History of English Humour Volume I Part 9

In one of these poems, Golias calls down every kind of misery, spiritual and temporal, upon the man who has stolen his purse. He hopes he may die of fever and madness, and be joined to Judas in h.e.l.l. One of the most amusing pieces is a consultation held among the priests, on account of the Pope having ordered them to dismiss their women-servants. They finally come to the conclusion that parish priests should be allowed two wives, monks and canons three, and deans and bishops four or five. We are not surprised to hear that such effusions as these called down the displeasure of the heads of the Church, and in 1289, a statute was published that no clerks should be "joculatores, goliardi seu bufones."

About the middle of the fourteenth century, a French monk, Robert Langlande, wrote the "Vision of Piers Plowman," an account of a dream he is supposed to have had when among the Malvern Hills. It is possible that the sight of the grand old abbey may have suggested his theme, for he inveighs not only against the laity, but especially against the ecclesiastics for their neglect of the poor. The poem is remarkable for being without rhythm, but alliterative, such as was common in the neighbouring district of Wales. It somewhat resembles one of the old "Mysteries," introducing a variety of allegorical characters. Some of the personifications are very strange. He says that,

"Dowel and Dobet and Dobest the thirde coth he Arn thre fair vertues and ben not fer to fynde."

"Dobest is above bothe, and berith a bieschopis crois And is hokid on that on ende to halie men fro h.e.l.le And a pike is in the poynt to putte adon the wyked."

In another place, the effects of starvation are described "both the man's eiyen wattred," and "he loked like a lanterne."

In another work by the same hand, "Piers, the Ploughman's crede," the author--a simple man--wishes to know how he is to follow Christ, and betakes himself to the friars for information. But he finds that each order thinks of little beyond railing against some other. The friars preachers are thus described,

"Than turned I ayen whan I hadde al ytoted And fond in a freitoure a frere on a benche A greet chorl and a grym, growen as a tonne, With a face so fat, as a ful bleddere Blowen bretful of breth, and as a bagge honged."

All the humour of Piers the Ploughman seems to be more or less of this personal kind.

We must here notice the humorous though scurrilous attack made upon the Roman clergy in the "Letters of Obscure Men," published in Germany at the commencement of the sixteenth century. There was something novel in the idea of a series of ironical letters, and from their appearance, the steady progress of the Reformation may be dated. The greater part of them seems to have been written by Ulrich von Hutten, and are addressed to Ortuin Gratius, a professor of the University of Cologne, who had attacked Reuchlin, a celebrated Hebraist. The original quarrel was only about some translations of Rabbinical works, but it extended into a contest between the Church party, represented by Gratius, and those desirous of reformation. Doctrine is scarcely touched upon in these letters, but accusations of immorality abound. There is great variety in the plan upon which the irony and satire are conducted. For instance, the writer says he has just heard from Gratius that he is sending flowers and gifts to another man's wife. "Reuchlin has written a defence of himself against Gratius, in which he calls him an a.s.s. Reuchlin ought to be burnt with his book. Some people say the monks are grossly dishonest--it is a horrible lie. A preacher, after taking a little too much wine, has actually said that the princ.i.p.als of the University are given to drink and play. Some profane men say that the coat of our Lord at Treves is not genuine, but only an old rag; he does not believe there is now any hair of the Virgin in the world; and the preaching friars who sell indulgences are only a set of buffoons who deceive old apple-women.

Another fool says that the preaching friars committed fearful abominations at Berne, and one day put poison into the consecrated elements. A great calamity has happened! A thief has stolen three hundred florins, which the preachers had gained by the sale of indulgences. The people who gave the money are in sad trouble to know whether they still have absolution--they need not be alarmed, they have as much as they had before they gave their money to the friars. Query.

Is it a sin to play at dice in order to buy indulgences? Gratius, in a letter to another Father of the Church, expresses his astonishment at hearing that he thinks so much about the ladies. Such thoughts come from the devil; wherever they are suggested, he must make the sign of the cross on his back, and put a pinch of blessed salt on his tongue. Women make him ill by employing charms and sorceries against him; it is no wonder, for he has grey hair and eyes, a red face, a large nose, and a corporation. No man should ever make use of necromancy to obtain a woman's love, for a student of theology once fell in love with a baker's daughter at Leipzig, and threw an enchanted apple at her,[43] which caused her to fall violently in love with him, and finally led to a scandal in the church."

