18th century, English, Europe, historical figure, primary source, quotes, Scotland, stories
This tale of a fool throttling goslings in his care is told here of the Scottish jester Jamie Fleeman, but it bears such a striking resemblance to a better known gosling throttler, namely the German jester Claus Narr, that it may be a fictive attribution; there are...
15th century, 16th century, English, Europe, historical figure, primary source, quotes, Scotland
The feigning of folly could be profitable and in 15th century Scotland it appears there was enough of it going on to prompt a law prohibiting it. This and similar constraints were repeated in the parliamentary records for another 150 years or so; I have found such...
15th century, 16th century, 17th century, bibliography, England, Europe, historical figure, research, Scotland, Stuart, thesis
This thesis makes a strong contribution to our understanding of several aspects of the fool, building on earlier work by Jessica Secmezsoy-Urquhart and covering the period 1488-1649. Geographically, it zooms in on the Stuart (Stewart) court’s relationship with...
16th century, English, Europe, folk fool, primary source, quotes, Scotland
A fine story-telling version of the many tales about George Buchanan, celebrating him as the king’s fool. Buchanan (1506-82) is one of those tricky characters who begin life as an historical, living person and somehow, over centuries, morph into a jester of...
16th century, 17th century, English, Europe, historical figure, primary source, quotes, Scotland, stories
A recurrent theme in the fool-king relationship is that of role-swapping, more formally known as ‘inversion’.Fools, jesters, clowns, are often said to turn the world on its head – in medieval Europe there was even a genre of art focused on this...
