Fool, a stupid person, or jester

Professional fools or jesters appear to have existed in all times and countries.

Not only have there always been individuals naturally inclined and endowed to amuse others, there has been in most communities a definite class, the members of which have used their powers or weaknesses to act a fool so successfully that they made a good living from it, and still do.

Even the early Romans had their fools, who were matches of the future witty fool of the dreadful middle ages and the likes of Ozzie Osborne and his impersonator, Teresa Heinz Kerry, in our time.

During the Roman Empire, the "design" (deliberate mutilation) of human monstrosities was a regular practice. Slaves, predominately Caucasian, with horrible deformities were highly desirable to be used in "freak shows," to relieve the boring hours the Roman ruling classes had between wars.

Incidentally, after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, court fools, deliberately deformed slaves (non-African), and human creatures of all kinds were found at the court of Montezuma, nowadays a man strangely admired by the left wing, especially self-hating vegetarians who mourn over their tofu, sticks, and seed lunches "what civilization has done to the noble savage?"

The dress of the court fool of the middle ages had to be outrageously comical and the direct opposite of the style of dressing of the day, but it was not altogether a rigid uniform. To judge from the prints and drawings which are the sources of our knowledge on this matter, it seems to have changed considerably from time to time.

The head of the jester was shaved, his coat was multicolored, and the pants tight, with generally one leg different in color from the other. The head was covered with a garment resembling a monk's cloak with a hood, which fell much too loosely over the breast and shoulders, and was often decorated with asses' ears (that's donkey ears, boys, not politicians), and was peaked with a cockscomb (now that's the red fleshly growth on a rooster's head, boys), while bells hung from various parts of the whole get up.

The fool's showiest stage prop was a cane-like staff with a ridiculous looking head for its handle. It's said that sometimes the staff had an inflated bladder, which the fool used much like we nowadays use a buzzer or hooter to run a contestant off the tryout stage. Jesters, usually at the French court, were sometimes "cross-dressers," and wore exaggerated long petticoats, but that type of dressing seems to have belonged rather to the idiots than to the wits.

The fool's business was to amuse his master, to excite him to laughter by caustic contrast, to be the one person who could get away with, in effect, telling his ruler to "get over it."

A jester's job, and his life, was safe as long as he was able to take the sovereign's mind off the over-oppression of State affairs, and, perhaps, the boredom of always being agreed to by lackeys in government. A jester was thought to be good to have around at meals. It was believed by doctors of the day that a jester's liveliness at meals assisted his lord's digestion.

The names and witticisms of many of the official jesters at the courts of Europe have been preserved by popular or State records. In England the list is long between Hitard, the fool of Edmund Ironside, and Muckle John, the fool of Charles I, and probably the last official royal fool of England.

Many are remembered from some connection with general or literary history. If you have the patience, one can look up some of those fools' sayings on the Internet.

Richard Tarleton, famous as a comic actor, cannot be omitted from any list of jesters. A book of Tarleton's jests was published in 1611, and, together with his "News out of Purgatory," was reprinted by Halliwell Phillips for the Shakespear Society in 1844, that too, can be found with the Internet.

Archie Armstrong, for a too free use of "wit and tongue" against his lord and master, lost his office and was banished from the court, at a time when such banishment meant starving to death.

In French history, too, the figure of the court jester flits across the hilarious or brooding scene at times with fantastic effect. In Germany, Rudolph of Habsburg had his fool "Pfaff Cappadox," Maximilian I, his "Dunz van der Rosen."

Late in the 16th century there appeared a book that has had its various plots and scenes stolen, "upgraded by date," and reproduced by early writers of operas, musical comedies and, lately by writers of so-called original works for TV comedy.

The book's name is "Le Sottilissime Astuzie di Bertoldo," [Hold on here, boys, in English it's "The Thinnest Astuteness of a Blockhead."] which is one of the most remarkable books ever written [available also in German and English] about a jester. It is by Giulio Cesare Croce, a street musician of Bologna, and it is a comic romance giving an account of the appearance at the court of Alboin, king of the Lombards, a peasant "fool wonderful in ugliness, with good sense and wit." The book was for a time the most popular in Italy.

That the private fool existed as late as the 18th century is proved by the fool's appearance in literature of the time in the form of the jester of Swift's "Dicky Pearce," and the Earl of Suffolk's jester, but the professional fool died out soon after his day of glory in the Elizabethan period. But, the principle of his existence has lasted to the present day. He disappeared in name only.

In the circus and rodeo, he's the clown.

In the movies, he is the slapstick comedian.

In the ventriloquist act, he is the clever repartee---the "dummy." In the opera, the ugly "klutz" yearning for the beautiful girl.

In the musical comedy he appears under various names.

And in politics today, the court jester, the palace fool, is the Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy. Kennedy's most recent comedic role was that of the "Fool of the Senate Hearings."

But as hysterical as he was as court jester, nobody can keep us real Democrats from worrying about the future of our party. Bring on the clowns if you like, but it won't help us return to political power.

Kenneth Kinchen is an independent writer with a background in international business and foreign service contracting.