No one enjoyed these epistles more thoroughly than Erasmus,[44] who, perhaps, from being himself a monk, appreciated them the better. He is said to have laughed so immoderately over some parts of them, that he burst an abscess, which might have proved fatal to him. He was one of those few celebrated men who combine both humour and learning, and he seems to have imbibed somewhat of the spirit of Lucian, whose works he translated, and who also lived in an age of religious controversy and transition. There was such a love of amus.e.m.e.nt, and so little earnestness in Erasmus, that he could laugh on both sides of the question, with the Reformers and against them. When the monks told him that Luther had married a nun, and that the offspring of such an unholy alliance must needs be Antichrist, he merely replied: "Already are there many Antichrists!" Writing to a zealous Catholic in London, he says "that he grudges the heretics their due, because that, whereas winter is approaching, it will raise the price of f.a.gots." In another place he attacks dignities: "No situation," he says, "could be more wretched than that of the vicegerents of Christ, if they endeavoured to follow Christ's life." There was scarcely anything sacred or profane which was safe from the lash of his ridicule, and if, as some say, he sowed the seeds of the Reformation, it was mostly because he could not resist the temptation to laugh at the clergy. He wrote a very characteristic Work ent.i.tled "The Praise of Folly," "Encomium Moriae" (a play on the name of Sir Thomas More), in which he maintains a sort of paradox, setting forth the value and advantages of folly, _i.e._, of indulging the light fancies and errors of imagination. With much humorous ill.u.s.tration he enumerates a great many conceits, and includes among them jests, but his main argument may be thus condensed.[45]

"Who knows not that man's childhood is by far the most delightful period of his existence? And why? Because he is then most a fool. And next to that his youth, in which folly still prevails; while in proportion as he retires from her dominion, and becomes possessed through discipline and experience of mature wisdom, his beauty loses its bloom, his strength declines, his wit becomes less pungent, until at last weary old age succeeds, which would be absolutely unbearable, unless folly, in pity for such grievous miseries, gave relief by bringing on a second childhood. Nature herself has kindly provided for an abundant supply of folly in the human race, for since, according to the Stoic definition, wisdom means only being guided by reason; whereas folly, on the other hand, consists in submitting to the government of the pa.s.sions; Jupiter wishing to make life merry, gave men far more pa.s.sion than reason, banishing the latter into one little corner of his person, and leaving all the rest of the body to the sway of the former. Man, however, being designed for the arrangement of affairs, could not do without a small quant.i.ty of reason, but in order to temper the evil thus occasioned, at the suggestion of folly woman was introduced into the world--"a foolish, silly creature, no doubt, but amusing, agreeable, and well adapted to mitigate the gloom of man's temper." Woman owes all her advantages to folly. The great end of her existence is to please man, and this she could not do without folly. If any man doubts it, he has only to consider how much nonsense he talks to a woman whenever he wishes to enjoy the pleasures of female society."

Erasmus wrote an ode in honour of Henry VII. and his children, and in it he recommends him to keep with him Skelton, "the one light and ornament of British literature." He says that no doubt the advice is unnecessary, as he hears the King is most anxious to retain his services. He was tutor to the young prince--afterwards Henry VIII. Skelton was born about 1460. Many of his humorous writings are lost, such as "The Balade of the Mustarde Tarte." He became a "poet laureate," at that time a degree in grammar, rhetoric and versification, on taking which, the graduate was presented with a laurel crown. Having taken orders in 1498, he was afterwards suspended for living with a lady whom he had secretly married. This suspension was much owing to his having incurred the anger of the Dominican Friars, whom he had attacked in his writings. We are told that he was esteemed more fit for the stage than the pulpit. The humour of Skelton consists princ.i.p.ally of severe personal vituperation.

In "Colyn Cloute" he a.s.sailed the clergy generally, but he wrote personal attacks on Garnesche (a courtier), and on Wolsey. The Cardinal had been his patron at one time, and Skelton had dedicated poems to him, among them "A Replycacion" against the followers of Wickliffe and Luther--of which pious effusion the following lines will give a specimen:--

"To the honour of our blessed lady And her most blesed baby, I purpose for to reply Agaynst this horryble heresy Of these young heretics that Stynke unbrent.

"I say, thou madde marche hare, I wondre how ye dare Open your ianglyng iawes, To preche in any clawes Lyke pratynge poppyng dawes.

"I say, ye braynless beestes, Why iangle you such iestes.

