Fools and Jesters at the English Court

by John Southworth

Fools have been a feature of virtually every recorded culture in the history of civilization, making significant contributions to the development of early theatre and literary drama. This book offers a reign by reign chronicle of English court fools.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published July 1, 1998

Reviews

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be a valuable resource concerning the history and role of jesters and eventually clowns during the reigns of the English Kings and Queens up through the Renaissance, where the role of jester became less dependent on rich patrons and employed by theater companies, side shows and circuses where they evolved into clowns as we know them today.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its specificity its only drag, Southworth presents a nice, tidy study of foolery over several centuries at the English court. Probably the best bits are the less specific, when fools/jesters are discussed in various cultures and times, and the archetypes analyzed. There's some good bits about minstrelsy and troubadours, midgets and dwarves, and counterfeit fools (comic actors, basically) and "innocents" which were "true fools" or what we'd call mentally handicapped. The latter are especially interesting since various monarchs and their families tended to keep one under their charitable care.
Overall, a nice place to start, but occasionally too narrow in focus with chapters on individuals, the evidence for which mostly seems to consist in receipts for buying the fools and jesters clothing...

[Adam Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I get a bolt of lightning that reminds me that I want to know something about something-or-other and this time that something was the history of fools, jesters and various courtly entertainers. ‘Fools and Jesters in the English Court’ by John Southworth did a lovely job catching me up to speed.

Focussing principally on royal court fools and on the nitty-gritty details rather than the sociological impact, this was a clear and enjoyable run-through of fools from the Celtic kings to the mid-eighteenth century or so. It traces how earlier fools had a military function, could fight or send messages on a battlefield, how they were seen as touched by the divine and how these notions were watered down over time becoming figures of licensed misrule.

There are two main kinds of fool, the natural and the professional. The natural is someone eccentric, with some sort of mental delay or of an unusual look or physique. They were often not paid themselves, though they had all their expenses and clothing paid for and a full-time carer. Sometimes, when they had outlived their usefulness, they were put into a monastery as an old-people’s home. Professional fools were paid, they often developed musical or physical skills and they were also superb improvisors, coming up with japes and such on the spot. Though these fools were given freedoms to say things others may not, they did not have quite the lee-way of the natural fools to say what they wanted. Interestingly, people with dwarfism merged the two a little, as they had unusual physiques but ordinary mental functions - so they served as a sort of half-way house.

Minstrels, I learnt, was a term for any minor household servant. So a person could usually be in charge of kennels but forced to fool sometimes, or ordinarily a keeper of arms but sometimes called in to play music. There were people called waferers, their main job was to bake small wafers that rounded off a feast as a palate cleanser but they were also called to do a little after-dinner speaking.

I had most fun meeting the various characters on the way and learning anecdotes. There was a man called Tallifer, who inspired the Normans to charge during the battle of Hastings by a recitation of ‘The Song of Roland’ whilst juggling swords. It’s also possible that ‘The Song of Roland’ was composed by a dwarf called Oneian. There were interesting chapter on later fools who also dabbled in theatre and the relationship with Shakespeare, his writing and the people who played fools in his company. Henry VIII was very close to his fool Will Somer and Mary was close to hers, Jane. This went to such an extent that the two are featured in a Tudor family portrait. Also, Mary I seemed really nice in this telling, not a word often applied to her.

One of the most interesting story was a man from Oakham called Jeffery. He was a proportional dwarf who worked in the court of Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s wife. He obtained polish and when the civil war started became a cavalry officer, fighting in battles. He also won a duel, with pistols, on horseback. This caused him to be exiled where he was captured by Barbary Corsairs and sold into slavery for 5 years before escaping - it’s some story - I have a longer book about him on a shelf I plan to read at some point.

Oh - and in the eighteenth century, there was a fool and dancing master called Samuel Johnson who wrote a play called Hurlothrumbo, which was so bad it run for 30 performance (9 was considered pretty successful.) Johnson also performed in this play, much of the time on stilts.

