April Fool's Day is a very old festival in European history, for today's people April Fool's Day is just a joke festival with each other, but medieval Europeans attach great importance to these days, they play more fiercely than today's people, make more crazy, laugh more wildly, it can be said that it is April Fool's Day that allows people in the Middle Ages to spend a long and difficult time.
April Fool's Day is essentially a kind of playful and ironic entertainment and carnival, which indeed dates back to ancient Roman times, and when the author discussed the predecessor of Christmas, the Roman Saturnalia Festival, he mentioned that this holiday had the custom of electing an "alcoholic emperor" ("The Cold Knowledge of Christmas: You May Not Know, the Origin of Christmas Has Nothing to Do with Jesus"). The Romans would elect a "Saturnalia Emperor" on that day, and all kinds of ridicule and teasing of this person were passed down in the Middle Ages, probably the precursor to the April Fool's Day prank. However, the people of the Middle Ages did not revel in Saturnalia like the Romans, nor did they play pranks on April 1 like people today, in fact they would spend most of the days with religious processions and revelry as "April Fool's Day".
The "Drunkard Emperor" of the European Middle Ages
The Middle Ages were not the ideal of the Bell Times, and although many people were not so dark for the Middle Ages, it had to be admitted that the Middle Ages lagged behind the Greco-Roman era before them and the Renaissance and Enlightenment in many ways. For example, people's lives, agricultural production in the Middle Ages was relatively backward, and farmers could go hungry even during the harvest season, not to mention the ubiquity of plague, war, famine and death, even the good afterlife preached by the Church could not eradicate the suffering of the present. However, contrary to what people think today, the people of the Middle Ages may not be more miserable than we are today, and one of the ways they used to face misfortune was ridicule and irony. In a medieval poetry collection, The Poetry of Bran, this verse is left:
How can six hundred eldest sons be enough to spend, unscrupulous and unrestrained. We are all blissful drunkards at the mercy of others to insult us and we have long been destitute.
Entertainment life in the Middle Ages
After all, no matter how much misfortune there is, life goes on, as did the romans, and so did the people of the Middle Ages. Therefore, in the eyes of today's people, the serious and hard-line medieval church not only did not suppress this kind of entertainment, but supported and encouraged such activities, and even many lords and church people would take the initiative to engage in this kind of entertainment with their subjects, after all, if they want to let the horses run and not let the horses graze, then they must make the horses have some fun.
April Fools' Day in France was more famous in the Middle Ages, and many people even believe that April Fools' Day originated in France. In these foolish activities, the lords and serious monks who were usually high up in the day were involved with the commoners. For example, the election of the "Fool King" can be participated in by both commoners, nobles and monks, and the participants play and tease the elected "Fool King" in various ways.
This type of prank in the Middle Ages was mostly related to religion, such as having the elected march on a donkey (because the donkey was once Jesus' mount); if a woman was elected, they had the woman hold a child, which was obviously imitating the Virgin Mary holding Jesus. Although it is an imitation of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, but such a scene occurs on April Fool's Day, it is not sacred and solemn at all, and the revelers surround their "Jesus" and "Mary", marching throughout the city, singing and dancing, indulging in drinking, and many people will learn to donkey call when the procession passes, and the whole city is filled with happy air.
You know, women and children can not participate in public activities on weekdays, bishops and nobles obviously do not mix with the common people on weekdays, and Jesus and the Virgin Mary will be parody, so it can be seen that for the people of the Middle Ages, April Fool's Day is a festival that specifically opposes the taboos of the day, a window for the commoners to vent their dissatisfaction with daily life, and the only festival in the hierarchical society of the Middle Ages that can connect people from all walks of life.
Scenes of medieval civilian revelry
Of course, the church is not happy to see such an ungodly scene, but April Fool's Day is so fun that many church people enjoy it. In 1394, France tried to ban such ungodly entertainment, but it was rejected by protests from the nobility to the church to the common people, and even some church people supported April Fool's Day, claiming that people's laughter was the embodiment of people's piety, and the louder they laughed, the more pious they were. Other clergy believed that proper entertainment did not hinder the piety of the people, and they often quoted a famous saying by saint John, "The bow that has always been stretched is easy to break."
Of course, we can also guess that in fact, lower priests prefer to participate in April Fool's Day, and in some places, April Fool's Day is not to play the king or Jesus and Mary, but to elect "Fool Pope" or "Fool Bishop". However, the parody bishops are not always angry, and it is said that before his death, a bishop specifically instructed others to leave his bishop's robe for April Fools' Day. Since most of the festivals in the Middle Ages were attended by religious people, in fact, in most of the medieval April Fools' Day, the priests were the main force of revelry.
A boy elected "Bishop of Fools"
Not only did the clergy love April Fool's Day, but the nobles also loved April Fool's Day, and even many kings loved April Fool's Day, such as King Henry III of France. As long as there was such an event, Henry III would take a group of retinues to the streets to party, often staying up all night. By the time of Henry III, it was already the late sixteenth century, and the church's attitude towards April Fool's Day had become more and more severe, and many priests had openly criticized Henry III's practices, and the king responded by asking them all to attend April Fool's Day.
However, the atmosphere at that time was very different from that in the Middle Ages, and the scenes of nobles and commoners entertaining each other in the Middle Ages were difficult to see, especially Henry III, a wayward king, who only allowed him to tease others, and could not let others chase him. It is said that he was only allowed to wear a mask on the occasion of his appearance, and that everyone else would wear a mask and be removed by him, thus indicating that he alone had the power to prank others. He often rushed into a crowd of revelers, took off their hats and masks, and was happier if someone was washed down by him or fell into the water. Although Henry III's gameplay was too selfish, after his death, April Fool's Day declined rapidly because there was no one to support him in France.
