The Party’s Not Over The Feast of Fools evolved for a thousand years, becoming most popular in France and Great Britain, but reached into Spain, Italy and Germany. By the fifteenth century, the church had enough of the mockery and put an end to the merrymaking by deeming it blasphemous and illegal. However, by the 1540s the [...]
Throughout the Middle Ages and well into the Elizabethan period, Christmas was an austere and holy season, full of fasting and stringent religious rules. By time January rolled around, people were ready to cut loose. On the first day of January, Europeans came together for a celebration known as the Feast of Fools. The Feast [...]
by Shawnie Kelley Avignon: Kingdom of the Popes “All roads lead to Avignon” or so went the saying when, in 1305, Pope Clement V moved the papacy from strife-torn Rome to a peaceful, Provencal town in southern France. This political move shifted the center of Christendom from the Eternal City to the small, papal enclave [...]
