in one of the letters addressed by the anxious chesterfield to his son, the discerning peer remarks: “there is at all courts a chain which connects the prince or the minister with the page of the backstairs or the chambermaid. the king’s wife or mistress has an influence over him; a lover has an influence over her; the chambermaid or valet de chambre has an influence over both; and so ad infinitum. you must therefore,” adds the estimable trainer of his child, “not break a link of that chain, by which you hope to climb up to the prince.”
with a little modification, such as “fool” for valet de chambre, this counsel would not have been without value to any young spaniard about to push his fortunes at any one of the royal courts once scattered over the length and breadth of now united spain. at these courts, the jester was paramount in influence. the introduction of the merry official is said to date from the entry of the troubadours from the south of france. this joyous company brought with them many methods of entertaining royal and noble listeners, but they gradually degenerated, as the minstrels did in other countries, into buffoons,—and probably found the latter the more profitable profession of the two.
james ii., king of majorca, provided for the merry professors in the royal household, by establishing them there, under the protection of the law. “from ancient times,” as tradition tells us, so runs the decree, “it has been lawful for mimes or jesters to reside in princes’ households;317 for the execution of their office is a provocative to gladness. wherefore, we will and ordain, that in our court there shall always be five jesters, of which five, two may be trumpeters, and a third our letter-carrier (tabellarius).” this arrangement left the other two in close attendance upon their royal patron.
that these officials were not always addicted to joking, may be seen in the case of the anonymous fool, who is said to have stabbed theudis, or theodored, the royal groth, at the council of toledo. it is believed, however, that the assassin only feigned folly in order to obtain freer access to the person of the prince. generally speaking, the spanish fools seem to have been as merry fellows as figaro, whose office of barber was indeed frequently exercised, like that of the jester, with infinite mirth and much impunity. so merry were some of these joculatores, that one king, at least, is said to have died of laughter at a fool’s jest. this king must have been very easy to kill, if we may judge by the joke which, as we are told, proved mortal to him.
the monarch in question was martin of arragon, who reigned from 1394 to 1410. his favourite jester was the renowned borra, who drove such a thriving trade by his jokes, that he is said to have been worth a ton of gold. he looked down upon many a poor philosopher, remarking the while, “i have made more by my folly than that fellow by all his wisdom!” his influence with the king was unbounded, and the bribes he received in consequence tended very much to increase his fortune. what he obtained in this way can only be guessed at. that his jokes were rewarded in magnificent style, we may judge from the circumstance which occurred when borra exerted himself professionally at a banquet at which sigismund, afterwards emperor, was present. the latter, pleased with borra, so loaded him with silver ere he left the room, that the fool could not carry it away without bending. folly was never more318 richly paid, except, perhaps, by queen sibylla da forcia, who paid her joculators in gold, and much pleasanter coin besides.
borra, as before intimated, killed his royal patron by a joke. king martin was suffering from indigestion through too greedily devouring an entire goose. as he lay groaning on his bed, borra skipped into the room with a merry air, and the monarch inquired of him, whence he came.
“out of the next vineyard,” answered the fool, “where i saw a young deer hanging by his tail from a tree, as if some one had so punished him for stealing figs.” when it is added that the king died of laughter at this joke, the historians forget the goose and the indigestion.
alphonso, king of arragon, had for his fool, one luis lopez, who, according to cervantes, lies buried in no less a place than the cathedral of cordova. lopez kept, like other fools, a “fools’ chronicle,” in which he entered the follies of the court, and the names of the offenders. the king had given 10,000 ducats to a moor to purchase horses with, in barbary. some days subsequently, on looking over the chronicle, he was astonished to find a page containing simply his name.
“cousin luis,” said his majesty, “why do you enrol me among fools?”
“for trusting 10,000 ducats to an infidel moor, without security,” answered luis.
“tush, man! the moor is honest, and will bring back either horses or money.”
“then if he does,” said lopez, “i will scratch out your name and put his in its place.”
the above joke was used in various forms, till it grew old, and fools of quality would no longer plagiarize it. it is told of at least one jester at every court. many fools would have been above such a jest at all; for there were some who, though jesters, joked with instruction in view.
