Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

For centuries, the Feast of Fools has been condemned and occasionally celebrated as a disorderly, even transgressive Christian festival, in which reveling clergy elected a burlesque Lord of Misrule, presided over the divine office wearing animal masks or women's clothes, sang obscene songs, swung censers that gave off foul-smelling smoke, played dice at the altar, and otherwise parodied the liturgy of the church. Afterward, they would take to the streets, howling, issuing mock indulgences, hurling manure at bystanders, and staging scurrilous plays. The problem with this popular account-intriguing as it may be- is that it is wrong.In Sacred Folly, Max Harris rewrites the history of the Feast of Fools, showing that it developed in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries as an elaborate and orderly liturgy for the day of the Circumcision (1 January)-serving as a dignified alternative to rowdy secular New Year festivities. The intent of the feast was not mockery but thanksgiving for the incarnation of Christ. Prescribed role reversals, in which the lower clergy presided over divine office, recalled Mary's joyous affirmation that God "has put down the mighty from their seat and exalted the humble." The "fools" represented those chosen by God for their lowly status.The feast, never widespread, was largely confined to cathedrals and collegiate churches in northern France. In the fifteenth century, high-ranking clergy who relied on rumor rather than firsthand knowledge attacked and eventually suppressed the feast. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historians repeatedly misread records of the feast; their erroneous accounts formed a shaky foundation for subsequent understanding of the medieval ritual. By returning to the primary documents, Harris reconstructs a Feast of Fools that is all the more remarkable for being sanctified rather than sacrilegious.

Feast of Fools --- Fools, Feast of --- Festivals --- Lords of misrule --- History.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Numismatics --- Bishops in art --- Fools and jesters in art --- Feast of Fools. --- Rebuses --- Numismatique --- Evêques dans l'art --- Rébus

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Central to current understandings of medieval history is the concept of political ritual, encompassing events from coronations to funerals, entries into cities, civic games, banquets, hunting, acts of submission or commendation, and more. ''Ritual?'' asks Philippe Buc. In The Dangers of Ritual he boldly argues that the concept shouldn't be so central after all. Modern-day scholars, gently seduced by twentieth-century theories of ritual, often misinterpret medieval documents that ostensibly describe such events, in part because they fail to appreciate the intentions behind them.The book begins with four case studies whose arrangement--backward from texts on tenth-century kingship to fourth-century representations of Christian martyrdom--allows for the line of development to be peeled back layer by layer. It then turns to an analysis of the formation of the intellectual traditions that contemporary historians have employed to interpret medieval documents. Tracing the emergence of the concept of ritual from the Reformation to the mid-twentieth century, Buc highlights the continuities yet also the profound transformations between the early medieval understandings and our own, social-scientific models.Medieval historians will find this book an indispensable resource for its insights into methodological issues crucial to their discipline. As Buc demonstrates, only rigorous attention to the contexts within which authors worked can allow us to reconstruct from medieval documents how ''rituals'' might have functioned. Ultimately, he argues, too swift an application of contemporary models to highly complex textual artifacts blinds us to the specificities of early medieval European political culture.

Ritual --- Rituel --- History. --- Histoire --- Europe --- Religious life and customs. --- Politics and government --- Vie religieuse --- Politique et gouvernement --- -Cult --- Cultus --- Liturgies --- Public worship --- Symbolism --- Worship --- Rites and ceremonies --- Ritualism --- History --- -History --- Cult --- Annals of Fulda. --- Bavaria. --- Bonald, Louis de. --- Byzantine model. --- Canossa. --- Charlemagne. --- Chinese Rites controversy. --- David (typology). --- Egypt. --- Enlightenment. --- Gluckman, Max. --- absolutism. --- acclamations. --- adventus. --- amicitia. --- antiquarianism. --- asylum. --- autocracy. --- baptism. --- bishops, powers of. --- blindness. --- caritas. --- change. --- charity. --- cingulum militare. --- circus games. --- civil society. --- cognition. --- community and hierarchy. --- consensus. --- crisis. --- curses. --- danger. --- democracy. --- despotism and ceremonial. --- distinction. --- divination. --- drug or opium. --- dualism. --- ecclesia. --- enthronement. --- ethological models. --- exegesis. --- feast of fools. --- fetishism. --- genuflections. --- gladiator. --- handshake. --- hegemony. --- hermeneutics. --- humiliation rituals. --- hypocrisy.