Podcast Summary:

Le Cours de l'histoire (France Culture)
Episode: Peut-on rire de tout ? Oui… pendant la Fête des Fous
Date: September 19, 2025
Host: France Culture

Episode Overview

This episode explores the question: "Can we laugh about everything?" by delving into the Middle Ages and the unique tradition of the Fête des Fous ("Feast of Fools"). The discussion examines how humor, parody, and irreverence were not only accepted but ritualized during specific festivities, questioning the boundaries between the sacred and the profane. The episode highlights the shifting relationship between laughter, power, and social order, both historically and in today's context.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Humor in the Middle Ages: Carnival and the Fête des Fous

• The Middle Ages had designated times when all social rules could be upended through laughter—most notably during the Fête des Fous, celebrated between Christmas and Epiphany, particularly around December 28th (the "Feast of the Innocents").
• “Ce jour-là, tout était permis. Vous auriez vu des gens jouer au dé dans l’église, manger sur l’autel, chanter des chants obscènes, se jeter des pots de chambre ou pire.” (A, 00:36)

2. Ritualized Subversion and Social Inversion

• On these festival days, ordinary hierarchies were inverted:

  • Children might be crowned as kings.
  • Fools could sit on thrones.
  • Mock religious leaders (popes, bishops, kings) were chosen.
  • Liturgical rituals were parodied with drunken or gamblers' "masses" and secular song parodies.

• “C’était une fête déguisée qui célébrait le monde à l’envers, y compris dans les hiérarchies sociales et dans les rituels religieux.” (A, 00:44)

3. Religion and Parody: Blasphemy or Acceptance?

• The episode clarifies that these acts were not seen straightforwardly as blasphemy but as temporarily sanctioned forms of parody, often practiced by committed believers.

• The sacred and the grotesque coexisted—the two sides of the same coin.

• “Parodier le sacré était plus ou moins accepté à l’occasion des fêtes. Les auteurs de ces parodies débridées pouvaient être de fervents croyants.” (A, 01:16)

4. Church Reaction: Attempts to Control or Suppress

• The Church repeatedly tried (and initially failed) to suppress these carnivals due to their deep roots, possibly stretching back to Roman Saturnalia, which celebrated similar inversions.

• Ultimately, the Church's strategy was to control and ritualize laughter.

  • For example, at Easter, priests would tell jokes from the pulpit to make the congregation laugh after Lent.
  • The "fête de l’âne" replaced “Amen” with the braying of donkeys by the congregation.

• “Difficile de les éradiquer. Alors l’église tente au moins d’encadrer le rire, de le ritualiser.” (A, 02:10)

• “À la fête de l'âne, il entonnait des chants à l'honneur de l'âne […]. Et à la fin de la messe, au lieu de dire ‘Amen’, il braillait trois fois avec la foule ‘I-Han, I-Han, I-Han’.” (A, 02:40)

5. The End of Institutionalized Laughter

• With the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation, the Church deemed parody of religion to be irreverent and finally succeeded in banning such festivities in the 16th century.
• “Et l’Église parvient enfin, au XVIᵉ siècle, à interdire ces fêtes. On ne peut plus rire du sacré.” (A, 03:15)

6. Laughter: Safety Valve or True Subversion?

• The episode questions if humor during these festivals was genuinely subversive or merely controlled release—a way to let people laugh once so that they'd be quiet the rest of the year.
• “Une soupape, une mise en scène de l’ordre renversé, une pause illusoire du système officiel. Juste de quoi canaliser la rébellion […]. Car quand l’humour redescendait de son trône, tout reprenait comme avant.” (A, 03:45)

7. Today’s Perspective

• The host invites listeners to reflect: Where are the limits today? Without a designated "fête de fou," some subjects remain taboo, unless you have "a good lawyer."
• Medieval jokes, however, remain risk-free: "Les morts ne vous traîneront pas au tribunal, les licornes non plus." (A, 04:23)

Notable Quotes

• On the world turned upside down:
  “C’était une fête déguisée qui célébrait le monde à l’envers, y compris dans les hiérarchies sociales et dans les rituels religieux.”
  — Host (A), 00:44

• On the Church’s strategy:
  “Alors l’église tente au moins d’encadrer le rire, de le ritualiser.”
  — Host (A), 02:10

• On laughter as a safety valve:
  “Une soupape, une mise en scène de l’ordre renversé, une pause illusoire du système officiel.”
  — Host (A), 03:45

• On today’s boundaries:
  “Les morts ne vous traîneront pas au tribunal, les licornes non plus.”
  — Host (A), 04:23

Key Timestamps

• 00:00–01:00 – Introduction to humor and the Fête des Fous
• 01:00–02:10 – Examples of inversion and parody in medieval festivals
• 02:10–03:15 – The Church’s attempts to frame or control laughter
• 03:15–03:45 – Suppression and the end of religious parody
• 03:45–04:23 – Analysis: laughter as subversion or control; reflection on contemporary taboo

Conclusion

This episode engagingly illustrates how, contrary to some modern assumptions, laughter—even about the sacred—was woven into the Middle Ages’ social and religious fabric, as long as it was properly channeled. The Fête des Fous, a ritualized, institutionalized moment of irreverence, reveals much about the balance of power, order, and social release—raising the enduring question: where should we draw the line today?