Feast of Fools
/It’s the end of the year, so let’s make some resolutions - to turn the world upside down! So we’re taking inspiration from the Medieval festival known as the Feast of Fools. We talk about its origins, how it was celebrated, and why we should absolutely bring it back.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of enslavement, sexuality, queerphobia, religious persecution, and racism.
Housekeeping
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Send in those urban legend emails as you head home for the holidays!
- Submit Your Urban Legends Audio: Call us! 617-420-2344
Find Us Online
- Website & Transcripts: spiritspodcast.com
- Patreon: patreon.com/spiritspodcast
- Merch: spiritspodcast.com/merch
- Instagram: instagram.com/spiritspodcast
- Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/spiritspodcast.com
- Twitter: twitter.com/spiritspodcast
- Tumblr: spiritspodcast.tumblr.com
Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And Amanda, Happy New Year's Eve!
AMANDA: Happy New Year's Eve, girl. What are you doing?
JULIA: Hopefully nothing. We're recording this, obviously, ahead of time. I'm hoping I'm doing nothing on New Year's Eve this year.
AMANDA: Yeah. I'm hanging out with a BFF, friend of the show, Leslie and her husband Chuck. [0:51] And I was like, "Hey, can I come over on New Year's Eve?" And she's like, "Uh—" and I was like, "I want to watch Jeopardy and go to bed by, like, 10 o'clock." And she goes, "Yes. Yes, you can."
JULIA: I hope that everyone listening to this has a relaxing New Year's Eve if that's what you want, and a absolutely buck wild one if that's what you want as well. But, hey, 2025, certainly a hell of a year, huh?
AMANDA: Julia, I want to lamb the door, bolt it shut, put a salt circle or a salt line over the thresholds, and maybe sprinkle some rue in there, the herb, just to make sure nothing could come back in.
JULIA: That's fair. That's fair. And as we wrap up on this year, Amanda, I've been thinking a lot about how we tend to celebrate the beginning and ends of years. Like in general, like we were just talking about, we tend to throw parties. We'll get a little bit drunk. We'll reflect on how the year went and how the year ahead of us is going to take shape. We think about the things that we want to bring forward with us, the things that we want to leave behind, the things we want to change, right? And in thinking about that, I wanted to highlight a New Year's tradition that maybe people have heard about in passing before, but might not be familiar with the specifics. So, Amanda, I have to ask you, as I always do at the beginning of every episode, have you heard of the Feast of Fools?
AMANDA: Sure haven't, but I'm excited to learn.
JULIA: I think you'll be very excited to learn. My argument in general for this episode is going to be, we need to bring it back.
AMANDA: Okay. And I will say, Julia, you have really helped me get into tarot over the last year, and the Fool is a card that I feel really strongly about. So I'm excited to see if there are any parallels between the Fool and the Feast of Fools.
JULIA: Exactly. The Fool as a tarot card is all about, like, new beginnings and stepping forward without being burdened by, like, the knowledge of your past. It's why it's like the zero card in a tarot deck. So I really like the Fool as a card. But Amanda, the Feast of Fools was a festival during the Middle Ages, usually held on or around January 1st. This festival was particularly popular in southern France, but we do have some references made to it being celebrated in various locales across central Europe, mainly France, but there are stories here and there across central Europe. Now, the defining aspects of the Feast of Fools is that each year, essentially, a mock bishop or a pope, sometimes it was a king, sometimes it was a lord, would be elected among the people, church ritual would be parodied, and essentially those who are low status would become high status, and those who were high status would become low status.
AMANDA: I love— this is beginning to ring some bells and I think I am very excited to hear more about it because I agree, particularly in this year, Julia, I— let's just do it all the opposite and see if it's better.
JULIA: I strongly agree. So a decent amount of scholars believe that this is sort of a, like, Christian adaptation of Saturnalia, which is something that we've talked about on the podcast before, which is a mid-December Roman festival that celebrated the god Saturn with activities like feasting, gift-giving, and the flipping of social hierarchies. Like quite literally, Amanda, enslaved people were allowed as much liberty during Saturnalia as possible and according to the ancient Roman historian Justinus, "It had been ordered that at Saturnalia slaves should everywhere sit down with their masters at the entertainments, the rank of all being made equal."
AMANDA: Not enough, but a good start, you know what I mean?
JULIA: Definitely a good start. So you can kind of see where the Feast of Fools might have been a little bit adapted from Saturnalia, right? And we'll talk a little bit more about it later. But the first reference that we have to the Feast of Fools comes out of the 12th century, more on that later. And it evolved in the 13th century into essentially like a parody production, a burlesque, if you will. Not the sexy striptease kind, but the sort of like over the top, almost absurdist definition of what burlesque is.
AMANDA: I wasn't familiar with that, but I am going to Google that after this recording.
JULIA: Yes, if you Google burlesque, yes, you will get the definition that is like a little bit of a striptease, but also it can be like a over the top parody, which I think is really interesting.
