The Boy Bishop

The feast of the holy innocents commemorated king herod's order to kill all children under two when he realized the magi had tricked him and weren't coming back. The mediaeval world found a way to turn it into a moment of fun as well as remembrance. This was one moment in which the church seems to have participated in poking fun at itself. Usually a boy was elected from the choir, or sometimes a member of a school or a college that was attached to a cathedral. He would be invested with a bishop's robes, a mitre and a crozier,. It might have been nice if some bishops had remembered that kind of thing at other times of the year too

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