FOURTH DAY of CHRISTMAS:
The Feast of Fools
The Fourth Day of Christmas was traditionally given over to silliness, although this Feast of Fools played a part in the whole season, not just this one day… and here we get to traditions that go back further, to old pagan customs, as do so many of our Christmas customs. The Feast of Fools harkens back to the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, another solsticetide celebration, during which society would be turned on its head. Gambling, normally frowned upon, was practiced openly. Slaves were waited upon by their masters. Citizens disguised themselves behind masks. The natural order of things was ceremoniously reversed, and this is precisely the theme of the Feast of Fools, which had its heyday in medieval times.
This Feast of Fools has much in common with the custom of the Boy Bishop, and what can speak more to ceremonious reversals than making a leader out of the lowly and meek? While the Boy Bishop oversaw the cathedral for the Christmas season, it was the Lord of Misrule that oversaw the revels. The jester could become the lord, the servant the master. The Lord of Misrule reigned over the revelry with no fear of retribution.
The Feast of Fools is known in Latin as Asinaria Festa, Feast of the Ass. It was a lowly ass upon which Mary rode into Bethlehem, and an ox and an ass, according to the old carol, were there when the child was born in a stable that first Christmas night… and it was an ass that took top billing at some church services during the Twelve Days of Christmas in medieval times. Donkeys were sometimes allowed in churches during Christmas, and there are records of masses said during this time in which the normal response of “amen” was replaced with the entire congregation braying in unison.
So what brings on this madness and merrymaking? Certainly the mirth and good cheer of the season have plenty to do with it. But with half the Twelve Days of Christmas falling in the old year and half falling in the new, we are at the same time watching the old year die and witnessing the birth of a new one. The madness gives full voice to the disintegration of the old year––the old order––and we welcome in the new year, which is born out of chaos.
Order will return soon enough. The Lord of Misrule reigns until Twelfth Night, when a new lord appears: the King of the Bean. But that’s another story. For now, this Fourth Day of Christmas, this Feast of Fools, you have full license to be a little foolish. Make the most of it.