Fool, Or Jester, a character in mediaeval courts and noble families, whose business it was to entertain the household by amusing sallies. Somewhat similar were the parasites of antiquity, who were wont to pay for their dinners by jests and flatteries. Court fools do not appear distinctly and officially till after the crusades. They were at first either misshapen, half-imbecile dwarfs, who were themselves ridiculous objects, and whose senseless replies were welcomed with laughter; or quick-witted, half-mad fellows; or poor and merry poets. Among the insignia of the office were the fool's cap, party-colored, adorned with three asses' ears and a cock's comb, and worn on a shorn head; the variously shaped fool's sceptre or bauble; the bells, which decorated the cap and most other parts of the costume; and a wide collar. Besides the ordinary fools, there was a more refined class, called merry counsellors, who had higher privileges and considerable influence, but who are commonly confounded with the court fools proper. One of the most celebrated fools was Triboulet, a favorite of Francis I. of France, who amused his master often by giving him most impertinent counsels. He carried tablets on which he inscribed the names of courtiers who had committed any act of folly.

His successor was Brusquet, who combined other offices with that of fool, who suffered much from the tricks of the courtiers whom he mystified, and whose bon-mots have been often repeated. Earlier French fools of renown were Caillette, Thony, Sibilot, Chicot, and the female Mathurine; and the annals of the office in France terminate with Angely, who was the titular fool of Louis XIII., and who became by his refined and cynical pleasantry one of the most formidable personages at court. Jodel der Narr, who was taken by the emperor Ferdinand II. to the diet in 1622, and Klaus Narr of Saxony, are famous among German fools. The office ceased in most European countries about the close of the 17th century, but continued longer in Russia, where Peter the Great often had twelve fools, whom he classified, and the empress Anne six, among whom were the Portuguese Da Costa and the Italian Pedrillo. In England the fools were long distinguished by a calf-skin coat, which had the buttons down the back. By the illuminators of the 13th century they are represented as squalid idiots, wrapped in a blanket, and holding a stick with an inflated bladder attached to it, which served as a bauble.

From the 16th century they were often men of ability, and their entertainment consisted in witty retorts and sarcastic reflections. Though their license was extensive, they were liable to correction or discharge from office.-See Flogel's Geschichte der Hofnarren (Leipsic, 1789).