AMANDA: Oh, cool.
JULIA: So essentially, this was a comically exaggerated production of Christian morality and worship.
AMANDA: Hmm. We know all about the Christian morality plays, Julia. That was a fundamental part of High School Theater 101.
JULIA: It was indeed, it was indeed. And as you can imagine, the church didn't love that. And there was definitely a lot of backlash that led to prohibitions and penalties imposed for celebrating the Feast of Fools. But honestly, if we're going to summarize the history of it, it still managed to sort of not die out entirely until the 16th century.
AMANDA: I'm also hearing that drag has been around as long as people have been around.
JULIA: Amanda, drag plays a very important role in the Feast of Fools.
AMANDA: Yes!
JULIA: Now, we are going to dig more into the Feast of Fools, but before we do that, I gotta talk to you about the scholarly discourse, TM, around the Feast of Fools.
AMANDA: Let's go. Ooh, Julia, it's like you edit a history podcast and it really shows this guy sucked.
JULIA: It really does. It really does. So the first real kind of, like, quintessential book that was written about the Feast of Fools was called Feast of Fools by Harvey Cox. It was written in 1969. And for the long time, this was like the definitive text.
AMANDA: Are you pranking me, Harvey Cox in 1969?
JULIA: Harvey Cox in 1969, Feast of Fools.
AMANDA: Are you sure he wasn't a drag queen?
JULIA: I'm— I can't confirm or deny, honestly.
AMANDA: All right. Okay. It's open.
JULIA: So Cox particularly writes about some of the more interesting aspects of the Feast of Fools. So, like, the topsy-turvy nature of the social order, the period of misrule, really highlighting that this is a period of, like, mirth and play among an otherwise fairly sober and restrained society.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Now, I'm going to actually read to you how Cox describes the Feast of Fools in the opening of this book.
AMANDA: In 1969.
JULIA: In 1969. "On that colorful occasion, usually celebrated about January 1st, even ordinarily pious priests and serious townsfolk donned body masks, sang outrageous ditties, and generally kept the whole world awake with revelry and satire. Minor clerics painted their faces, strutted about in the robes of their superiors, and mocked the stately rituals of church and court. Sometimes a lord of misrule, a mock king, or a boy bishop was elected to preside over the events. In some places, the boy bishop even celebrated a parody mass. During the Feast of Fools, no custom or convention was immune to ridicule, and even the highest personages of the realm could expect to be lampooned."
AMANDA: We need this, Julia. We're eight minutes into this recording. I am so there.
JULIA: I know, I know, right? Like, I cannot wait to talk about how much we need this again nowadays.
AMANDA: So cool!
JULIA: So this is Harvey Cox's description of The Feast of Fools. He goes on for several hundred pages more about The Feast of Fools. But then in 2011, Max Harris came on the scene with his book called Sacred Folly. Now, Sacred Folly was basically written in direct response to Cox's Feast of Fools. And essentially what he argues is that over the years, academics have placed too much emphasis on the reports and responses to the feast by clergy from the Middle Ages.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: Basically what he's arguing is that their writings from these, like, priests who are being like, "Oh, the Feast of Fools," are like the equivalent to a modern-day conservative op-ed writer that inflates what they've, like, only ever heard tell about or something that they don't like very much and then turns that into a full-blown panic.
AMANDA: Yes. If Tipper Gore is like, "Rap music is going to make our kids, you know, die of drug overdoses," or whatever bullshit she was saying, then if historians only read the backlash, they'd be like, "I guess all music was really insane." But that's assuming that their premise is true and that's a lot of the work of history.
JULIA: Yeah, there's a lot of modern equivalents to this. The— they're putting litter boxes in schools thing.
AMANDA: Oh, God.
JULIA: You know, like there's a lot of stuff that is very much like this. So Harris basically argues that actually the Feast of Fools wasn't that big of a deal. It didn't have that much impact on society and it wasn't really celebrated as widely as previous scholars had claimed. That being said, a lot of reviews of his book claim that Harris kind of overcorrected his argument. So—
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: —my understanding reading both some of Cox's writing and some of Harris' writing is I think it probably sits somewhere in the middle of the reality of the situation. So as we go through the episode, keep that in mind because I think that'll help us have a better shape of what the Feast of Fools most likely looked like.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: All right, let's get into it. Like I already mentioned, the Feast of Fools was most likely inspired by a combination of two festivals, Saturnalia, which we talked about already, which was celebrated in mid-December. And then something called Calends. Calends is the first day of any month in the ancient Roman world. And actually, it's where we get the modern word for calendar.
AMANDA: No way.
JULIA: Exactly, which is kind of cool, honestly.
AMANDA: You know I love etymology.
JULIA: I know you do. As the first of the month, it was considered a day of religious observation and civic announcements, though there were, like, different Calends throughout the rest of the year. So different months had different traditions, right? So you'd have a Calend of December and a Calend of October. They would be very different. So the Calend that we're talking about is the January Calend, which was celebrated with gift-giving and revelry.
