The BBC News World editorial staff
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The Massacre of the Innocents, by Lodovico Mazzolino, 1510-1530.
Every December 28, in Spain and Latin America, people prank each other and some media publish fake news on Innocents Day, or Day of the Holy Innocents, as the Catholic Church calls it.
However, this day finds its origin in a very little festive story: the massacre of young children recounted in one of the four Christian gospels, the Gospel of Matthew.
According to the Christian version of this gospel, more than 2,000 years ago, Herod I decided to annihilate all children under the age of two in Bethlehem, with the aim of killing the newborn child: Jesus.
Apparently, he made this decision after hearing the story of some “wise men from the East” who warned him that a child had just been born who would be the king of the Jews and thus put his reign in jeopardy.
The Catholic Church decided to honor the dead children as the “first martyrs of Jesus” and over time they came to be known as the “Holy Innocents”.
But how did such a sad commemoration become such a joyful day?
There are several theories.
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Detail from Strasbourg Cathedral (France) showing the 14th century Massacre of the Innocents.
Different origins
According to one version of the story, Herod asked the “wise men of the East” where the child who was to be the future king was, but the three wise men deceived the monarch by leading him astray.
Another theory about this joyful celebration goes back to a grandson of Herod: Herod Agrippa II, king of Chalcis.
This regent – remembered for his life of excess – decided to celebrate his thirtieth birthday by honoring his grandfather (and the slaughter of children) with a week of festivities.
However, that day he decides to issue warrants for the capture and punishment of all his ministers, who could not flee due to the efficiency of the royal guard.
Eventually the frightened guests were forced to attend the celebration and some received a seal from the monarch declaring them “innocent”. This macabre story, some say, is the true origin of the date.
Other scholars trace the origin of this farce not to the Jerusalem of biblical times, but to medieval Europe, where the last month of the year and the first month of the following year were marked by the northern winter and less activity in the countryside, where the majority of the population worked.
“The people, idle, then indulged in a festive, joyful and sardonic laughter which put on an equal footing actors and observers, who were brought to participate in the jokes to relieve the daily difficulties, which took place in a context of strict social discipline,” wrote Spanish historian Mario González-Linares.
Then, between December and January, a series of festivities take place – such as the fiesta de los locos or the fiesta del asno – where jokes play a fundamental role: they make fun of the most entrenched social conventions.
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Herod painted while watching his sister, Salome, dance.
Perhaps the most extreme of these feasts is that of the fools, which was officially banned by the Church at the Council of Basel in 1435.
In his article “Carcajada y delirio: la fiesta de los locos” (Laughter and delirium: the feast of the madmen), published in the cultural magazine Amberes, González-Linares explains who were the madmen who reigned during this party.
“Loco was the madman, but also the idiot, the deformed, the crippled, pariahs whose inexcusable crime consisted in not finding a place in a social scheme characterized by its rigidity and its verticality”.
Those who played these crazed and deformed people were, as RP Flögel describes in González-Linares’s article, the lowest ranks of the clergy:
“In the cathedrals, a bishop-jester was appointed. He then celebrated a solemn service and gave his blessing. The disguised priests entered the choir dancing, jumping and singing picaresque songs. The sub-deacons ate sausages, played cards and dice on the altar; instead of incense, they burned old shoe soles and excrement. After Mass, everyone danced and ran around the church as they pleased, and indulged in the greatest excesses. “.
In addition to jokes and mockery, scholars such as Ramón García Pradas, from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, associate the fiesta de los locos with the emergence, in the Middle Ages, of a type of theater that played with parody and satire to criticize the social and political situation of the time.
Spring, fish and stories
Many European countries, in whose churches and streets the December and January feasts were celebrated, now celebrate their April Fool’s Day on April 1 rather than December 28.
This day is known as April Fools’ Day in English-speaking countries, Poisson d’Avril in French-speaking countries and Pesce d’aprile (in Italian).
The origin of this date is also disputed and there are different theories.
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Did you fall for a joke?
Some historians believe that, as with the December and January holidays, the calendar and the weather also come into play on April 1.
The end of March and the beginning of April mark the beginning of the European spring, which inspires the “festivities of renewal” in the countryside, which date back to Roman times.
As part of the festivities, normal life has fallen by the wayside. According to historian Andrea Livesey. “Servants could control masters and children could control parents”.
So it has become a tradition to prank people on this day too.