Feast of the Ass (redirected from Festum Asinorum)

Ass, Feast of the

Around Christmas, December 25

This festival recalling the flight of the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) into Egypt to escape King Herod reached its peak during the Middle Ages in France. It was customary to have a girl carrying a baby and riding an elaborately decorated ass led through the streets to the church, where a mass was said. But the celebration gradually took on comic overtones, with the priest and congregation imitating the braying of an ass at appropriate times during the service and the ass itself being led into the church and given food and drink. By the 15th century the feast had obviously become nothing more than an occasion for laughter, and it was suppressed thereafter by the Church, although it didn't completely die out until years afterward.
See also Feast of Fools

SOURCES:
BkDays-1864, vol. I, p. 112
DictFolkMyth-1984, p. 84
EncyChristmas-2003, p. 247
EncyRel-1987, vol. 3, p. 99
FestSaintDays-1915, p. 254