319 michael aitzinger was one of these. i do not know that he can be strictly called a spanish fool, being a belgian, but he held the office at the court of philip ii. of spain, though he became better known for various heavy historical essays than for light jests quickly spoken.
in one case we have an instance of a spanish court fool also belonging to philip ii., exercising the high profession of prophecy. fl?gel thus tells the story, which he borrows from richter’s spectaculum mundi.
“a court fool of philip’s once saw the following persons sitting at the royal table:—hugo boncampius of bologna, papal nuncio in spain; perettus, a franciscan monk of ancona, who in his youth had been a swineherd; and the protonotary sfondrati, of milan. ‘dost thou know,’ said the jester to the king, ‘that you have three popes at table?’ thereupon, he touched each upon the shoulder according to the future order of their succession; first, hugo, afterwards gregory xiii.; then perretus, subsequently sixtus v.; and lastly sfondrati, who became gregory xiv.”
fl?gel considers this as a rather fabulous story, although he admits that the eastern idea of the sayings of fools being sometimes inspired by divinity, prevailed occasionally in europe. he cites claudius agrippa as ascribing the gift of prophecy to klaus narr, of whom i have already spoken; and he maintains the alleged fact that klaus, at the royal table, aroused the guests by exclaiming that one of the elector’s castles, twelve leagues off, was in flames. according to tradition, this proved to be the case, and if so, klaus may claim the possession of that not very desirable gift in this world,—the gift of second-sight.
of the spanish jesters in noblemen’s households there is not much to be said. perico de ayala, the paid buffoon of the marquis of villena, was among the most celebrated. the marquis, says floresta (espa?ola), “once ordered his320 wardrobe-keeper to give the fool un sayo de brocado; the man only gave him the mangas and faldamentos. away went perico to the court brotherhood, and requested them to bury one who had died at the marquis’s, and then away went the funeral procession, with the little death-bell tinkling before them. the marquis, seeing them at his door, asked them why they came. ‘for the body,’ said the fool, ‘as the chamberlain only gave me the trimmings.’”
perico distinguished himself more wittily in his reply to a knight who once asked him the properties of turquoise. “why,” said the fool, “if you have a turquoise about you, and should fall from the top of a tower and be dashed to pieces, the stone would not break!”
i have already spoken of the spanish jester who was in the household of the marquis del guasto. the latter, a vaunting general, was opposed to the count fran?ois de bourbon, at the battle of cerizoles. he had previously made himself so sure of defeating the count that he took his fool with him, attired in a splendid suit of armour, that the jester might witness his triumph. he had, moreover, promised the jester several hundred ducats if he succeeded in being first to carry to the wife of the marquis, the news of her husband’s victory. things, however, fell out just contrary to the marquis’s expectations. instead of defeating the count, the count defeated him, slaying thousands, capturing cannon, and taking 4,000 prisoners,—not half the number of the slain. among the prisoners was a noble-looking gentleman in a gorgeous suit of armour, of which he appeared to have taken very peculiar care, for there was no sign of battle about it. it seemed, however, to promise heavy ransom, and the dignified-looking warrior who wore it was conducted with much courteous ceremony to the tent of fran?ois de bourbon. when the count inquired of his captive as to the rank he bore, the merry fellow at once burst into a laugh, and confessed321 that he was only house fool to the marquis del guasto. “and where is the marquis?” asked the count. “oh!” replied sir fool, with a merrier laugh than before, “he has ridden home to his wife, to cheat me of my reward by carrying her the earliest news of the battle.”
if we may judge from the little that is to be collected in books, concerning the spanish jesters, they were mentally superior to their italian colleagues. some of the former achieved a literary reputation. at the head of these was estevanillo gonzales, who held office successively in the households of count piccolomini and the duke of amalfi; both these noblemen were commanders in the king of spain’s army, in the netherlands. in 1646, when gonzales was with the duke, he wrote his autobiography, describing himself as “hombre de buen humor.” this book was partly translated, partly rewritten by lesage, and is doubtless known to most of my readers.
the wonder perhaps is, that dignified spaniards should keep jesters at all. but one of the gravest of englishmen did so rather than be out of the fashion. i allude to sir thomas wentworth (strafford), who on his establishment at wentworth woodhouse, about the year 1620, maintained a retinue of sixty persons, and among them there is enumerated, by hunter, in his history of doncaster, our ancient friend, “tom foole.” the mode was then more prevalent in germany than in any other part of europe; and thither, if the “gentle reader” object not, we will now betake ourselves.
