Wednesday, November 12, 2008

c'est la vie




On this day in 1381, The
Order of Fools was established by Adolphus, Count of Cleves. For centuries the members, mostly from the Flemish upper classes, held a week-long grand court every year and planned acts of charity. They wore the figure of a fool or jester embroidered on their mantles. The last reference to the Order is in some verses appended to Sebastian Brand's celebrated Navis Stultifera (Ship of Fools), published in Strasbourg in 1520.

In 1833,
Aleksander Borodin was born.

In 1859,
Jules Leotard performed the first Flying Trapeze act.


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