Chaucer Notes April Fools: A Tradition of Jest Begins
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales contains a passage in the Nun's Priest's Tale referencing "syn March bigan thritty dayes and two," which scholars have long debated as the earliest literary allusion to April foolery. Whether Chaucer intended the joke or scribes mangled the date, the association stuck. By the 1500s, French "poisson d'Avril" pranks were common, and in 1698 Londoners received printed invitations to watch the annual "washing of the lions" at the Tower of London. Hundreds showed up. There were no lions to wash. The tradition of organized public hoaxes on April 1 had become self-sustaining, fed by the human appetite for believing something too absurd to question.
April 1, 1392
634 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on April 1
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