Boy Bishops

...on the feast of Holy Innocents, on which they shed their blood for the innocent Christ, an innocent Boy Bishop should perform the office, so that in this way a boy would be in charge of boys and an innocent command the innocent, preserving his image in the Church, whom the innocent follow wherever he goes. - from The Medieval Boy Bishops by Neil MacKenzie



not attributed | from whitpaintedlady.wordpress.com

19th c. depiction of boy bishop & canons | wikipedia.org

Corresponding to the “lord” of the Feast of Fools was the famous “Boy Bishop,” a choir-boy chosen by the lads themselves, who was vested in cope and mitre, held a pastoral staff, and gave the benediction. Other boys too usurped the dignities of their elders, and were attired as dean, archdeacons, and canons...The festivities must have formed a delightful break in the year of the medieval schoolboy...The feast, as we shall see, was by no means confined within the church walls; there was plenty of merrymaking and money-making outside. -Clement A. Miles, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition

For medieval people most forms of recreation and amusement were communal ...The festivities attendant on the election and period in office of the Boy Bishop not only offered a glorious religions celebration with the added frisson of seeing senior clerics replaced and humbled, but they also presented opportunities for processions, drinking, eating and generally making merry... - Neil MacKenzie, The Medieval Boy Bishops (7).



Wheel of Fortune | from Hortus Deliciarum
 "The Wheel of Fortune is often depicted in medieval art with the human figure at the mercy of Fortune's caprice as she spins her wheel randomly. In an age when the proud, the powerful and the successful could be toppled by the sudden workings of man or fate, the instability of worldly things was symbolized by a boy unseating a bishop in his own cathedral" (MacKenzie, 11).

 

" He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exhalted the humble" - the Magnificat (Burke 192).

In his richly detailed study of the Boy Bishops, Neil MacKenzie describes the following:

• Associated with St. Nicholas (patron of children) and The Feast of the Holy Innocents (honoring the blood spilled for King Herod), the election of the Boy Bishops "generally took place on the day or on the eve of St. Nicholas, 6th December," (15), while the actual office was assumed on Dec. 28th, the feast of Holy Innocents, though some festivities may have spanned those several days (17).
• The Audience for the ceremonies would have contained "choristers and clerics of all ranks,...rich and poor, children and adults (18).
• The role of the Boy Bishop enforced Christ's teachings that "...the last shall be the first and the first shall be the last" (19).
• In various Cathedrals, the Boy Bishop might incense the alter, chant prayers, bless the congregation, and perhaps even sing the mass. Yet all of this was carefully managed by the church to remain symbolic only, and even the precise language which the boy could use separated him from the office of ordained priest.
• Perhaps it was after the ceremonies, at the choristers feasts that the real fun began, when the boy could lord over a party of friends and neighbors in addition to certain members of the clergy, enjoying with food, music and entertainments (42-43).
• The Boy Bishop made visits to non-religious and religious institutions, and his hosts were required to provide adequate hospitality, similar to receiving a true bishop. A generous host would receive the "bishop's" prayers. The boy could collect a great sum of money, too, which often he was allowed to keep, or otherwise went to the Church. (45-51)
• The Boy Bishop was elected and celebrated in various ways across Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Germany at least.

This was a festival of the Church, yet was continuously being limited, re-written and very carefully managed by the Church. As is pointed out by Clement A. Miles, in Christmas in Ritual and Tradition,"Minute details have been preserved of the Boy Bishop customs at St. Paul's Cathedral in the thirteenth century. It had apparently been usual for the “bishop” to make the cathedral dignitaries act as taper- and incense-bearers, thus reversing matters so that the great performed the functions of the lowly. In 1263 this was forbidden." The "bishop" was still allowed to demand a dinner from the Dean or canons, but the number in his party was limited.

"Just as in... the Saturnalian celebrations classical civilisation had seen the need for the shackles of propriety and decency to be slackened, but held within their safety of a closely-ordered society...so a similar understanding underlies the medieval attitude to the Boy Bishop... some of the festivities, especially where were influenced by the Feast of Fools, are sympathetic both to a belief in the ordered nature of creation and of the fear of chaos. The topsy-turvy nature of boys ruling men and of the plays and masques, shows a desire to escape from the rigid order of things but in the medieval mind there was also a dread of chaos and a desire for order which found their expression in incorporating the Boy Bishop into the strictly defined ritual of the cathedral, so the disorder might be symbolically controlled and not let loose with an anarchy that threatened to destroy society" (MacKenzie 136-37).

Like the Feast of Fools, the Boy Bishop ceremonies showed an INVERSION representing SYMBOLIC REVERSAL OF POWER. Boy Bishops went on PROCESSION, were FEASTED and COLLECTED MONEY.Yet their ceremonies were CAREFULLY REGULATED  by the Church.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Fall of the Rebel Angels (1562)

Hell | Hans Memling, 1485. | Wikipaintings.org