Note 984 — Chapter XIII · THE FEAST OF FOOLS

Guérard, Cartulaire de N.-D. (Doc. inéd. sur l’Hist. de France), i. 73; also printed by Ducange, s. v. Kalendae; P. L. ccxii. 70. The charta, dated 1198, runs in the names of ‘Odo [de Soliaco] episcopus, H. decanus, R. cantor, Mauricius, Heimericus et Odo archidiaconi, Galo, succentor, magister Petrus cancellarius, et magister Petrus de Corbolio, canonicus Parisiensis.’ Possibly the real moving spirit in the reform was the dean H[ugo Clemens], to whom the Paris Obituary (Guérard, loc. cit. iv. 61) assigns a similar reform of the feast of St. John the Evangelist. Petrus de Corbolio we shall meet again. Eudes de Sully was bishop 1196-1208. His Constitutions (P. L. ccxii. 66) contain a prohibition of ‘choreae ... in ecclesiis, in coemeteriis et in processionibus.’ In a second decree of 1199 (P. L. ccxii. 72) he provided a solatium for the loss of the Feast of Fools in a payment of three deniers to each clerk below the degree of canon, and two deniers to each boy present at Matins on the Circumcision. Should the abuses recur, the payment was to lapse. This donation was confirmed in 1208 by his successor Petrus de Nemore (P. L. ccxii. 92).