24 o POPULAR BELIEFS. 



proclaimed kings of the festival instead of their masters. This period of 

 license was thought to be a reproduction of the reign of Saturn and of the 

 Golden Age. Christianity, whose first followers were selected from the lower 

 classes of society, was unwilling at first to deprive them of a popular festival 

 which no longer possessed a religious significance, and the only change made 

 was to divide the festival into several shorter ones of a day each. Hence 

 arose certain pagan idolatries and reminiscences, to which the festivals of 

 Christmas, of St. Stephen, of St. John the Evangelist, of the Innocents (from 

 December 25th to 28th), of the Circumcision, and of the Epiphany, or of 

 the Kings, gave rise. The Lupercalia, or the feasts of Pan, the god of the 

 country, which the ancients celebrated in February, were also divided by the 

 Christians into two series, the feasts of the Carnival (Fig. 171) and 

 those of the month of May, which were generally restricted to the three 

 Rogation days. The Church was at first indulgent towards these remnants 

 of paganism, merely blaming the abuses which they engendered. The 

 councils and doctors we're more severe, but the bishops in their dioceses, the 

 priests in their parishes, and the abbots in their monasteries seemed afraid 

 to oppose these superstitious habits, which still held such great sway. 



At first the Feast of the Kalends was called the Feast of the Barbatorii, the 

 reason no doubt being that the actors in these saturnalia covered their faces 

 with hideous beards, which in the language of the thirteenth century were 

 called barboires. We do not possess any very accurate information concerning 

 this festival earlier than the twelfth century ; but it was known to have been 

 observed not only in cathedrals and parish churches, but in many monasteries 

 and convents. It was invariably the cause of, and the excuse for, the most 

 disgraceful excesses. 



The first liturgical work which, under the name of " Liberty of Decem- 

 ber," describes the strange and indecent proceedings at the Feast of the 

 Buffoons, bears date 1182, and shows that one of the main features in it 

 was an inversion of the duties and rank of the clergy. As a proof of 

 how thoroughly this profane usage had passed into custom, it may be 

 mentioned that though the practice had been several times anathematized 

 by the councils, and though several prelates and sovereigns had laboured 

 hard to extirpate what a French king called " a detestable remnant of pagan 

 idolatry, and of the worship of the infamous Janus," upon the day of the 

 circumcision in 1444 the priests officiated in the churches, some dressed as 



