note… The following is the historian’s account of the state of the medieval Roman church. Seems like an early version of Seeker Sensitivity! -jr

The “Easter Drolleries” held an important place in the acts of the Church. As the festival of the resurrection required to be celebrated with joy, every thing that could excite the laughter of the hearers was sought out, and thrust into sermons. One preacher imitated the note of the cuckoo, while another hissed like a goose. One dragged forward to the altar a layman in a cassock; a second told the most indecent stories; a third related the adventures of the Apostle Peter, among others, how, in a tavern, he cheated the host by not paying his score. The inferior clergy took advantage of the occasion to turn their superiors into ridicule. The churches were thus turned into stages, and the priests into mountebanks.

D’Aubigne; History of the Reformation

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