Note 1094 — Chapter XIV · THE FEAST OF FOOLS (continued)

I suppose the intended action took shape in the Quinque Conclusiones of Gerson (p. 292), in which he quotes the dictum of an Auxerre preacher that the feast of Fools was as approbatum as that of the Conception. To this there seems to be a reference in the account of the Abbot of Pontigny’s sermon in the Acta Capit. ‘praedicavit ... quod dictum festum non erat, nec unquam fuerat a Deo nec Ecclesia approbandum seu approbatum.’ Lebeuf, in Leber, ix. 385, points out that Gerson was intimate with one member of the Auxerre chapter. This was Nicolas de Clamengis, whose Opera, 151 (ed. Lydius, 1613), include a treatise De novis celebritatibus non instituendis, in which the suppression of feasts in his diocese by Michael of Auxerre is alluded to.