In your diuynite Of Luther's affynite To the people of lay fee Raylying in your rages To worshyppe none ymages Nor do pylgrymages."

The cause of his quarrel with Wolsey is not known, but he afterwards wrote a severe personal attack upon him ent.i.tled, "Why come ye not to Courte?" The tone of this effusion may be gathered from such expressions as:--

"G.o.d save his n.o.ble grace And grant him a place Endlesse to dwell, With the deuyll of h.e.l.l, For and he were there We nede neuer feere, Of the fendys blake; For I vndertake He wolde so brag and crake, That he wolde then make The deuyls to quake, To shudder and to shake."

Owing to such attacks, he was obliged to flee and take sanctuary at Westminster, where he died. His most entertaining pieces are "Speke Parrot," "Phyllyt Sparrowe," and "Elynour Rummynge." In the first a fair lady laments the death of her bird, killed by "those vylanous false cattes." She sings a "requiescat" for the soul of her dear bird, and recounts all his pretty ways--

"Sometyme he wolde gaspe When he sawe a waspe; A fly or a gnat He wolde flye at that; And prytely he wold pant When he saw an ant; Lord, how he wolde pry After the b.u.t.terfly!

Lord, how he wolde hop After the gressop, And whan I said Phypp, Phypp, Than he wolde lepe and skyp, And take ane by the lyp.

Alas it will me slo That Phillyp is gone we fro!"

She gives a long list of birds, who are to attend at his funeral, from which our nursery story of c.o.c.k-robin may be taken. Skelton seems to have been fond and observant of birds. In Speke Parrot, he thus describes

"With my beeke bent, my lyttyl wanton eye, My fedders freshe as is the emrawde grene, About my neck a cyrculet lyke the ryche rubye My lyttyl leggys, my feet both fete and clene, I am a mynyon to wayt uppon a quene; My proper parrot my lyttyl prety foole, With ladyes I lerne and go with them to scole."

It will be observed that the humour in the above pieces is little separated from poetry. In Elynour Rummynge however, we have something undoubtedly jocose, and proportionally rustic and uncouth.

Skelton adopted, as we have seen, a quick, short metre, somewhat a.n.a.logous to the "Swift Iambics," of the Greek humorists. Sometimes also he alternated Latin with English in a conceit not very uncommon towards the end of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth century as--

"Freeres, freeres, wo ye be!

Ministri malorum, For many a mannes soul bringe ye, Ad poenas infernorum."

No work became more popular than the Ship of Fools by Sebastian Brandt.

It was published in Germany in 1494, and was speedily translated into Latin and French. Alexander Barclay altered it so considerably in the rendering as almost to make a new work, especially applicable to the state of things existing in this country. Ersch and Gruber speak of Brandt's fools as contemptible and loathsome, and say what he calls follies might be better described as sins and vices. But here and there we meet with touches of humour in the mishaps and absurd actions of those he censures. The whole work is rather of a moral and religious complexion, as the following heading of the poem will suggest--

"Of newe fa.s.sions and disgised garmentes. Of Avaryce and prodygalyte. Of vnprofytable stody. Of lepynges and dauncis and Folys that pas theyr tyme in suche vanyte. Of Pluralitees, of flatterers, and glosers. Of the vyce of slouth. Of Usurers and okerers. Of the extorcion of knyghtis. Of follisske, c.o.kes, and b.u.t.telers."

Literature increased greatly in the fifteenth century, and began to take that general form it afterwards bore. One of the satires on the fashions of the period, which in every age seem to have afforded materials for mirth, begins as follows--

"Ye prowd gallonttes hertlesse With your hyghe cappis witlesse, And youre schort gownys thriftlesse, Have brought this londe in gret hevynesse.

With youre longe peked schone.

Therfor your thrifte is almost don, And with youre long here into your eyen Have brought this londe to gret pyne."

There is a good satire written on a priest about the time of the Reformation, showing considerable humour both in matter, language and versification. It is called "Doctor Doubble Ale."

A little episode is given arising from the priest's ignorance--

"His learning is exceeding Ye may know by his reading, Yet coulde a cobbler's boy him tell That he red a wrong gospell Wherfore in dede he served him well, He turned himselfe as round as a ball, And with loud voyce began to call, 'Is there no constable among you all To take this knave that doth me troble?'

With that all was on a hubble shubble, There was drawing and dragging, There was lugging and lagging, And snitching and s.n.a.t.c.hing, And ketching and catching, And so the pore ladde, To the counter they had, Some wolde he should be hanged, Or else he shulde be wranged; Some sayd it were a good turne Such an heretyke to burn."