AMANDA: Hey.
JULIA: Also, honoring the for some reason. Not sure why. Saturnalia, as I mentioned, had those upheavals of the social hierarchy and also some activities that were not appropriate or not considered appropriate during the rest of the year, such as gambling and of course, lots and lots of drinking. So combining these two types of celebration, you can kind of very clearly see the shape of what the Feast of Fools would sort of form into, right? And even after pagan worship began to decline in ancient Rome and Christianity was on the rise, those sorts of festivals, especially the Calends, continued to be celebrated. I love when we take the, Lol, It's Not Pagan, It's Fine, right, of Christianity and sort of turn it—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —into something that we can be like, "No, no, no, this is Christian now, it's fine."
AMANDA: Yeah, don't worry.
JULIA: Even by 400 CE, Amanda, Catholic bishops were complaining about these celebrations. And one of the things that they were particularly pissed about was that the worshippers were dressing up and impersonating pagan gods.
AMANDA: Ah. You can dress up and impersonate a bishop, but when we actually instantiate pagan gods, that's a little bit much.
JULIA: And don't worry, I have a quote about that, for sure. There was a bishop during this time period. He was in power during the fifth century. His name was Bishop Peter Chrysologus. So he complained that these revelers would "Fashion Saturn, make Jove, form Hercules, exhibit Diana and her slaves, lead Vulcan around roaring out tales of his obscenities, and there are even more, they turn men into women."
AMANDA: Hey!
JULIA: "And a human being is turned into an idol."
AMANDA: I mean, that sounds really fun.
JULIA: Amanda, next line I had, I said, "I don't know, man. Sounds pretty funny to me."
AMANDA: Let's go, sign me up.
JULIA: But what really seemed to piss off the clergy members probably wasn't even the pagan worship. I mean, it was the pagan worship, but there were other things besides that. But it was also the fact that they would bring their revelry from door to door and they didn't seem to care if the houses they were visiting were Christian or not.
AMANDA: From a clergy's perspective, it is idolatry in the most, like, textbook sense and evangelizing for the pagan gods, essentially.
JULIA: Sure is. So some clergy members even wrote that they believed that these celebrations were being done in direct opposition to Christian worship celebrations and ritual.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: As sort of, like, essentially counterprogramming to them. I don't know how accurate that was or if they were— just had a little bit of like an inferiority complex because this sounds way more fun than any Christian feast I've been to.
AMANDA: Yeah, it's giving not everything is about you.
JULIA: It sure is, it sure is. In general, it seemed like folks just wanted to keep the party going, right? But by the time that the 12th century rolled around, the Calend celebrations were no longer being openly worshipped, but that didn't mean that January 1st celebrations were entirely gone, because the 12th century is where we get our first mention of the Feast of Fools.
AMANDA: Yay!
JULIA: So this first mention, by name, comes from a French theologian named Jean Beleth. He wrote probably these letters around— either 1160 to 1164. So he said, "The Feast of the Subdeacons, which we call of fools by some is executed on the circumcision, January 1st, but by others on the epiphany, January 6th, or its octave." Now, you might be wondering what the hell a subdeacon is and kind of where they fall—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —in the hierarchy of the clergy, right? Okay.
AMANDA: Not gonna lie, I'm kind of incredibly entranced by that job title and I love it.
JULIA: So in 1207, subdeacons were defined by the church as "the most junior" of the major clerical orders rather than the most senior of the minor clerical orders.
AMANDA: Smallest fish, biggest pond.
JULIA: Exactly. Now, at this point in Central European history, there were plenty of Christian feasts, particularly ones that honored priests and deacons and other members of the clergy. But not necessarily the subdeacons, because again, lowest order here. So this is why the Feast of Fools first is sort of highlighted by the church in their writing, not because they necessarily have an objection to it, at least not yet, but otherwise, Beleth leaves the elements of the feast overall unspecified, except to mention that the subdeacons were involved. So at this point, we have no real reason to think that it is anything more than an ordinary feast other than the fact that it's honoring the lowest tier of these major clerical orders.
AMANDA: It's the summer analyst party for the investment banking summer interns, Julia.
JULIA: Okay. Interesting.
AMANDA: There's the summer party for the regular bankers. There's a summer party for the senior bankers. The salespeople have their own. And then they're kind of like, "I don't know, give the cheapest thing and not an open bar, but a limited bar tab to the interns."
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: That's my parallel.
JULIA: My issue, though, Amanda, when I was first doing this research is like, okay, Beleth refers to the subdeacons as fools. Does he mean it in the way that we mean fool in a modern sense? Yes and no. Okay. So from a Christian perspective, there are two different definitions of a fool, which the first is, yes, the modern way that we understand a fool to be, though of course, with religious implications. So for Christianity, a fool is someone who lacks wisdom and despises instruction. Though, of course, the church makes the distinction of this, meaning they specifically despise biblical instruction and also they do not believe in the Christian God. So essentially, all atheists or non-Christians fools according to the church.
