Note 1163 — Chapter XIV · THE FEAST OF FOOLS (continued)

Cf. ch. xx. Gasté, 20, considers the Rouen Festum Asinorum ‘l’origine de toutes les Fêtes de l’Âne qui se célébraient dans d’autres diocèses’: but the Rouen MS. in which it occurs is only of the fourteenth century, and the Balaam episode does not occur at all in the more primitive forms of the Prophetae, while the Sens Feast of Fools is called the festa asinaria in the Officium of the early thirteenth century.