A great many of the humorous poems written against the church were republished at the time of the Reformation to show that for centuries the misdoings of the clergy had been a source of comment. In "the Sak full of Nuez"--a rare book[46] referred to in 1575, containing a collection of humorous pieces of a rough and rude character--we find several hits at the expense of the church.

"A friar used to visit the house of an old woman, who, when he was coming, very prudently hid whatever she had to eat. One day coming with some friends, he asked her if she had not some meat. And she said, 'Nay.' 'Well,' quoth the friar, 'have you not a whetstone?' 'Yea,' quoth the woman, 'what will you do with it?' 'Marry,' quoth he, 'I would make meat thereof.' Then she brought a whetstone. He asked her likewise if she had not a frying-pan. 'Yea,' said she, 'but what the divil will ye do therewith?' 'Marry,' said the fryer, 'you shall see by and by what I will do with it;' and when he had the pan, he set it on the fire, and put the whetstone therein. 'c.o.c.ks-body,' said the woman, 'you will burn the pan.' 'No, no,' quoth the fryer, 'if you will give me some eggs, it will not burn at all.' But she would have had the pan from him, when that she saw the pan was in danger; but he would not let her, but still urged her to fetch him some eggs, which she did. 'Tush,' said the fryer, 'here are not enow, go fetch ten or twelve.' So the good wife was constrayned to fetch more, for feare that the pan should burn, and when he had them he put them in the pan. 'Now,' quoth he, 'if you have no b.u.t.ter, the pan will burn and the eggs too.' So the good-wife, being very loth to have her pan burnt, and her eggs lost, she fetcht him a dish of b.u.t.ter, the which he put into the pan and made good meat thereof, and brought it to the table, saying, 'Much good may it do you, my hostess, now may you say you have eaten of a b.u.t.tered whetstone.'"

Another story runs as follows:--

"There was a priest in the country, which had christened a child; and when he had christened it, he and the clerk were bidden to the drinking that should be there, and being there, the priest drank and made so merry that he was quite foxed, and thought to go home before he laid him down to sleep; but, having gone a little way, he grew so drousie that he could go no further, but laid him down by a ditch-side, so that his feet did hang in the water, and lying on his back, the moon shined in his face; thus he lay till the rest of the company came from drinking, who, as they came home, found the priest lying as aforesaid, and they thought to get him away, but do what they could, he would not rise, but said, 'Do not meddle with me, for I lie very well, and will not stir hence before morning, but I pray lay some more cloathes on my feet, and blow out the candle.'"

At first it occasions us no little surprise to find the clergy of the early centuries so p.r.o.ne to attack and ridicule one another, but we must remember that there was then no reading public, and that the few copies of books in existence were mostly within the walls of the monasteries.

Thus, the object of these writers would be like that of St. Jerome in his letters, not so much to disgrace the Church as to improve its discipline. We can also, perhaps, understand how the conflicts between the parish priests and monks led them sometimes to caricature each other in the grotesque heads of corbels and gargoyles; nor does it surprise us that Luther, indignant and rude, should portray the Pope to the public under the form of a jacka.s.s.

But how can we account for the strange and profane caricatures which are so numerous in the stone and wood carvings of our cathedrals? In the scriptural ornamentation of the thirteenth century in Strasburg Cathedral, there was the representation of a funeral performed by animals--a hare carried the taper, a wolf the cross, and a bear the holy water--while in another place a stag was celebrating ma.s.s, and an a.s.s reading the gospel. We often find carvings in which foxes are habited as ecclesiastics, sometimes accompanied by geese, who represent their flock, and thus we can understand the significance of the design in Sherborne Minster and Wellingborough, where two geese are hanging a fox.

In St. Mary's, Beverley, are two foxes dressed as ecclesiastics, each holding a pastoral staff, while a goose's head is peeping out of his hood. At Boston Church we find a fox in a cope and episcopal vestments, seated on a throne, and holding a pastoral staff, while on the right is an a.s.s holding a book for the bishop to read. The fact was that no means were left untried by the Church to make converts and to obtain a hold on the people. They wished to render religion as attractive as possible, and perhaps to direct and control tendencies which they could not destroy. It was then a favourite doctrine that the end justified the means--the Roman Church inst.i.tuted persecutions, adopted heathen rites, and ordained fasts and festivals to impress the mind. It is recorded that Theophylact of Constantinople introduced into the Church, in the tenth century, the licentious "Feast of Fools," to wean the people from the revels of their old religion, and have we not until late years celebrated the Nativity of our Lord, not only by games and frolics, but gluttony and drunkenness, and riotous proceedings, under pagan misletoe!

