Born: Richard Baxter,
eminent nonconformist divine, 1615, Bowdon, Shropshire;
Admiral Edward Vernon, naval commander, 1684,
Westminster; Amelia Opie, novelist, 1769, Norwich.
Died: Pope Boniface
III, 606; Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester,
1555; Peter Martyr, distinguished reformer, 1562,
Zurich; Sir John Hawkins, eminent navigator, 1595;
William Hayley, biographer of Cowper, 1820, Felpham;
John M'Diarmid, miscellaneous writer, 1852; Charles
Kemble, eminent actor, 1854.
Feast Day: St. Nilus,
anchoret, father of the church, and confessor, 5th
century. St. Martin, pope and martyr, 655. St. Livin,
bishop and martyr, 7th century. St. Lebwin, patron of
Daventer, confessor, end of 8th century.
THE ORDER OF FOOLS
On 12th November 1381, the
above association is said to have been founded by Adolphus, Count of Cleves,
under the title of 'D'Order
van't gaken Gesellschap.' Though bearing a
designation savouring so strongly of absurdity and
contempt, the members of which this order was composed
were noblemen and gentlemen of the highest rank and
renown, who thus formed themselves into a body for
humane and charitable purposes. We should be doing
these gallant knights a grievous injustice were we to
connect them with the Feast of Fools, and similar
absurdities of medieval times. They were, in fact, not
greatly dissimilar to the 'Odd Fellows,' "Foresters,'
and similar associations of the present day, which
include within their sphere of operations benevolent
and useful as much as convivial and social objects.
The insignia borne by the
knights of this order consisted of the figure of a
fool or jester, embroidered on the left side of their
mantles, and depicted dressed in a red and silver
vest, with a cap and bells on his head, yellow
stockings, a cup filled with fruits in his right hand,
and in his left a gold key, as symbolical of the
affection which ought to subsist between the members
of the society.
A yearly meeting of the
brotherhood of Fools took place at Cleves on the first
Sunday after
Michaelmas-day, when a grand court was
held, extending over seven days, and all matters
relating to the welfare and future conduct of the
order were revolved and discussed. Each member had
some special character assigned to him, which he was
obliged to support, and the most cordial equality
everywhere prevailed, all distinctions of rank being
laid aside.
The Order of Fools appears to
have existed down to the beginning of the sixteenth
century, but the objects for which it was originally
founded seem, as in the case of the Knights Templars,
to have gradually been lost sight of, and ultimately
became almost wholly forgotten. The latest allusion to
it occurs in some verses prefixed to a German
translation of Sebastian Brand's celebrated Navis
Stultifera, or Ship of Fools, published at Strasburg
in 1520.
Akin to the Order of Fools was
the 'Respublica Binepsis,' which was founded by some
Polish noblemen about the middle of the fourteenth
century, and derived its name from the estate of its
principal originator. Its constitution was modelled
after that of Poland, and, like that kingdom, it too
had its sovereign, its council, its chamberlain, its
master of the chase, and various other offices. Any
member who made himself conspicuous by some absurd or
singular propensity, received a recognition of this
quality from his fellows by having assigned to him a
corresponding appointment in the society. Thus the
dignity of master of the hunt was conferred on some
individual who carried to an absurd extreme his
passion for the chase, whilst another person given to
gasconading and boasting of his valorous exploits, was
elevated to the post of field-marshal. No member could
decline acceptance of any of these functions, unless
he wished to make himself an object of still greater
ridicule and animadversion. At the same time, all
persons given to lampooning or personal satire, were
excluded from admission to the association. The order
rapidly increased in numbers from the period of its
formation, and at one time comprised nearly all the
individuals attached to the Polish court. Like the
German association, its objects were the promotion of
charity and good-feeling, and the repression of
immoral and absurd habits and practices.
PLAYGOING-HOURS IN THE OLDEN TIME
By a police regulation of the
city of Paris, dated 12th November 1609, it is ordered
that the players at the theatres of the Hotel de
Bourgogne and the Marais shall open their doors at one
o'clock in the afternoon, and at two o'clock precisely
shall commence the performance, whether there are
sufficient spectators or not, so that the play may be
over before half-past four. This ordinance, it was
enacted, should be in force from the
Feast of St.
Martin to the 15th of the ensuing month of February.
Such hours for visiting the playhouse seem peculiarly
strange at the present day, when the doors of theatres
are seldom opened before half-past six in the evening,
or shut before mid-night. But our ancestors both
closed and opened the day much earlier than we do now,
and observed much more punctually the old recipe for
health and strength, 'to rise with the lark and lie
down with the lamb:
The same early hours for
theatrical representations that seem thus to have
prevailed in Paris were, during the seventeenth
century, no less common in England, where, as we learn
from the first playbill issued from the Drury Lane
Theatre in 1663, the hour for the commencement of the
representation was three o'clock in the afternoon. The
badness of the streets, and the danger of traversing
them in dark nights from the defective mode of
lighting, combined with the absence of an efficient
police and the dangers from robbery and violence, all
had their influence in rendering it very undesirable
to protract public amusements beyond nightfall in
those times.
ANCIENT FORKS
From a passage in that curious
work, Coryate's Crudities, it has been imagined that
its author, the strange traveller of that name, was
the first to introduce the use of the fork into
England, in the beginning of the seventeenth century.
He says that he observed its use in Italy only 'because the Italian cannot by
any means endure to have
his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men's
fingers are not alike clean.' These 'little forks'
were usually made of iron or steel, but occasionally
also of silver. Coryate says he 'thought good to
imitate the Italian fashion by this forked cutting of
meat,' and that hence a humorous English friend, 'in
his merry humour, doubted not to call me furcifer,
only for using a fork at feeding.'
This passage is
often quoted as fixing the earliest date of the use of
forks; but they were, in reality, used by our
Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and throughout the middle
ages. In 1834, some labourers found, when cutting a
deep drain at Sevington, North Wilts, a deposit of
seventy Saxon pennies, of sovereigns ranging from
Coenwulf, king of Mercia (796 A.D.), to Ethelstan
(878-890 A.D.); they had been packed in a box of which
there were some decayed remains, and which also held
some articles of personal ornament, a spoon, and the
fork, which is first in the group here engraved.
The
fabric and ornamentation of this fork and spoon would,
to the practised eye, be quite sufficient evidence of
the approximate era of their manufacture, but their
juxtaposition with the coins confirms it. In Akerman's
Pagan Saxondom, another example of a fork, from a
Saxon tumulus, is given: it has a bone-handle, like
those still manufactured for common use. It must not,
however, be imagined that they were frequently used;
indeed, through-out the middle ages, they seemed to
have been kept as articles of luxury, to be used only
by the great and noble in eating fruits and preserves
onstate occasions. A German fork, believed to be a
work of the close of the sixteenth century, is the
second of our examples. It is surmounted by the figure
of a fool or jester, who holds a saw. This figure is
jointed like a child's doll, and tumbles about as the
fork is used, while the saw slips up and down the
handle. It proves that the fork was treated merely as
a luxurious toy. Indeed, as late as 1652, Heylin, in
his Cosmography, treats them as a rarity: 'the use of
silver forks, which is by sonic of our spruce gallants
taken up of late; are the words he uses. A fork of
this period is the third of our selected examples; it
is entirely of silver, the handle elaborately engraved
with subjects from the New Testament. It is one of a
series so decorated, the whole of our engraved
examples being at present in the collection of Lord Londesborough. In
conclusion, we may observe that the
use of the fork became general by the close of the
seventeenth century.