2OO 
HWY? 
Grotefque 
and 
0f Caricature 
CHAPTER 
XII. 
TI-IE COURT FOOL.iTHE NORMANS AND THEIR  HISTORY 
OF COURT FOOLS.-THEIR COSTUME._-CARVINGS IN THE CORNISH 
CHURCHES.--THE BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES."- 
THE -FEAST5 OF ASSES, AND OF FOOLS.iTHEIR LICENCE.iTHE 
LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS._-THE BISHOP,S BLESSING- 
FROM the employment of minitrels attached to the family, probably 
arofe another and well-known character of later times, the court 
fool, who took the place of fatiriit in the great houfeholds. I do not 
conhder what We underftand by the court fool to be a character of any 
great antiquity. 
It is fomewhat doubtful whether what we call a jeit, was really 
appreciated in the middle ages. Puns feem to have been coniidered as 
elegant figures of fpeech in literary compofition, and we rarely meet 
with anything like a quick and clever repartee. In the earlier ages, when 
3 party of warriors would be merry, their mirth appears to have coniiiied 
ufually in ridiculous boaits, or in rude remarks, or in fneers at enemies or 
opponents. Thefe jefcs were termed by the French and Normans gabs 
(gabee, in mediaeval Latin), a word fuppofed to have been derived from 
the clailical Latin word cavilla, a mock or taunt; and a lhort poem in 
Anglo-Norman has been preferved which furniihes a curious illuftration 
of the meaning attached to it in the twelfth century. This poem relates 
how Charlemagne, piqued by the taunts of his emprefs on the fuperiority 
of Hugh the Great, emperor of Conftantinople, went to Coniiantinople, 
accompanied by his douze pairs and a thoufand knights, to verify the truth 
of his wife's Gory. They proceeded firft to Jerufalem, Where, when Charle- 
magne and his twelve peers entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
they looked fo handfome and rnajeitic, that they were taken at Grit for 
Chriii 
J