AMANDA: Right. And not someone who's not been converted or hasn't sort of heard the word, but somebody who— it's— been attempted to tell them, and then they're like, "Hmm, I don't think so."
JULIA: Yeah, and then they go, "Bah!" And then they move on with their lives.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: But also, there is the biblical fool, which is someone who is a fool chosen by God because of their lack of worldly status. And this is sometimes specified as a "holy fool" right?
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: It's mentioned by St. Paul and he goes on to further define it for us, which is in a quote, "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one may boast in the presence of God."
AMANDA: Okay. I mean, listen—
JULIA: All right.
AMANDA: —say what you will, but St. Paul dropped bars.
JULIA: Every once in a while, he will. Listen, not a great guy, but did drop bars sometimes.
AMANDA: Unfortunately, that does happen sometimes.
JULIA: So under this definition, the Feast of Fools is not honoring those who do not believe in God, but rather those who are lowly status. So how this manifested in the Feast of Fools kind of varied from congregation to congregation. So in some places, the "Bishop of Fools" was a person who was elected to run the festivities and was one of the more, like, youthful leaders of the church, as opposed to the more senior members of the church. In other places, it was simply that the subdeacons were given a more important role to play in church liturgy and worship, but their normal ranks were then restored by the end of the feast. But as time went on, Amanda, it seems like the feast tended to get a little bit more festive, for lack of a better phrase. In 1169, it was noted that one church had added an outdoor processional to their activities, as well as a choral dance that was put on by members of the congregation.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Another church noted in a inventory done in 1410 that there was, "A staff of painted wood topped with an ivory apple, which is called the staff of the Feast of Fools."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So people were like, you know, starting to get a little more jiggy with it, it seems.
AMANDA: And I also— I feel my hackles going up a little bit, Julia, because this sounds like what we do to honor Christ over Christmas.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: If we had the nativity plays, if we had a little processional outside, if we had, you know, just a little, like— some nice choral music around the birth of the Lord. I see how some bishops might be thinking, "Uh-oh. This is not— we're not worshiping equal things here."
JULIA: You know what happens when people start having a little too much fun, Amanda?
AMANDA: Hmm. They stop being so pious?
JULIA: The church wants to shut that shit down.
AMANDA: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And we will talk a little bit more about the church trying to shut that shit down just as soon as we grab our refill.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
[theme]
AMANDA: Hey, everybody, it's Amanda and welcome to the refill, where first and foremost, I would love to thank our newest patrons, Ember Solis and Kate F. [20:29] Thank you so, so much for putting some of your hard-earned money to use helping us make Spirits. We really appreciate it and we couldn't do it without you. We also couldn't do it without our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Hannah, Scott, Anne, Matthew, Lily, and Wil. And our legend-level patrons, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Audra, Sarah, Bea Me Up Scotty, Morgan, Bex, Rikoelike, Chibi Yokai, and Michael. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And if you, listening right now, would like to have your name read here on Spirits, if you want ad-free episodes, if you want director's commentary, printable recipe cards, alcoholic and non-alcoholic for every dang episode, join us at patreon.com/spirits podcast. We have a brand-new bonus urban legends episode, by the way. Coming right for you today, actually, that you listen to this episode. So it's going to be fabulous. And if you think, "Gosh, I wish I had more Spirits every month," that's your way. It is almost a new year, and I am so proud of all of the work that we have put into Spirits this year. It's been a very challenging year for me, for all of us in different ways, and we love doing this. We love doing this as our job. One thing that would really help us, besides your support on Patreon, is growing our audience. We've been doing this thing almost 10 dang years, and we want to make sure that more folks are joining us for our second decade than have been here in our first. So if you, listening right now, can think of someone in your life who would enjoy our creepy, cool times, you should text them. Text them the link to spiritspodcast.com. Text them an episode that you are enjoying. Maybe this episode. I hope so. I really enjoyed it. And say, "Hey, become my Spirits buddy, listen with me every Wednesday." And that would just really warm my heart. So please do it. Thank you. We appreciate you. And we can't do it without you y'all. All kinds of good stuff happening over at Multitude, our podcast collective, including brand-new episodes and a year ahead forecast in Pale Blue Pod. This is an astronomy podcast for people who are overwhelmed by the universe, but want to be its friend. Hosted by astrophysicist, Dr. Moiya McTier and her best friend, ConStar. They demystify space one topic at a time with open eyes, open arms, and open mouths from all the, like, awe and laughing and jaw-dropping. Especially if you are somebody who's kind of, like, overwhelmed or maybe even a little freaked out by space, this show is specifically for you. At the end of every episode, you will feel like space is less scary and more cool. New episodes come out every Monday and I promise you're gonna love it. Go listen to Pale Blue Pod.
