Jester

Painting of a jester

A jester, joker, fool, or buffoon, is a type of entertainer mostly (but not always) associated with the Middle Ages. Jesters typically wore brightly colored clothing. Their hats, sometimes called the cap ’n bells or cockscomb, were special; made of cloth, they were floppy with three points (liliripes) each of which had a jingle bell at the end.

The three points of the hat represent the asses' ears and tail worn by jesters when they first appeared. Other typical things about the jester were his constant laughter and his mock scepter, known as a bauble or maharoof.

Jester Media

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  Festival of the Archers. Master of Frankfurt, 1493. Two jesters are depicted in the centre of the picture.

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  King Lear and the Fool in the Storm by William Dyce

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  The Fool tarot card from an 1890 deck

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  Illumination from a French Lancelot manuscript, c. 1470 (detail)

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  Jester Knight Christoph by Hans Wertinger, 1515 (Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid)

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  Henry VIII's jester Will Sommers, engraving by Francis Delaram, c. 1615/24

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  Queen Henrietta Maria with Sir Jeffrey Hudson by Van Dyck, 1633

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  Hinric Hasenberger, the Court Jester by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, 1652

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  Susuhunan jester participating in the Garebeg Moeloed procession, Java (Indonesia), c. 1920s

Other websites

• BBC News site story about the Tongaon Royal Jester's involvement in financial scandal 2003
• Royal decree proclaiming the Jester title by the Tongan Royal 1999 Archived 2012-11-06 at the Wayback Machine
• BBC News site story about Kester the Jester's appointment to English Heritage 2004
• University of California, Berkeley Online Medieval and Classical Library (OMACL) & links for medieval studies Archived 2005-09-17 at the Wayback Machine
• Picture of Will Somers with Henry the Eighth Archived 2007-02-10 at the Wayback Machine
• Mulla Nasruddin Archived 2008-02-14 at the Wayback Machine
• Gesundheit! Institute
• Shakespeare search engine - A keyword search such as "fool", "folly", "jester" or "clown" reveals every reference in Shakespeare Archived 2007-08-20 at the Wayback Machine
• The Court Jester (1956) on IMDb
• Rumpelstiltskin - A rare modern day jester with an impressive resumé Archived 2007-08-29 at the Wayback Machine
• Fooling Around the World (A history of the court jester)
• Foolish Clothing: Depictions of Jesters and Fools in the Middle Ages and Renaissance What 14th-16th century jesters wore and carried, as seen in illustrations and museum collections
• The Funnyman on IMDb