The History of Court Fools. Dr. Doran
monkeys. Counts, Cardinals, Barons, and even Bishops had their professional makers of mirth. In France the Fou du Roi was an official title, and Champagne is thought by some to have enjoyed the monopoly of furnishing his Gallic Majesty with a new Fou du Roi en titre d’office, when the old one died. The profession, in most Courts, survived the name; and the office has been exercised by many gentlemen who, perhaps, little thought of the duty they were performing. The office has not seldom been filled, as I have before remarked, by the Court poet; and the well-known epigram on Cibber, the above fact being considered, has a happy application.
The term itself however has often been mis-applied. Thus Charles the Simple was no fool, but a man of extraordinary simplicity of mind and feeling. So Homer, when he called Telemachus, Νἡπιος, a fool, or “silly,” did not employ it as a term of reproach, but one of endearment.
The term “fool,” “fol,” “fou,” is said to be of Northern origin. Every language, however, or nearly so, has an original word expressive of the office.
Some French writers deduce the term Fool—that is their own word Fol or Fou—from the Game of Chess. In the French game, the pieces which we call Bishops, are called “Fous;” and in anciently carved sets are represented in the fool’s dress;—hence the saying of Regnier in his 14th Satire:—
“Les Fous sont aux échecs les plus proches des Rois.”
Thomas Hyde, in his ‘De Ludis Orientalibus,’ lib. i. 4, does away with this derivation by remarking that the chess term Fou or Fol is derived from the eastern word Phil, an “Elephant;”—he adds that two figures of this animal were always to be seen on the old boards; and that they had the oblique move of our “bishops.” This is no doubt true. The line of Regnier, however, indicates the place of the “Fou,” not only at chess, but at Court—namely, always near the King. The dignity of the latter, however, was preserved by a simple arrangement, namely, the ranking as “fool” or of deranged wit, every one who ventured to utter to his superior a disagreeable truth. As for a closer connection between kings and fools, it is marked by Rabelais, who observes that wearers of crown and sceptre are born under the same constellation as the wearers of cap and bells.
And this office, it is to be observed, was partly in fashion as being a good sanitary system; “Laugh and grow fat” is a popular saying, with much philosophy therein. “Laughter,” says the Prussian Professor, Hufeland, “is one of the most important helps to digestion with which we are acquainted; and the custom in vogue among our ancestors, of exciting it by jesters and buffoons, was founded on true medical principles. Cheerful and joyous companions are invaluable at meals; obtain such, if possible, for the nourishment received amid mirth and jollity, is productive of light and healthy blood.”
Walter Scott, when discussing, in a note to ‘Ivanhoe,’ the question whether Negroes were known in England at the period of that romantic story, cites an instance, whereby he not only establishes an affirmative, but proves that the professional jesters were of value to their patrons in other ways besides exciting their laughter and improving their digestion. “John of Rampayne,” he tells us, “an excellent juggler and minstrel” (words implying the professional jester), “undertook to effect the escape of one Andulf de Bracy by presenting himself in disguise at the Court of the King where he was confined.” For this purpose “he stained his hair and his whole body entirely as black as jet, so that nothing was white but his teeth. And succeeded in imposing himself on the King, as some Ethiopian minstrel. He effected by stratagem the escape of the prisoner. Negroes therefore must have been known in England in the dark ages.” When the joyous brotherhood could perform services of this nature we need not be surprised that prelates as well as princes entertained them, and that the Council of Paris, in 1212, in vain denounced churchmen who were worldly enough to maintain fools in their households.
The idea that fools were instituted in order to supply the wants of a free society is, perhaps, not so strictly true as that they were gradually allowed to go out of fashion because their licensed freedom of expression was calculated to lead to social liberty. At first, a sarcasm from an equal may have only been considered as an insult; “yet conversation,” says Southey, “wanted its pepper and vinegar and mustard,” and so Fools were allowed to make the seasoning. When freedom of speech became vulgar (that is, popular or general), the Fool, as such, began to disappear. The term is sometimes applied in a singular sense. Thus “Fools’ Pence” was the name given to a tax once levied on the astrologers of Alexandria, because of the gain of their own ingenious folly derived from fools.
It is to be observed too that people themselves have been as sovereigns who possessed their witty fools to teach them lessons of wisdom. Such servants of the public are to be recognised in Menenius Agrippa, when he taught the rebellious commons the respective duties of governors and governed, by repeating to them the apt allegory of “The Belly and the Members;” and in Themistocles, when, to the over-taxed citizens who wished to introduce a new element into the government, he wittily told, how once a fox entangled in a bog, was soon covered by flies who sucked nearly half the blood out of his body. A hedgehog who came near, politely offered to drive the flies away. “No, no,” said the sly yet suffering fox, “if these be driven away who are well-nigh glutted, there will come a new, hungry set, ten times more greedy and devouring.” Another sample we have in the case of Sertorius, who showed how much wit was better than strength, by citing the case of two men who were set to see who could get off the tail of a horse in the shortest time. One pulled at the whole tail, and pulled in vain. The other easily conquered by taking the tail of his horse and plucking out the hairs, one at a time. There was very much of this sort of instruction imparted by “fools” to princes, and by enlightened men to people, when prince and people equally objected to have their prejudices bruised by the bitter balsam of advice.
In the courts of princes and the houses of wealthy men were to be found fools of various sorts, according to the taste of the lord. Some were coarse, rude, licentious fellows. Others were refined of speech, acute of observation, quick at repartee, of much learning, and of great memory. Others again were monstrous deformities, or beasts of stupendous appetite, to contemplate whom was very good mirth to melancholy lords of evil digestions and twisted minds.
Some princes chose not to be in the fashion at all, and to keep no retained fool at their Court. Charles Louis, Electoral Prince of the Rhine, was one of these. “How is it,” asked a friend, “that your serene greatness does not keep a court fool?” “Well, it’s easily accounted for,” answered the Prince; “when I am inclined to laugh, I send for a couple of professors from college, set them at an argument, and laugh at their folly.”
More than one German prince either feared or despised the “learned fool.” Flögel tells us of one, near whose castle lived a reverend pastor who, because he knew a little of the Hebrew grammar, of which no one in the vicinity knew Aleph from Gimmel, thought himself a prodigy, and all the rest of the world, asses. He never preached a sermon without impressing on the bumpkins the advantages of being acquainted with the Hebrew grammar; and half the lords in the country went to hear him as fool-general of the district. It happened that, on one occasion, the chief lord went to the church, to stand godfather to the schoolmaster’s child; and as the noble gentleman was a bachelor, it became the duty of the pastor, according to custom, to examine him as to his religious principles. We have all heard of the too-polite English vicar, who, churching a countess, said, “Lord, save this lady, thy servant;” and of his equally civil clerk, who, not to be outdone in politeness, responded, “Who putteth her ladyship’s trust in thee!” It was some such courtesy that was paid by the pastor to his lord. He would not, as with common peasants, try him in the Catechism, but inquired, with a sort of dignified familiarity, “Young Sir, may I ask you, what you are?”
“Certainly,” said the noble godfather; “I am a fool!”
“Oh fie!” whispered the pastor; adding aloud, “I mean, what is your belief?”
“Well, my belief is that you are as great a fool as I am.”
“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed the pastor, who remembered his knowledge of the Hebrew grammar; “that cannot be.”
“Ay,