Note 1364 — Chapter XVI · GUILD FOOLS AND COURT FOOLS

Julleville, Rép. Com. 321 (Catalogue des representations), and elsewhere, gives many examples. The following decree (†1327) of Dominique Grima, bishop of Pamiers, is quoted by L. Delisle, in Romania, xxii. 274: ‘Dampnamus autem et anathematizamus ludum cenicum vocatum Centum Drudorum, vulgariter Cent Drutz, actenus observatum in nostra dyocesi, et specialiter in nostra civitate Appamiensi et villa de Fuxo, per clericos et laycos interdum magni status; in quo ludo effigiabantur prelati et religiosi graduum et ordinum diversorum, facientes processionem cum candelis de cepo, et vexilis in quibus depicta erant membra pudibunda hominis et mulieris. Induebant etiam confratres illius ludi masculos iuvenes habitu muliebri et deducebant eos processionaliter ad quendam quem vocabant priorem dicti ludi, cum carminibus inhonestissima verba continentes....’ The confrates and the prior here look like a société joyeuse, but the ‘ludus cenicus’ was probably less a regular play than a dramatized bit of folk-ritual, like the Troyes Sacre de l’arcevesque and the Charivaris. The change of sex-costume is to be noted.