The victor had a slave at his ear during his
triumph; the slaves during the Roman Saturnalia, dressed in their
masters' clothes, sat at meat with them, told them of their faults, and
blacked their faces for them. They made their masters wait upon them. In
the ages of faith, an ass dressed in sacerdotal robes was gravely
conducted to the cathedral choir at a certain season, and mass was said
before him, and hymns chanted discordantly. The elder D'Israeli, from
whom I am quoting, writes: "On other occasions, they put burnt old shoes
to fume in the censors: ran about the church leaping, singing, dancing,
and playing at dice upon the altar, while a _boy bishop_ or _pope of
fools_ burlesqued the divine service;" and later on he says: "So late as
1645, a pupil of Gassendi, writing to his master what he himself
witnessed at Aix on the Feast of Innocents, says--'I have seen in some
monasteries in this province extravagances solemnised which pagans would
not have practised. Neither the clergy nor the guardians indeed go to
the choir on this day, but all is given up to the lay brethren, the
cabbage-cutters, errand boys, cooks, scullions, and gardeners; in a word,
all the menials fill their places in the church, and insist that they
perform the offices proper for the day. They dress themselves with all
the sacerdotal ornaments, but torn to rags, or wear them inside out: they
hold in their hands the books reversed or sideways, which they pretend to
read with large spectacles without glasses, and to which they fix the
rinds of scooped oranges .
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