In addition to his being employed as jester or mirth-maker by the manorial Lord of Gawsworth, he was a welcome addition at parties given by the neighbouring country families, when he had free license to bandy his witticisms, and to utter and enact anything likely to enliven the company, and to provoke mirth and laughter. In Persia the autocratic Shah Naseredin r.
Karim Shir'ei would ridicule the whole court, including the shah. Once the shah asked whether there was a shortage of food, and the jester said "Yes, I see Your Majesty is eating only five times a day. When they were out traveling Karim Shir'ei's donkey stopped at a gate, and the jokester found a pretext to mock the courtier by addressing the ass: "If you want to stop you are Saheb Ekhtiyar [authorized], and if you want to go ahead, you are also Saheb Ekhtiyar [authorized].
Perhaps the most recent examples of the court jester are among the ritual clowns of African and American tribes whose mocking, corrective, and unbridled topsy-turvy antics have been documented by twentieth-century anthropologists. These are not all strictly speaking court jesters, in that they do not usually serve one master, belonging more to the whole tribe or village.
Also, their license is often limited to specific periods, although during such festivals or rituals their freedoms and duties accord with those of the permanently privileged jester. However, there are some tribes that have had permanently appointed jesters, such as the African Wolof jesters and the Sioux "contrary," or heyhoka, and "jesters. They were frequently dwarfs, and other oddities; and their duties included besides the playing of jokes, the singing of the praises of their rulers.
The court jester is universal not merely in having been at home in such diverse cultures and eras, but also in taking his pick from the same ragbag of traits and talents no matter when or where he occurs. Above all he used humor, whether in the form of wit, puns, riddles, doggerel verse, songs, capering antics, or nonsensical babble, and jesters were usually also musical or poetic or acrobatic, and sometimes all three. There is a Ming dynasty description of a jester that captures this, for besides always hitting the mark with his gilded tongue, he would "unleash his body and fling his limbs around, drumming his feet and flapping his tongue; he was steeped in wisdom.
Of at least equal importance with his entertainer's cap was the jester's function as adviser and critic. This is what distinguishes him from a pure entertainer who would juggle batons, swallow swords, or strum on a lute or a clown who would play the fool simply to amuse people.
The jester everywhere employed the same techniques to carry out this delicate role, and it would take an obtuse king or emperor not to realize what he was driving at, since "other court functionaries cooked up the king's facts for him before delivery; the jester delivered them raw.
I have encountered only one person who considers this to have been more myth than reality:. Even if the jester's famous veracity were only a myth, it would have been established long before Erasmus. And we have seen the impressive extent to which jesters everywhere were allowed and encouraged to offer counsel and to influence the whims and policies of kings, by no means being limited to "small historical windows of possibility.
The Chinese records give us an idea of just how effective a jester could be in tempering the ruler's excesses, for the occasions when his words of warning were either ignored or punished are heavily outnumbered by those when he was heeded and even rewarded. It is in the nature of jesters to speak their minds when the mood takes them, regardless of the consequences. They are neither calculating nor circumspect, and this may account for the "foolishness" often ascribed to them.
Jesters are also generally of inferior social and political status and are rarely in a position and rarely inclined to pose a power threat. They are peripheral to the game of politics, and this can reassure a king that their words are unlikely to be geared to their own advancement. Jesters are not noted for flattery or fawning. The ruler can be isolated from his courtiers and ministers, who might conspire against him. The jester too can be an isolated and peripheral figure somehow detached from the intrigues of the court, and this enables him to act as a kind of confidant.
The jester also had humor at his disposal. He could soften the blow of a critical comment in a way that prevented a dignified personage from losing face. Humor is the great defuser of tense situations. Among the Murngin tribe of Australia it is the duty of the clown to act outrageously, ludicrously imitating a fight if men begin to quarrel. In making them laugh at him, he distracts their attention from their own fight and dispels their aggression.
This wouldn't be done in just any way, either - if the offense was severe, a messenger would be catapulted or tossed with a trebuchet back at his camp.