Unfortunately, very few of the fool’s jokes translated very well, which made it seem they were all pretty weak comedians. Also unfortunately, the most consistent records of fools were the expenses they incurred in costuming, meaning that a lot of the book was taken up by descriptions of wardrobe budgets. This had a similar effect to the lamb-bone decorations in ‘The Hermit in the Garden’, I was a little tired of different names for cloth.

Overall ‘Fools and Jesters in the English Court’ was exactly the kind of book I wanted, telling me a little more than I wanted to know about something I knew nothing of before.

[Blair Hodgkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Southworth traces the medieval fool through to the Restoration, charting changes in the role and the costume, differentiating in the types of fools and giving a peak into their lives and other duties (I didn't expect they had other duties) over the ages. Tracing the documentation, the author reveals the minutia of various fools' lives, included if they ended happy or sad, and why. I found the study of the changes to the role over the centuries and the exploration of the uniqueness of the English fool (against the other fools of Europe) to be just two of the more fascinating aspects of the topic.

[bird · Rating 2 out of 5]

bizarre move on his part to perpetuate without question the "innocent / clever" fool dichotomy, as well as to investigate who might have been innocent, clever, or best of all, a "wise natural" [gandalf peering over the shrubbery] in the historical record with no further social analysis-- that said, i do love to read hundreds of items of receipts for assorted fabrics.

realized recently all of my goodreads reviews follow the basic structure of a complain or compliment followed by its opposite, depending on which weighs larger in my little mind. have not yet determined what to do about this.

[Mary Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, it was plainly and cleanly written and I learned a few things from it. I did get sick of hearing about what clothes were being ordered for Fools to wear in excruciating detail, but that's not exactly Southworth's fault. There's obviously a huge dearth of primary source material in this subject so you have to do what you have to do.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the history is interesting, this primarily is a history written from accounting journals, and insights deduced from the clothing of fools and jesters up to the Stewarts.

By the halfway mark I found the discussion of the clothing getting tedious.

Overly long, with not a sufficiency of insight into the various courts and regents and jesters involved.

If you have a deep interest in Medieval and Renaissance history it is probably worth reading. I'm more superficial than that.

[Jason Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I often feel like a fool. And I was curious about the origins of all those jesters I used to see in cartoons. And I love comedy.

This was a bit of a slog in its specificity, wallowing in details. But it was worth it, it took me to some nice places.

[Lee Kofman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book left me disappointed. It didn't feel like a proper book but as somebody’s published PhD. It is obviously a conscientious study of a potentially interesting topic, however the writer makes little if any effort to turn his research into readable material for the lay reader. This book reads like lists of tedious facts, the only ones this historian could find, particularly how much fools were paid and what kind of clothes were ordered for them. Of course it is understandable that Southworth worked against scarce material, but if he cannot tell interesting stories about fools then why publish a book? Yet his worst writerly ‘sin’ is in the utter lack of context and theorizing. The big picture is almost absent. I read the entire book without understanding why the theme of fools was worthy of study and what do fools say about the historical times Soutworth engages with. Plus, the writer seems to assume that his readers are deeply knowledgeable in the history of English court and gives no context for major players in his book other than the fools themselves. We learn nothing about kings and queens involved or the wars that relevant to the stories he tells or anything else of that kind. Even though I consider myself to have some knowledge in this area, still I often struggled to locate the stories of fools in their time/place.

[Alicia Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had great fun reading this. I doubt that it's what everyone would find fun, but I just love history and seeing how traditions and things developed and where they came from. And I love learning about royal households and how they worked, from both the nobility and the common folk's point of view. I was fascinated by the information on particular fools and their relationships to their masters... their roles in Shakespeare's plays... just everything was really interesting. If you like history and you'd like a bit of a different angle on it, I recommend this book.

[Zoe]

A detailed history and analysis of the role of the jester/fool particularly in the case of the innocent fole and the wily entertainer.

[Scott Williams]

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