SPEAKER 3: [23:09] Hi, we're the fans of the podcast Girls Who Don't DnD.
SPEAKER 4: [23:13] A show that took three women—
SPEAKER 5: [23:14] Who've never played Dungeons & Dragons before.
SPEAKER 6: [23:16] And threw them deep into a world of magic and make-believe.
SPEAKER 7: [23:19] With nothing but a handful of dice.
SPEAKER 8: [23:20] And a truckload of misplaced confidence to protect them.
SPEAKER 9: [23:23] And why did they ask to do the ad?
SPEAKER 10: [23:24] Because we're in it, too. Join the show that takes you from this—
SPEAKER 11: [23:28] We need to, like, roll the dice to see if I can do that.
SPEAKER 12: [23:30] To this.
SPEAKER 13: [23:30] For I am the Lord of Lightning and you will burn.
SPEAKER 14: [23:35] Girls Who Don't DnD.
SPEAKER 15: [23:37] Find them now wherever you listen to podcasts.
AMANDA: This episode is sponsored by Marley Spoon. This time of year, a lot of people talk about getting into new routines and making new commitments. And the thing that makes that actually stick for me is making sure it is an easy part of my day. And one reason that I really appreciate Marley Spoon's prepared meals is that when I get home from work and I am way too tired to do anything, it helps me stick to my routine. They're convenient, delicious, and on the table in minutes. You'll find these on every weekly menu, and if you have a few extra minutes, they even have some great 20-minute options, too. I really like their tray-baked dinners, by the way. It's one of those recipes where you put everything on one sheet pan and then you're done. They even include a tray, which is incredibly useful when I don't have the energy to do dishes. This new year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley Spoon. Head to marleyspoon.com/offer/spirits for up to 25 free meals. That's right. Up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon, marleyspoon.com/offer/spirits for up to 25 free meals.
[theme]
JULIA: We are back. And I left us off, Amanda, with that mention of a staff that was topped with an ivory apple known as the Staff of the Feast of Fools, right? And so I had this image in my mind as I was devising what our cocktail should be for this episode. And I wanted to highlight an ingredient that I've been growing a lot more fond of lately, which is Applejack. It is a great spirit for autumn and winter, in my opinion and so I'm going to use it for a twist on a cocktail that is known as the Forbidden Apple. Now, normally, this is made with French apple brandy but I'm going to swap in the Applejack for that. And I would recommend to you the Laird's Apple Jack if you can find it at your local liquor store, or if not, you can order it online and worth the investment, in my opinion. But this cocktail is an ounce of Applejack, a bit of Grand Marnier or Triple Sec, a couple of dashes of bitters. You can use Angostura or you can mix things up and use like a black walnut bitters, I would say, as well. And then you top all of that off with champagne.
AMANDA: It is so tasty. It really seems like I am at a holiday soiree, and I love this invention. Good job.
JULIA: Like, listen, I think it's festive. I think it feels like a cocktail that you can toast with on New Year's Eve, but it also feels appropriate for our Feast of Fools here. So just don't have too many or you'll start acting like a fool.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: However, it seems like it was the church that was acting a bit of the fool when they started complaining about the Feast of Fools. Now, we start seeing complaints, like formal official complaints coming out of the church towards the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century. Now, going back to our buddy Max Harris, Harris doesn't believe that this was because the Feast of Fools was widespread or anything like that during this time, but more it was just clergymen finding something to complain about.
AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, it becomes a pet issue.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. So part of that is because we don't have any documented evidence of the Feast of Fools popping up outside of France until 1222, but it was enough of a concern that it kept cropping up here and there in these letters. So probably the best account that we have of what was really concerning the clergy though, came over 200 years later in a 1445 letter that was written by the faculty of theology at the University of Paris.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: This is a wild letter, Amanda. So they wrote that they were compelled to "describe how much we abhor and how much we execrate a certain kind of ritual of merriment, which is called by its organizers, the Feast of Fools."
AMANDA: This is the most "bah humbug" start to a letter I have ever heard in my life.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "Too much merriment."
JULIA: So it goes on to describe the activities that supposedly happened at the feast, "Priests and clerks may be seen wearing masks and monstrous visages at the hours of office. They dance in the choir dressed as women, panders or minstrels."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "They sing wanton songs. They eat black puddings at the horn of the altar while the celebrant is saying mass. They play at dice there. They sense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: We'll talk about it, one second. "They run and leap through the church without a blush at their own shame. Finally, they drive about the town and its theaters in shabby traps and carts and rouse the laughter of their fellows and bystanders in infamous performances with indecent gestures and verses scurrilous and unchaste."
AMANDA: This is like a manifesto of how I want to live my 2026, to be perfectly honest.
JULIA: No, and this is great because couple of fun things of note from just that list. This reminds me of all of the traditions that we've talked about over the past month or so, re folklore traditions surrounding Christmas, but are not inherently tied to Christmas, right?