In even worse cases, it was only the jester's head that would make it back to camp via catapult. For jesters who survived the message delivery and made it back to camp, it was often their job to elevate the morale of the army. This was done just as entertaining was done: with a song and a dance. However, this much-needed morale-boosting was often carried on into battle and when both armies would line up, it was the job of the jesters to continue their entertainment.
Often, this would involve cracking jokes about the opposing side and, occasionally, someone would take offense and prematurely charge the jester rather than the army they were meant to be fighting. Originally from New York, Katie is used to a fast-paced lifestyle. She got her personal start with writing in the second grade, and carried that passion with her until she won a spot in her high school's published poetry book - but not before becoming the News Editor and columnist for the high school newspaper.
In college, she majored in English Literature with an emphasis in Political Science, soaking up most creativity and method from one of the last professors to study under famed beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
The more she wrote, the more she learned about the world and, more importantly, herself. However, by the 13th century, some talented jesters were beginning to achieve superstar status.
Those who were lucky enough to be employed by royalty were provided with their own horse and servants. But being selected as the personal jester of a medieval king or nobleman came with a serious health warning; jesters were often required to go to the battlefield with their masters to carry messages between the leaders of warring armies, demanding that a city surrender to a besieging army or delivering terms for the release of hostages.
Jesters also had a vital role to play in the battle themselves. When the two armies took up their opposing positions in preparation for battle, the jesters would cavort up and down on foot or horseback between them, calming the nerves of their own men by making them laugh at jokes, singing bawdy or insulting songs and calling out mocking abuse to their enemies in order to hearten their own soldiers and demoralise the opposition, rather like modern football supporters before a match.
Some even juggled swords or lances in front of the enemy, taunting and baiting them until those with a hottest tempers broke ranks and charged prematurely to avenge the insult and kill the fool, which would weaken their defensive position. As the Middle Ages progressed, three types of fool evolved.
If the noble family decided these poor fools no longer amused them, they were sometimes provided with a pension in the form of regular alms, though sadly many ended their days as beggars. All that said, a good jester was expected to help their master see folly in any plans they were making or actions, just if one wanted to keep their position and potentially keep breathing, this needed to be done in delicate and tactfully hilarious way.
On top of all of this, a lesser talked about duty of jesters that is somewhat glossed over in modern pop culture is that they were sometimes the ones tasked with breaking bad news to their master, seeing as they could do so humorously and with somewhat lesser fear of retribution. Moving on to compensation for their many services, this varied. In some cases, we have accounts of jesters given a regular stipend, and in other cases they had no official salary.
However, at the least court jesters were exceptionally well taken care of with regards to their day to day needs such as food, shelter, clothing, etc, and were often rewarded for particularly good bouts of entertainment by those among the wealthy they were entertaining. This could potentially mean gifts of land, titles, money, etc. As for female jesters, they seem to have enjoyed all the same perks as their male counterparts, even relatively free to insult the men of power around them with a level of impunity, though, again, tactfully.
As such, the job of fool is noted by historians as being one of the few career options held by men that was also completely open to women with no real associated stigma nor much of a difference in job responsibilities. Mathurine was well known for her extravagant costume, modeled after the idea of an Amazonian warrior complete with shield, armor, and a wooden sword.
Mathurine it was who arrested the youth who attempted to assassinate Henri IV, on the 28th of December. This youth, who had glided into the apartment unperceived, struck at the King with his dagger. So if you were feeling down today, remember that at one point in time, an assassin was foiled when a female comedian dressed like an Amazonian warrior burst into the room and told him not to move.
No doubt the reenactment of this scene was great fodder for entertaining guests in the aftermath. As for what happened to the position of court jesters, while it stuck around in some regions of the world for another century or two, in the Western world as the 17th century progressed, the broadening popularity of theater and other such performing houses saw nobles seeming to have gradually shifted to this form of entertainment instead of keeping court jesters on hand at all times.
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