The gate of the year

Figure above:

Illustration representing a Feast of Fools into a Church, from the volume by Léon Ménard, Histoire civile, ecclésiastique, et littéraire de la ville de Nismes, published in Paris in 1750, tome 3.

[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F%C3%AAte_des_fous_dans_ l%27%C3%A9glise_1752.jpg]

Figure below:

The “Pope of the Fools”, illustration by Louis Boulanger for an edition of Notre-Dâme de Paris, by Victor Hugo, Paris, 1878.

[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Le_Roi_des_fous_par_Louis_ Boulanger_et_W._Finden, 1878.jpg]

The Innocents’ Day is a liturgical feast, in which the Christian Church celebrates the remembrance of the children who were killed by King Herod in his tentative to remove the danger represented by the Child Jesus, and had been established on December 28 since the V-VI century.
Particularly in Spain, this feast is still an opportunity to practice “carnivalesque” behaviors, such as mock battles with throwing of flour and eggs.
Such customs are the last survivals of the “Feast of Fools”, widely diffused during the Middle Ages in the Month of December, which were often the scene of a real parody of a “world upside down”. In Burgos is maintained even today the tradition of the election of the Obispillo (the “Little Bishop”), which was traditionally elected on the day of Saint Nicholas, on December 6, and remained in charge until the Innocents. In other countries of Europe was elected a “Bishop of the Fools” (Victor Hugo describes in his novel on medieval Paris the election of a “Pope of the Fools”), or even a donkey was dressed like a king or a bishop and brought solemnly in the church, where ceremonies were celebrated which involved pre-Christian elements, still maintained in the common mentality. The Fools, who, according to folk beliefs, had powers of foresight and communication with the divine, became the intermediaries with the sacred, like the animals associated with them, in substitution of the priestly office.
The equating of children and fools is a common trait in medieval culture, and, since both the fool and the child approached in some way to the mystic, just for their “innocence”, that is spontaneous and ingenuous openness, the feasts in their honor were seen with a certain indulgence and tolerance, despite being a source of discomfort, even by the Church hierarchies (Cardini 1995, p.201). Children, furthermore, represent the new generations, renewal, like the Child Jesus himself represented also the new year which regained life. Thus, it was not a case if all the period around Christmas was associated particularly with children and with Saint Nicholas, who was inserted in this ritual complex, assuming the function of benevolent bringer of gifts, and opening the road for the modern character of Santa Claus.

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Figure above: Illustration representing a Feast of Fools into a Church, from the volume by Léon Ménard, Histoire civile, ecclésiastique, et littéraire de la ville de Nismes, published in Paris in 1750, tome 3. [Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F%C3%AAte_des_fous_dans_ l%27%C3%A9glise_1752.jpg] Figure below: The “Pope of the Fools”, illustration by Louis Boulanger for an edition of Notre-Dâme de Paris, by Victor Hugo, Paris, 1878. [Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Le_Roi_des_fous_par_Louis_ Boulanger_et_W._Finden, 1878.jpg] The Innocents’ Day is a liturgical feast, in which the Christian Church celebrates the remembrance of the children who were killed by King Herod in his tentative to remove the danger represented by the Child Jesus, and had been established on December 28 since the V-VI century. Particularly in Spain, this feast is still an opportunity to practice “carnivalesque” behaviors, such as mock battles with throwing of flour and eggs. Such customs are the last survivals of the “Feast of Fools”, widely diffused during the Middle Ages in the Month of December, which were often the scene of a real parody of a “world upside down”. In Burgos is maintained even today the tradition of the election of the Obispillo (the “Little Bishop”), which was traditionally elected on the day of Saint Nicholas, on December 6, and remained in charge until the Innocents. In other countries of Europe was elected a “Bishop of the Fools” (Victor Hugo describes in his novel on medieval Paris the election of a “Pope of the Fools”), or even a donkey was dressed like a king or a bishop and brought solemnly in the church, where ceremonies were celebrated which involved pre-Christian elements, still maintained in the common mentality. The Fools, who, according to folk beliefs, had powers of foresight and communication with the divine, became the intermediaries with the sacred, like the animals associated with them, in substitution of the priestly office. The equating of children and fools is a common trait in medieval culture, and, since both the fool and the child approached in some way to the mystic, just for their “innocence”, that is spontaneous and ingenuous openness, the feasts in their honor were seen with a certain indulgence and tolerance, despite being a source of discomfort, even by the Church hierarchies (Cardini 1995, p.201). Children, furthermore, represent the new generations, renewal, like the Child Jesus himself represented also the new year which regained life. Thus, it was not a case if all the period around Christmas was associated particularly with children and with Saint Nicholas, who was inserted in this ritual complex, assuming the function of benevolent bringer of gifts, and opening the road for the modern character of Santa Claus. .