AMANDA: Yes, like bringing some merriment out to the town square, knock on your neighbor's doors, make them laugh.
JULIA: Yes, the burning of the shoes, which we specifically talked about in the Kallikantzaros episode.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: The celebrations that we talked about in the past re Krampus and the other winter spirits—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —where they wear like monstrous masks and parade through the town. And of course, we talked about this last year, but the going door to door performing songs and jokes is very much like the Marie Lloyd.
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: And again, like I mentioned earlier in the episode, the gambling and the feasting very similar to Calends and Saturnalia.
AMANDA: I have to be honest, Julia, the raised in a Catholic family little heart of me did shiver when they said gambling at the altar. Part of me was like, "Okay, that's a little bit too far."
JULIA: They can't do that. No.
AMANDA: They can't do that. But they can't do that. They can't eat figgy pudding at the horn of the altar. I know it's black pudding, but— you know?
JULIA: This letter from the University of Paris goes on, essentially saying that good Christians shouldn't participate in these celebrations and also some other stuff that they shouldn't do that they think helps encourage the Feast of Fools. So for example—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: No election of a bishop or an archbishop or a pope of fools to lead the festivities.
AMANDA: Yeah, you can't elect a president or else he's gonna do something.
JULIA: If one is elected, they definitely shouldn't be allowed to wear a bishop or pope's insignia, nor carry a staff like those offices typically do.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: The bishop/archbishop/pope of fools shouldn't be allowed to give out blessings.
AMANDA: But it's so funny. If they're dressed like a pope, they gotta give a little blessing.
JULIA: And the clergy, Amanda, that may or may not be involved in all this, they definitely shouldn't be using this as an excuse to not wear their clerical vestments in the church and definitely not dresses. They can't wear dresses.
AMANDA: Come on, though. Dresses are so close to vestments.
JULIA: No one should be dancing or eating during mass and definitely not around the altar, like you pointed out.
AMANDA: Fair.
JULIA: These priests, when outside the church, sure as shit shouldn't be dressing up like laypeople and definitely not fools, acting like fools, and again, should absolutely not be wearing masks, makeup, women's clothes, or participating in any plays or games where they act like other people, essentially, especially not in public and especially not in front of a large crowd.
AMANDA: Yeah, just point into all the stuff that makes this fun and saying, "Not that."
JULIA: Exactly. Exactly. So again, if we're giving our boy Harris that benefit of the doubt, this could just be one or two priests who were having a bit of fun with their congregation and upset some of the higher ups by doing so. And this letter is not the result of this, like, rampant issue, but rather just a couple of priests with a grudge over their colleagues, having a little bit of festive holiday spirit, right? But it was enough for them to write this, you know, all caps, strongly worded letter over.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
Julia : So it's not nothing, right? It's not nothing.
AMANDA: Not nothing.
JULIA: But Harris does think that there were different events that were sort of glommed together to create this idea of the larger Feast of Fools that, otherwise, may have been misinterpreted by the church or by later scholars.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So essentially, he argues that there is a difference between, like, unofficially sanctioned Feast of Fool celebration that was held by the church and secular activities that seem to coincide with the Feast of Fools, which may or may not have been celebrated to serve as, like, rival attractions to what the church was organizing.
AMANDA: Gotcha.
JULIA: Now, we do have a few examples, starting first with the ones that were endorsed by the clergy and were, for all intents and purposes, fairly, orderly, and tame, I would say.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: So the first, we'll talk about is in the city of Sens in France, we have records of some condemnation of costume wearing and disguises, especially the clergy partaking in the wearing of costumes.
AMANDA: I just— love the idea that it's like, "It's un-Christian to disguise yourself."
JULIA: Exactly. It's like, "You're supposed to be a priest. You don't dress in any other clothes besides priest clothes."
AMANDA: And, like, again, I get it, like you dedicate your life to the church. Like, oh, yes, I get it, but it is so funny, it is so funny to be like, "But your clothes is priest. Your job is priest. Your job is God."
JULIA: "Your job is priest, buddy, so why don't you keep doing your job as priest?"
AMANDA: Never not priest.
JULIA: Amanda, this one's really funny too because they're like, "Stop wearing costumes, guys. That's not how we celebrate our festivities." But then also by all accounts, this time of year, we have records of the church ordering large orders of wine.
AMANDA: "We can revel, but no costumes, guys."
JULIA: Exactly. So, like, there were sizable amounts of the annual church budget that were clearly being put aside for the Feast of Fools. And, like, because we have records of that budget, we can also see that the budget went up year after year.
AMANDA: Like, "Okay, last year, no notes, except we did run out of wine a little bit too early."
JULIA: So, like, essentially, because we have these records, we can see that the celebrations kept getting larger and more elaborate. I just need to take an aside here. I love history. I think it's so cool the way that historians are able to come to conclusions from primary sources like this. It's fascinating. It's so great.