I believe that among the ma.s.ses of the people the Roman saturnalia still survive. We need not then be surprised that the early Christians tried to recommend religion by unsuitable ornamentation. They adopted all kinds of floral designs, they represented fables and romances. In the old church of Budleigh, in Devonshire--which Sir Walter Raleigh attended, and where his head is buried--all kinds of devices are represented on the pews, from a pair of scissors to a man-of-war, including a cook holding a sheep by the tail. It was only a step from this to introduce humour, and as men's feelings had not then been chastened or brought into order by reflection, they probably overlooked the lowering tendencies of levity. Those who came to laugh, might remain to pray, and so a strange crop of incongruities germinated upon the sacred soil. Thus, in Beverley Minster, we have a monkey riding upon a hare--a bedridden goat, with a monkey acting as doctor; and at Winchester a boar is playing on the fiddle, while a young pig is dancing.[47] Even scenes of drunkenness and immorality are not always excluded. But the princ.i.p.al representations attributed human actions to birds and beasts--people who could laugh at stories of this kind, could also at depictions of them. It may be maintained that men were then highly emotional, and demanded but little complexity or truth in humour, so that they could see something amusing in a boar playing upon the bagpipes, or in such a device as a monster composed of two birds, with the head of a lion, or another with a human head on a lion's body! But there must have been something more than this--some peculiar estimation of animals to account for such numerous representations. They were common in the secular ornamentation of the day, for instance, in a MS.

copy of Froissart of the fifteenth century, there is a drawing of a pig walking upon stilts, playing the harp, and wearing one of the tall head-dresses then in fashion.

This love of the comic seems to have been fostered by the leisure and the lively turn of some ecclesiastics. In the injunctions given to the British Church in the year 680, no bishop is to allow tricks or jocosities (ludos vel jocos) to be exhibited before him, and later we read of two monks, near Oxford, receiving a man hospitably, thinking he was a "jougleur," and could perform tricks, but kicking him out on finding themselves mistaken. We find some of the monks amusing themselves with "cloister humour," consisting princ.i.p.ally of logical paradoxes; while others indulged in verbal curiosities, such as those of Tryphiodorus, the lipogrammatist, who wrote an Odyssey in twenty-four books without once using the letter A. Some were more fond of pictorial designs, and carved great figures on the chalk downs, such as the Giant of Cerne Abbas, in Dorsetshire, and the Long Man of Wilmington, in Suss.e.x.

As we found reason to believe that the earliest kind of laughter was that of pleasure, so in this revival of civilization, we often see humour regarded as having no influence beyond that of ministering to amus.e.m.e.nt. The mind was scarcely equal to regarding things in more than one light. A jest was often viewed as entirely unimportant, its levity and depreciatory character being altogether overlooked. To this and to the hostile element then very prominent, we may attribute the caricatures of the devil, formerly so common. Before the tenth century, the devil was thought too dreadful to be portrayed, but afterwards, as the Church made a liberal exhibition of the torments of h.e.l.l, the idea occurred of deterring offenders by representing evil spirits in as frightful a form as possible. Some think that such figures were suggested by the Roman satyrs, but they may have come from Jewish or Runic sources. There is a mediaeval story of a monk having carved an image of the devil so much more repulsive than he really was, that the sable gentleman called upon him one night to expostulate. The monk, however, was inexorable. But the story says further that, although the holy man was proof against the entreaties of the devil, he was not so well armed against the fascinations of the fair, and owing to his suffering a defeat at the hands of the latter came afterwards to be shut up in prison. The original of his portrait again called upon him, and the monk agreed that, if he would obtain his release, he would represent him as a handsome fellow.

As times advanced, people began to fear the devil less, and to be amused at these strange carvings. From regarding them as ludicrous, it was only a step to make humorous caricatures--and there could be little harm in ridiculing the Devil. Thus we frequently find imps and demons brought in to perform the comic parts in the Church mysteries. It was a short advance from the ludicrous to the humorous, and thus we find the devil a merry fellow, playing all kinds of practical jokes on mankind. Such representations would now appear rather ludicrous than humorous, and are seldom seen, except to amuse children on Valentine's Day.