POPULAR BELIEFS. 243 



Hie in collibus Siclien, 

 Kiu.ti itii-i ub Ruben, 

 Transiit per Jordanem, 

 Saliit in Bethleem. 

 Ht, tire Ane, lit!" 



According to an old tradition, preserved at Sens, after the Hallelujah, 

 which was sung several times during the service, all the congregation brayed 

 in chorus in imitation of an ass. Then the choristers, from behind the altar, 

 chanted two Leonine lines, proclaiming that this " is the most illustrious of 

 all illustrious days, the greatest of all the festivals." Lastly, the chief pre- 

 centor, who had used his voice to the utmost in chanting the " Prose of the 

 Ass," was conducted in pomp to a well-spread table, where he and his 

 acolytes were supplied with a bountiful meal. 



The Feast of the Ass, as stated above, was celebrated in several towns of 

 France. Thus we learn by the registers of the Cathedral of Autun that from 

 1411 to 1416, in the Feast of the Buffoons, an ass was led in procession, with a 

 chasuble thrown over him, and 'to' the usual chorus of, "He, sire ane, h^ !" 

 sung by lay clerks in masquerade. costume. The ceremonial at Beauvais was 

 very similar to that at Sens, and it is clear that the refrain quoted in the 

 preceding sentence was taken by the spectators as an invitation to bray in all 

 tones. At the Feast of the Ass, as celebrated at Rouen, Balaam's ass was 

 introduced into a show or review of personages taken from the Old and the 

 New Testament, and composing a sort of mystery-play, interlarded with 

 dialogues in doggerel Latin. 



Eudes de Sully, Bishop of Paris, towards the end of the twelfth century, 

 was one of the prelates who tried the hardest to put down these saturnalia, 

 and if his efforts were not crowned with immediate success, he set an example 

 to other ecclesiastics to use their influence in the same direction. The ritual of 

 the Feast of Buffoons, properly so called, has not come down to our own day, 

 but we know that from the beginning of the fifteenth century it was only under 

 the porch, in the churchyard, or upon the open space beyond that is to say, 

 outside the church itself that these masquerades took place, and soon after- 

 wards the festival was suppressed altogether. The clerks regarded this 

 ancient tradition as one of their most cherished privileges, and were not 

 easily induced to renounce it ; but while the kity, inheriting, so to speak, 

 the Feast of the Buffoons, formed associations for getting up the mystery- 