AMANDA: My love of it has been stoked and encouraged by yours, Julia. And it also makes me very happy as a spreadsheet girly that we can learn so much from accounting, so much of what we know about the past is record keeping and operations and just, like, the mundane tallying of the stuff of life. And this is a great example of that.
JULIA: It really is. I have another example also from France. In Châlons-en-Champagne, formal preparations for the Feast of Fools were noted to take place while mass was being served on December 31st of every year.
AMANDA: Like, people kind of below stairs doing it in the background?
JULIA: Kind of. So basically during mass, during this, like, evening mass on December 31st, the magister baculi, which is literally like— is the master of the staff, would put together a list of subdeacons and clerks who would serve in official roles. And then he would gather up all the clergy members, including those clerks and the choir boys, and they would elect their "bishop."
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: Okay. Rather than it being a bishop of fools, though, this is one of the churches that referred to their elected bishop as the boy bishop, because it usually would be like a young clerk or a choir boy, right?
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah.
JULIA: So once the boy bishop was elected, the company would then lead the boy bishop to the altar where one of the subdeacon "fools" would read a verse and then he would get to sit in the bishop's place, which is wild that you're just sitting like, essentially a choir boy on the bishop's, like, honorary fucking throne, right?
AMANDA: Yeah, for real.
JULIA: And then the bishop— the boy bishop would lead vespers all while assisted by the subdeacon fools.
AMANDA: It's like when you put a baby behind the wheel of a car and you're like, "The baby's driving the truck."
JULIA: It is. So the argument here is this one is a little bit less, like, parody and wanton foolishness as described in that University of Paris letter, but more like— it's like, "Oh, the boy bishop is a stand-in for the baby Jesus, right?"
AMANDA: Okay. Yeah.
JULIA: Again, these are, like, the tame ones. These are the church sanctioned tame Feast of Fools events. It only gets more wild from here, Amanda.
AMANDA: I mean, still cute. Like, I would—
JULIA: Adorable.
AMANDA: —also attend church on New Year's Eve to be like, "Yes, I want to see the baby do the thing."
JULIA: "I want to see the boy bishop do the boy bishop stuff." Yeah. There were also rumors of more disorderly but still church-sanctioned activities. So there is a manuscript ritual in Vivier's in 1365 that gives an overview of how the feast evolved. Though, it seems like this one, again, was fully sanctioned by the clergy of the time. "Proceedings began on the December 17th with the election by the lower clergy of a abbot of fools. Then the abbot's companions carried him on their shoulders to the feast where there was wine, fruit, and festive decorations. When the abbot arrived, everyone stood, even the bishop. Then the party broke into two sections, high clergy and low clergy, and they sang a song, alternating parts, while the other section howled and jeered."
AMANDA: This is great.
JULIA: "When the singing game was over, the porter announced, 'On the part of Monsignor, the abbot and his counselors, I let you know that all men should follow him wherever he wishes to go on pain of having their breeches slit.'"
AMANDA: We'll cut your pants open if you don't do it.
JULIA: Yeah. And then the abbot and his followers were then rushed out of the house and followed the abbot through the city, bestowing greetings on everyone that they passed.
AMANDA: Okay, what can you object to here? This is just some good, old-fashioned sweet community outreach.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. Then there was later a separate fool bishop who got to give a benediction, apparently, in front of a large audience of lay folks.
AMANDA: Oh, Julia, I bet those are ripped.
JULIA: You want to [38:44] Amanda? You know I have one written down.
AMANDA: Yes!
JULIA: So this was a documented one of these benedictions translated, it reads, "On behalf of my Lord, the bishop, may God give you a great pain in your liver with a full basket of pardons and two fingers of skin rash under your chin."
AMANDA: Let's fucking go. This is so good.
JULIA: And then also in Viviers, we have court records that this was a thing, because there was a case against a man who had been elected the abbot of the clergy, but decided he didn't want to fulfill the duties of the office. Because at this point in the chronology, it wasn't just like, "Oh, you get to be the abbot of fools and then you get to, like, go greet everyone and, like, the feast is thrown for you." No, no, no. At this point, it was like, "You now have to pay for all the refreshments."
AMANDA: Ah. And he's like, "Yeah. I, uh—" tugs at shirt collar. "I don't think I can do this one."
JULIA: So this guy was like, "I don't want to pay for that." And so they took him to court.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: When you said a court record, I immediately flashed to, "Oh, someone did a heist during the Feast of Fools. During the heist, somebody stole, like, the chalice or someone's jewels or, like, committed a crime. And now, I wanna write that play.
JULIA: That would be pretty cool. I'm not going to lie. That'd be pretty dope. In Troy, we have records of the celebration around the Feast of Fools because, Amanda, things got so out of hand that they actually damaged church property.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: So this was in 1380 and, "The chapters accounts record payment for a new iron stem for one of the large leather candlesticks that Marie La Foule broke at the Feast of Fools."
AMANDA: Wow, they really said Marie did that.
