The practice of retaining fools can be distinctly traced from the remotest times.  They were to be found alike in the palace and the brothel; the Pope had his fool, and the bawd hers; they excited the mirth of kings and beggars; the hovel of the villain and the castle of the baron were alike exhilarated by their jokes.  With respect to the antiquity of this custom in England, it appears to have existed even during the period of our Saxon history, but we are certain of the fact in the reign of William the Conqueror.  Maitre Wace, an historian of that time, has an account of the preservation of William’s life, when Duke of Normandy, by his fool, Goles; and, in Domesday book, mention is made of Berdin joculator regis; and though this term sometimes denoted a minstrel, evidence might be adduced to prove, that in this instance it signified a buffoon.

The entertainment, fools were expected to afford, may be collected in great variety from our old plays, especially from those of Shakespeare; but, perhaps, a good idea may be formed of their general conduct from a passage in a curious tract by Lodge, entitled, “Wit’s Miserie,” 1599, quarto:  “Immoderate and disordinate joy became incorporate in the bodie of a jeaster; this fellow in person is comely, in apparell courtly, but in behaviour a very ape, and no man; his studie is to coin bitter jeasts, or to shew antique motions, or to sing baudie sonnets and ballads; give him a little wine in his head, he is continually flearing and making of mouthes; he laughs intemperately at every little occasion, and dances about the house, leaps over tables, outskips men’s heads, trips up his companions’ heeles, burns sack with a candle, and hath all the feats of a lord of misrule in the countrie:  feed him in his humour, you shall have his heart; in mere kindness he will hug you in his armes, kisse you on the cheeke, and rapping out an horrible oath, crie ’God’s soule, Tum, I love you, you knowe my poore heart, come to my chamber for a pipe of tobacco, there lives not a man in this world that I more honor.’  In these ceremonies you shall know his courting, and it is a speciall mark of him at table, he sits and makes faces:  keep not this fellow company, for in jingling with him, your wardropes shall be wasted, your credits crackt, your crownes consumed, and time (the most precious riches of the world) utterly lost.”

With regard to the fool’s business on the stage, it was nearly the same as in reality, with this difference, that the wit was more highly seasoned.  In Middleton’s “Mayor of Quinborough,” a company of actors, with a Clown, make their appearance, and the following dialogue ensues:—­

1st Cheater.  This is our Clown, sir.

Simon.  Fye, fye, your company
             Must fall upon him and beat him; he’s too fair i’faith,
             To make the people laugh.

1st Cheater.  Not as he may be dress’d, sir.