Scatalogic [!] rites of all nations : A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe / Based upon original notes and personal observation, and upon compilation from one thousand authorities. By Captain John G. Bourke.

  • Bourke, John Gregory, 1846-1896.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scatalogic [!] rites of all nations : A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe / Based upon original notes and personal observation, and upon compilation from one thousand authorities. By Captain John G. Bourke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FEAST OF FOOLS. In Frauce the Feast of Fools disappeared only with the French Revolution ; in other parts of Continental Europe it began to wane about the time of the Reformation. In England, the abbot of uu- reason, whoso pranks are outlined by Sir Walter Scott in his novel The Abbot, the miracle plays which had once served a good pur- pose in teaching Scriptural lessons to an illiterate peasantry, and the moralities of the same general purport, faded away under the stern antagonism of the Puritan iconoclast. The Feast of Fools, as such, was abolished by Henry VIII. a. d. 1541. —(See The English Reforma- tion, Francis Charles Massingberd, London, 1857, p. 125.)1 Picart's account of the Feast of Fools is similar to that given by Dulaure. He says that it took place in the church, at Christmas tide, and was borrowed from the Roman Saturnalia; was never approved of by the Christian church as a bod}', but fought against from the earliest times : — Les uns etoient masque's ou avec des visages barbouillcs qui faisoient peur ou qui faisoient rire ; les autres en habits de femmes ou de panto- mimes, tels que sont les ministres du theatre. lis dansoient dans le chceur, en entrant, et chantoient des chansons obscenes. Les Diacres et les sou-diacres prenoient plaisir a manger des boudins et des saucisses sur l'autel, an nez du pretre celebrant; ils jouoient a des jeux aux cartes et aux des; ils mettoient dans l'encensoir quelques morceaus de vieilles savates pour lui faire respirer une mauvaise odeur. Apres la messe, chacun couroit, sautoit et dansoit par l'eglise avec tant d'impudence, que quelques uns n'avoient pas honte de se porter a toutes sortes d'indecences et de se depouillier entierement; ensuite, ils se faisoient trainer par les rues dans des tombereaux pleins d'ordures, d'ou ils prenoient plaisir d'eu jeter a la populace qui s'assembloit autourd'eux. Ils s'arretoient et faisoient de leurs corps des mouvements et des postures lascives qu'ils accompagnoient de paroles impudiques. Les plus impudiques d'entre les seculiers se meloient parrai le clerge, pour faire aussi quelques personnages de Foux en habits ecclesi- astiques de Moines et de Religieuses. — (Picart, Coutumes et Cert*- 1 Faber advances the opinion that the mummers or clowns who figured in the pastimes of the abbot of unreason, etc., bear a strong resemblance to the animal-headed Egyptian priests in the sacred dances represented on the Bembine or