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, 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...