JULIA: So according to Harris, it's not clear if the damage to these items was done in the cathedral itself, or probably more likely they borrowed it from the church and then it was brought outside from one of the more rowdy secular parades.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But apparently this character, Amanda, like Marie La Foule or Mère Foule, which is just like the fool mother or Mary the Fool, was this stock character that celebrated in the, like, Feast of Fools secular edition.
AMANDA: Oh, I bet she was bawdy.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Oh, you know it. And you know, Amanda, that it was definitely a man dressed as a woman.
AMANDA: I bet it was a man kind of poking fun and making light of the Virgin Mary, which I would love to see at a drag show or a burlesque. But I bet some people—
JULIA: I'm sure a drag queen.
AMANDA: —would be like, "Uh-uh-uh."
JULIA: Now, we don't have a lot of more information about this character in relation to the Feast of Fools, but she does make other appearances, particularly in the city of Dijon. Not during the Feast of Fools, but rather during Carnival.
AMANDA: Ooh.
JULIA: But apparently, it tells of a man dressed in women's clothing who led a company of several hundred lay fools through the streets of Dijon, with references being made to this role being played in both the 16th and 17th centuries.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: So besides what we mentioned already about the secular celebrations, the ones that were not sanctioned by the church, we do have a few references. Mainly they're from Paris of how, like, young men, this was in 1273, how they would, like, blacken their faces with either coal dust or like animal dung or mud or dirt, and then would hold these, like, Feast of Fools celebrations.
AMANDA: Let's not maybe darken our skin, but—
JULIA: It was more to, like, disguise their faces rather than, like, creating masks for themselves, which we've already, like, made reference to in the past. But this also kind of coincides with a lot of university students. Again, mostly young men would hold these student festivals that were sometimes either combined with or conflated with the Feast of Fools in which they would elect a student "bishop"—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —who would then dress in episcopal costumes and be paraded through the city by lantern light.
AMANDA: Fun.
JULIA: Kind of adorable, right? But it was clear that by the end of the 16th century, the Feast of Fools was being fairly well-suppressed by the church. Whether it transformed into other celebrations or it simply fell out of fashion when it was no longer sanctioned by the church. It's kind of hard to say. But I bring this festival up because I think it's fascinating, right? I think that this inversion of power as a means of celebrating and uplifting the lower ranks of society is something that maybe we're missing out on in modern society. In general, we need more opportunities for those who are less powerful in society and not just perceived power, but actual power. I'm looking at the people who are like, "I didn't get a job at the university because I was white."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Come on, guys.
AMANDA: Come on.
JULIA: Come on. I think they need to have the space to break loose, at least for a day. At least for a day. With that in mind, I am going to leave us with a quote from Harvey Cox's book. He talks about why he thinks the Feast of Fools was so important, even if Harris, like, later disagrees with him. But I think this is the sentiment that is worth sharing and what I kind of want to end our episode on. "Chroniclers of Western history seldom lament the passing of the Feast of Fools. There are reasons why they do not. Often, it did degenerate into debauchery and lewd buffoonery. Still, its death was a loss. The Feast of Fools demonstrated that a culture could periodically make sport of its most sacred royal and religious practices. It could imagine, at least once in a while, a wholly different kind of world. One where the last was first, accepted values were inverted, fools became kings, and choir boys were prelates. The demise of the Feast of Fools signaled a significant change in Western cultural mood, an enfeeblement of our civilization's capacity for festivity and fantasy. Its demise showed that people were beginning to see their social roles and sacred conventions through eyes that could not permit such strident satire, that they no longer had the time or the heart for the trenchment of social parody. It is important to notice that festivity and fantasy do play a less central role among us now than they did in the days of the fools, mystical visionaries, and a calendar full of festivals. And we are the poorer for it. But my contention in this book is that whatever forms of festivity and fantasy remain to us are shrunken and insulated. Our feasting is sporadic or obsessive, our fantasy is predictable and politically impotent. Neither provides the inspiration for genuine social transformation."
AMANDA: Ugh, Julia.
JULIA: I know.
AMANDA: Our desires and our joy and levity deserve just as much focus as producing capital and the staff of life.
JULIA: I agree.
AMANDA: Beautiful.
JULIA: Hey, listen, I don't know how many of our listeners have any sort of political influence or— hey, not even political influence, but just, like, community organization, outreach, skills, networks. But hey, you can organize your own Feast of Fools. You can make that happen.
AMANDA: Any opportunity for the lowest among us to become the highest, to point out the farce of power, and we can invert the social order, even for a moment, even for a day, especially in a sketch, especially in drag. I think we should do it.
JULIA: As we talked about at the beginning of the episode, bring this into your new year. Let this be the thing that carries over into your new year. It's time to have a little upheaval, you know? It's time to consider what is high and what is low in the overall status of society and turn that on its head.
AMANDA: Amen, Julia. So next time you are trying to upend the social order, remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
JULIA: Later, Satyrs.
[theme]