Feast Of Fools, a mediaeval grotesque religious ceremony, celebrated for several centuries, chiefly in France, at the festivals of the Nativity, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, the Murder of the Innocents, and especially at Christmas and Easter. The custom and amusements usually connected with the pagan Saturnalia had continued, in spite of prohibitions, to be observed among Christians both in the East and West, and gradually attached themselves to the Christian festivals occurring in December and January, which had been the months of the pagan celebrations. The festam futuorum or follorum was a mixture of farce and piety, and a sportive travesty of the offices and rites of the church. The priests and clerks elected a pope, archbishop, or bishop, and conducted him in great pomp to the church, which they entered dancing, masked, disguised as women, animals, and merry-andrews; they sang infamous songs, converted the altar into a buffet, where they ate and drank during the celebration of the holy mysteries, played with cards and dice, burned old sandals instead of incense, ran about leaping, and amused the populace by indecent sallies and postures.

The feast of fools was prohibited by the papal legate Peter of Capua in the diocese of Paris in 1198, and was condemned by the Sorbonne in 1444, but did not entirely disappear till toward the end of the 10th century. It was known in Germany only in the cities on the Rhine.