718 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
the streets of Paris, carrying on her back great lords of finance 
and justice. 1 She begins by commemorating the masters 
whom she has served before she became the property of Bar- 
beau. She complains of having been so loaded and spurred by 
him that her back and belly are all flayed. Now she is old and 
emaciated. They have filled her teeth and she has contracted 
the pleurisy. Under these circumstances she decides to make 
her will. The vultures shall have her body, Barbeau, her 
voice, and his cure, her song. Barbeau shall have also her tail 
to keep the flies from him. The Bailly shall have her ears. 
Her saddle shall go to Baude, who swears he cannot do without 
it. Three large dogs from the butchery of St. Germain she 
wishes to be her executors. 
In England also during the second half of the century the 
testament was beginning to be used for satirical purposes. The 
Sage Fool’s Testament, written about 1475, is an account of a 
testament made by a fool who, after his lord had died, fell sick 
and left his goods as follows: 
1. His soul he bequeathed to the devil, for he wanted to be 
with his deceased master. 
2. His hood to the young lord’s steward, for it had four ears 
and the steward was hard of hearing the complaints of the poor. 
3. His bauble to the Almoner, for the Almoner often beat the 
poor with his staff, and the fool thought the bauble softer than 
the staff. 
4. His bed to his young lord’s wife, for she found her own 
so soft that she frequently lay till noon. 
5.. His money to his young lord, for both the lord’s money 
and the fool’s would not suffice to pay for the harm that the de¬ 
ceased lord had Wrought. 2 
Of a serious nature is the Testament of a Christian, a very 
pretty English poem belonging to the fifteenth century. 3 In 
this the testator bequeaths his body to the earth, his sins to the 
Fiend, his goods to the world, and his spirit to heaven. 
Bobert Henryson in his Testament of Cresseid (1493) puts 
1 See Campaux, p. 279; Romania, XXXVI, 38-77, and 78-86. 
2 Caxton's Book of Courtesye, ed. Furnival, (E. E. T. S.) 1868. 
s Wright and Halliwell, Reliquae, Antiquae I, 260. 
