 
give it, appears to have been a very 
different ceremony, and to have 
existed long after the abolition of the 
Feast of Fools. 
M. Ducange has cited the ceremo- 
nial for this festival, belonging to 
the cathedral of Viviers, in 1365, 
and another for Sens. has been 
described by M. Lancelot, in vol. 7, 
of the “ Mem. del’ Acad. des Inscrip- 
tions et Belles Lettres.” The latter 
is a long folio, covered with ivory, 
on which some of the ceremonies of 
the festival itself are said to be rudely 
sculptured, Of this a transcript on 
~ yellum is preserved in the French 
pational library at Paris. No. 1351, 
which is thus described ‘* Officium 
stultorum ad usum metropoleos et 
_premitialis eccleste Senonensts: cum 
“notis musicis.”” At the beginning is 
written, ‘* Transcriptus est liber se- 
“quens, vel potius officium, ex originali- 
perantiquo in thesauro metropolitane 
Senonensis ecclesie conservato, ex 
utraque parte folits eburneis munilo, 
nuncin auctivis capitularibus incluso.”* 
Engravings from these ivory covers 
would be very desirable, and I shall 
take this opportunity of hazarding 
a remark, that many of the grotesque 
figures in the illuminated religious 
manuscripts generally, but erro- 
999 
neously, called missals, as well as 
some of the sculptures in ancient 
cathedrals, have a reference to the 
subject in question. 
The Feast of Fools soon made ifs 
way into England, but its vestiges 
here are by no means so numerous 
as among our neighbours. ‘The eare 
liest mention of it that I have traced, 
is under the reign of Henry III. 
when Grosthead, bishop of Lincoln, 
in a letter addressed to the dean and 
chapter of that diocese, about the 
year 1240, thus speaks of it— 
“ Execrabilem etiam consuetudinem 
que consuevit in quibusdam ecclestis 
obserwvari de faciendo Sesto stultorum, 
specialé authoritate rescripta apostolict 
penitus inhibemus, ne de domo ora- 
tionis fiat domus ludibrit, et acerbitas 
circumcisionis Domini Jesu gocts et 
voluptatibus subsannetitr. Qua prop- 
ter vobis mandamus in virtute obe- 
dientiee firmiter injungentes, quatenus 
festum stultorum cum sit vanitate ple- 
num et voluptatibus spurcum, Deo 
odibile et demonibus amabile, de ce- 
tero in ecclesia Lincoln die venerande 
solemnitatis circumcisionis Domine 
nullatenus permittatis fiert.” What. 
ever effect this inhibition might have 
had in the place to which it imme- 
diately related, it is certain that the 
Feast of Fools continued to be ob- 
served in various parts of the king- 
dom, for more than a century after- 
wards, It was probably abolished 
about: the end of the fourteenth 
century; for, in some statutes and 
ordinations, made by ‘Thomas Arun- 
del, archbishop of York, for the 
better government of the collegiate 
church of St. John, at Beverley, in 
1391, there is the following regula- 
tion :—** In festis tnsuper sanctorum 
Stephani, Diaconis, et Johannis, Vi-- 
cariis; ac sanctorum tnnocentium, 
Thuribulariis et Choristis; im die 
354 etiam. 
