Note 990 — Chapter XIII · THE FEAST OF FOOLS

The feast lasted from Vespers on the vigil to Vespers on the day of the Circumcision. The Hauptmoment was evidently the Magnificat in the second Vespers. But what exactly took place then? Did the cathedral precentor hand over the baculus to the dominus festi, or was it last year’s dominus festi, who now handed it over to his newly-chosen successor? Probably the latter. The dominus festi is called at first Vespers ‘capam redditurus’: doubtless the cope and baculus went together. The dominus festi may have, as elsewhere, exercised disciplinary and representative functions amongst the inferior clergy during the year. His title I take to have been, as at Sens, precentor stultorum. The order says, ‘si captus fuerit baculus’; probably it was left to the chapter to decide whether the formal installation of the precentor in church should take place in any particular year.