The duties of a medieval court jester were to entertain the king, his court, and any visitors the king wanted to amuse. He (or she) was also used to cheer the monarch up when he was down, to act as a confidant, and sometimes as a messenger. The term "jester" wasn't coined until later, so medieval court entertainers were often called fools or buffoons. But the "fool" had to be clever enough to walk the fine line between eliciting laughs and offending those with power over him. That was a line that the famous French jester Triboulet crossed when he served King Louis XII and Francis I.
Legend has it, whether truth or not is impossible to tell, this led to an exchange between himself and King Francis in which he told the king one of the members of the court had threatened to kill him. The King purportedly replied to this, “If he does, I will hang him a quarter of an hour afterward.” To which Triboulet supposedly quipped, “Ah, Sire, couldn’t you contrive to hang him a quarter of an hour previously?”
In another famed instance, he angered the King via making fun of the queen, whereupon his execution was ordered. However, legend has it that given his years of good service, he was given leave to choose the manner of his death. After thinking it over, Triboulet purportedly told the king “Good sire, for Saint Nitouche’s and Saint Pansard’s sake, patrons of insanity, I choose to die from old age.” This so amused the king that he just had Triboulet banished instead of killing him.
Learn a lot more of the ins and outs of life as a medieval court jester at Today I Found Out.
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