in 
Literature 
and Art. 
203 
the mifunclerfianding and confounding of names and terms. The mimus, 
the joculator, the minilirel, or Whatever name this clafs of fociety 
went by, was not in any refpects identical with what we underltand by a 
court fool, nor does any fuch charaeter as the latter appear in the feudal 
houfehold before the fourteenth century, as far as we are acquainted with 
the focial manners and cuftoms of the olden time. The vait extent of 
the early French ro-mans de gqjie, or Carlovingian romances, which are 
tilled with pictures of courts both of princes and barons, in which the 
court fool mutt have been introduced had he been known at the time 
they were compofed, that is, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
contains, I believe, no trace of fuch perfonage; and the fame may be faid 
of the numerous other romances, fabliaux, and in fact all the literature of 
that period, one fo rich in works illuftrative of contemporary manners in 
their molt minute detail. From thefe facts 1 conclude that the Gngle 
brief charter publifhed by M.,Rigoll0t from a manufcript in the 
Imperial Library in Paris, is either mifunderftood or it preients a 
very exceptional cafe. By this charter, John, king of England, grants 
to his follus, William Picol, or Piculph (as he is called at the clofe 
of the document), an eitate in Normandy named in the document 
Fons Oifanae (Menil-Ozenne in Mortain), with all its appurtenances, 
" to have and to hold, to him and to his heirs, by doing there-for to 
us once a year the fervice of onefollus, as long as he lives; and after his 
death his heirs {hall hold it of us, by the fervice of one pair of gilt fpurs 
to be rendered annually to us." 4' The fervice (feruitium) here enjoined 
means the annual payment of the obligation of the feudal tenure, and 
therefore 
i The words of this charter, as given by Rigollot, are :-"joannes, D. G., etc. 
Sciatis nos dedisse et praesenti charra confirmasse Willelmo Picol, follo nostro, 
Fontem Ossanae, cum omnibus pertinenciis suis, habendum et tenendum sibi et 
h8?l'EdibUS suis, faciendo inde nobis annnatim scrvitium unius folli quoad vixerit; 
ct post ejus decessum haercdes sui cam tenebunt, et per servitium unius paris calca- 
rium deauratorum nobis annuatim leddendo. (klare volumus et Hrmiter praecipimus 
quod przedictus Piculphus ct hasredes sui haheant et teneant in perpetuum, bene ct 
in pace, libere et quiete, praedictam terram."-Rigollot, Monnaies inconnues des 
Evdques des Innocens, etc-., 8vo., Paris, X837.