Rocznik Historii Sztuki (21.1995)

TOTUS MORIO

247

Mięsko was born about 1540 in Świebodzin (Schwiebus) in the district of Lubusz (Lebus). After many years of rambling it
was probably about 1607-1609 that he became the court jester of the prince Philip II. Hainhofer gives a very critical description
of the jester as the old man, totally stupid, always drunk, but very attached to his master and having very close relations with his
whole family. Mięsko died on 22 December 1619 as an old man and to some extent because of the "unordentliches Leben in Essen
und Trinken". He was buried the next day in the St. Peter and Paul Church in Szczecin, and it was on this occasion, that by order
of Francis I, the sucessor of Philip II the pastor Cradelius preached his sermon.

It was because of this sermon that Mięsko has found his place in the literaturę. It was drawing attention already in the 18th
century, beginning from 1724, and sometime a short information about its contents could be met.

Mięsko is certainly the only jester who such a great honour, usually reserved for the knights, the clergy and the patriciate
was conferred upon. Other jesters, if were remembered at all, it was in the literary epitaphs only. The case is so more unusual,
that the funeral sermon, as the author could find, was published not once, but four times during about 70 years! For the first time
it was edited in Stettin (Szczecin) in 1619 (1620?) and then In 1678, next in Leipzig in 1680 and in 1692 in Bautzen. It is certainly
an exception in the funeral literaturę.

The explanation of this unusual popularity can be found in the contents of the sermon. It is treating not so much about the
essence of the court jester's duty as about the problem of stupidity and madness and their place and the role they play in society.
The sermon with a motto 2 Co. 11:19 has the usual structure. After epitaphium there are exordinum, propositio, usus et applicatio
followed by precatio and vitae defuncti enarratio. Of course, Cradelius' attitude towards the jester is quite différent from that of
Hainhofer. He points that Mięsko, although weak-minded, is at the same time "naturalis philosophus" and "kurzweiliger Tischrath",
explaining that the "naturalis philosophus" is a person who serves his master for distraction and rising his spirits.

As "Leichentext" Cradelius had chosen the 1 S.21:13ff telling about David who saved his life by simulating madness. At
the beginnings the pastor drew the egsegesis of the biblical text based, what is interesting, upon the Vulgate. Like a psychiatrist,
he explained the symptoms of madness described in the Bible: vultus immutatione, pedum vacillatione, corporis verberatione et
salivae profluvione. Next he formed the conclusions resulting from the David's adventure: sometimes stupidity is better than
wisdom. The imitation of a fool in a .suitable moment can bring a profit and save the life. And it is why he warned: in a déplorable
situation of the "narrische Leute" one must see the interférence of the God, who may help us in an unusual way, ergo - through
our attitude towards these people we express our attitude towards the God. Afterwards he introduced a very interesting classifi-
cation, dividing court jesters into several groups: "Epicurische [sic!] Narren, Gelahrte [sic!] Narren, Gnad Narren, Geld Narren,
Stock Narren, Bier und Wein Narren, Schmeichler Narren, Faul Narren". In reality, more than to classify the court jesters, he
criticized rather the morality of all the courtiers or, even more, of those people who became clowns because of their behaviour and
for a profit. Refering to the examples from the Bibie, he criticized the irreligious people having the Stomach as a God, the
treacherous advisers, counting on the master's not the God's mercy, the slaves of money and wealth, the drunkards, the slanderous
flatterers and the sluggards.

As it was proper for a funeral sermon, the Cradelius' work was far from the a rebours form of the Moriae encomium by
Erasmus: The pastor, according to the circumstances, approached the problem with the utmost gravity, to give advice for the
appropriate and God-fearing life. It can be seen in the title of the sermon, notabene typical for this kind of sermons (Ein Lehr Trost
und Vermahnungs Predigt) and in all the parts of the text. The literary epitaph for Mięsko is différent from the other jester
commemorating works. There are no usual facetious points, there is no belief that jesters and fools are the most happy of people
and after an easy and merry life they surely deserve the rédemption. Instead, there is a memento expressed by refering to the
parable of the talents (Mt 25: 14ff), that everyone's accounts will be squared up at the Last Judgement.

The pastor présents also a new and interesting interprétation in his considérations on two questions: symulation of a fool-
-jester and a fool-jester as an image of a sinner.

In the first case the question is that through our attitude towards the fool and mad, people touched with the God's hand, we
express our attitude towards the God Himself. One can see here the explicit influence of the St. Paul's teaching about the
superiority of the "Divine stupidity" over the "wisdom of this world" (first of all 1 Co 1: 18-31; 1 Co 3: 18-19), the teaching well
developed especially by the end of the Middle Ages in the theological apology of stupidity, the teaching whose the most complète
expression was the phenomenon of so called "jurodstvo" existing in Russia particularly sińce the 15th till the first half of the 17th
century.

In the second case - the fool-.jester as a sinner - the old mediaeval subject (Pss 14:1; 53:2) has been treated as in so called
clownery literaturę of 15th/16th century, especially in "Narrenschiff" by Sebastian Brant, who advised: learn yourself, see that
you are a jester and you'll become wise. In this way the old nosce te ipsum owing to the St. Paul's teaching has obtained a new
form and a new contents, what can be observed in a statement by Jan Kochanowski, the most outstanding Polish Renaissance poet
- "With the God everyone is a jester".

So the funeral sermon by Cradelius is an apology of a jester showing that stupidity becomes sometime wisdom and vice
versa, and that we are all jesters because of our shortcomings. The presented memorials of the two jesters are the interesting '
monuments of the European court culture of the 16th/17th century created in the sphère of the patronage of the enlighten Renais-
sance rulers. They are also the évidence of the place and the role of a court jester in the protestant society. The Reformation has
taken over the catholic origin and conception of the jester's person enlarging to some extent the sphère of the meaning connected
with him. The author of such an attitude is Martin Luther who in his translation of the Bibie used the word "der Narr" for stultus
etc. only exceptionally substituting it with "der Tor", the word commonly used in the catholic translations of the Vulgate ("der
Tor" in the Polish version: "glugiec, głupi" - a fool, stupid). Eventually, among the protestants, all the aspects of the clownery have
found much clearer and stronger basis in the Holy Script than among the catholics. Luther himself, let us remind, on several
occasions was taking advantage of the jester's right to the free propagation of the truth to warn the people, like Ozeas, "the stupid
prophet. the mad holy man" (0 9:7).