Henry III, who was passionate about April Fools' Day
Russia is on the borders of Europe, and April Fool's Day is declining more slowly than the rest of Europe, so by the 18th century, the famous Russian Tsar Peter I was also a lover of April Fool's Day. The Russians played a similar game to the rest of Europe, also electing a "Fool Pope", but unlike other places in Europe, the "Fool Pope" was not the object of amusement, and people would make a big fuss in the city under the leadership of the "Fool Pope", no matter who they wanted to go to to make trouble.
Peter was not as domineering as Henry III, and if someone else became the "Pope of Fools," he obediently obeyed orders. If it was Peter's turn to be elected, he would show his mischievous genius. Once, after he became the "Pope of Fools," he ordered a couple of his subjects to marry, and then involuntarily locked the man and the woman in a cave house. If you think it's going to be a good thing next, you don't know the spirit of April Fool's Day. Peter and the others would peek behind the door, then knock it open and grab the groom out and put him in a wine barrel and throw him into the Neva River (he was finally rescued).
Tsar Peter I of Russia
Ironically, however, it was the modern European culture introduced by Peter the Great, who was so keen on April Fool's Day, that led to the decline of April Fool's Day in Russia, which had already declined in Europe before that. After Peter's death, court culture from Europe became the mainstream of Russian elite culture, and the folk April Fool's day culture was quickly lost.
The first to attack Fool's Entertainment were religious forces, and we know that many of the religious currents that arose during the Reformation were against entertainment, such as Calvinism and puritanism in England. They regard this type of entertainment as immoral, believing that it is this type of entertainment that has led to the corruption and degeneration of the Catholic Church. For example, under the rule of Calvin, the religious reformer known as the "Pope of Geneva", singing, drinking and playing the piano were immoral, not to mention the foolish April Fool's Day.
Reformation pioneer Calvin
Interestingly, in Catholic circles, fool's entertainment is also discriminated against, for a slightly more complicated reason. Because during the Reformation, all kinds of reformers criticized the corruption and degeneration of catholicism, saying that Catholicism was influenced by pagan traditions. So in 1562, the Catholic Church held a doctrinal assembly to discuss the issue, the famous Twenty-second Tarent Conference. The conclusion of the discussion was that the Catholic Church should be reorganized and should not be given a handle on the Reformers, especially the clergy who should lead by example and put an end to all forms of immoral entertainment. In other words, it was precisely to show that it was more "religious" and more "orthodox" than Protestantism that the Catholic Church began to purify itself. Since then, the entire Catholic world has also begun to oppose Fool's entertainment, and April Fool's Day elections, jokes and mischief have been banned by order.
At the Tarrant Assembly, the Catholic Church officially issued the April Fool's Day ban
By the Age of Enlightenment, one of the themes of the Enlightenment was to criticize the church and superstitions in the Middle Ages, but this did not lead to a revival of fool's entertainment. Instead, one of the themes of the Age of Enlightenment was "reason," which required people to be self-disciplined and to guide life with sound reason. In this way, the entertainment of fools with banters, ironies and pranks seemed vulgar and vulgar to people in the Age of Enlightenment and beyond. As a result, fool's entertainment, which originated in the middle of the Middle Ages, was simultaneously opposed by the Reformation forces, Catholic conservative forces and Enlightenment forces, and declined.
Salon activities of the Age of Enlightenment
This is not to say, however, that fools with a long historical tradition have disappeared. In fact, the church, reformers, and Enlightenment rejected April Fool's Day in fact a division between the entire elite and the common people in terms of entertainment. Due to the increasing stigmatization of April Fool's Day, the aristocratic elite and intellectuals have come to feel that such fools' pranks are entertainment activities that cannot be put on the table by the lower classes, and that they, as gentlemen and decent people, should pursue a nobler and more civilized way of life, rather than mixing with the common people. Thus the medieval carnival of fools, in which commoners and nobles and monks participated together, breaking down class distinctions, gradually disappeared. Elites are passionate about entertainment that can show their identity, such as salons, operas, horse racing. Since then, April Fool's Day has gradually become a holiday for ordinary people to joke with each other.
The Victorian elite were keen on horse racing, a pastime that was difficult for civilians to attend
People today always think that entertainment is a pastime after eating enough to support, but the more desperate and helpless life is, the more entertainment and laughter are needed. The decline of April Fool's Day in modern times is not just a repression of the church, but also because the traditional social hierarchy is disintegrating. If the people of the Middle Ages needed a carnival to break down class barriers because of the insurmountable hierarchy, modern times offered a new culture by providing people with a channel to ascend: the elite formed their own way of life, while the middle class began to imitate the way of life of the upper class, consciously alienating the lower classes. If people in the Middle Ages rejoiced because of hopelessness, today we are anxious because of hope.
1. Leslie Adkins, Roy Adkins. Zhang Nan, Wang Yue, Fan Xiulin, translated: Exploring Ancient Roman Civilization, The Commercial Press, 2008.
2. Tang Yunguan, "Games and the Social Evolution of France in the 11th-17th Centuries", Doctoral Dissertation, Zhejiang University, 2013.
3. Shen Jian, Tang Yunguan, "Festival Games and "Community" Life", Journal of Zhejiang University, 2013.
4. Zhan Quanyou, He Haitao: The Biography of Peter the Great, Hubei Dictionary Publishing House.
(Author: Dr. Haoran Wenshi Next Door Xiao wang)
This article is the original work of Wenshi Science Popularization Self-media Haoran Wenshi, and unauthorized reprinting is prohibited!
The pictures used in the text are from the Internet, if there is infringement, please contact the author to delete, thank you!
We will provide you with wonderful historical articles every day, and we kindly ask all readers and friends to pay attention to our account! Your likes, retweets, comments, this is the best support for us!