Although a serf often could not even marry without getting his lord's permission (and paying him an extra tax), prosperous peasants celebrated the event with lavish generosity; sometimes a family spent as much on a wedding feast as it would to buy a small house. On such occasions, manners were coarse, talk free and drinking prodigious. Undernourished and overworked, a peasant consumed as much as a gallon of wine or beer on an average day; at weddings, he outdid himself. The Brueghel paintings and details here show some of the high spirit and crude humor with which countryfolk, released from their toil, shared a rare moment of joy.
A WEDDING DANCE brings all the villagers together, twisting and reeling to the piper's tune. Even on such dress occasions, men wore their knives.
Rough Fun on Holy Days
Farm and Church holidays were free days in the peasant's calendar of labor, and he greeted them with a robust irreverence that often alarmed the higher clergy. These gentlemen of the Church deplored the sinful transgressions that accompanied rural merrymaking, yet they continued to create even
More occasions for it: by the start of the 16th Century, a score of saints' days were observed each year. The glee which countryfolk brought to their holidays is suggested in this carnival scene by Adriaen van de Venne. As a few genteel townsfolk look on, entertainers parade in a fantastic array of household utensils. In front, a grizzled patriarch holds up a cape on a broom and wears a giant fishhook. Behind him waltzes a "knight" in beer-barrel armor and his "bride" in a tub hat and a necklaceof eggshells. A shoulder-borne flutist and two hunchbacks provide a din of music for the frolicking ranks behind.
World History
