Still greater excesses afterwards arose, and Du Cange gives us the rubric of what was called the Feast of Asses, as celebrated in the cathedral of Rouen. It appears to have been a kind of drama in which a number of characters were introduced, Jewish and pagan, each one in turn repeating something in accordance with the part he assumed. Balaam, sitting on an ass, seems to have been the hero of the piece, and from this circumstance the feast derived its name. A young person appeared in the character of an angel, with a drawn sword, standing before the animal, and a dialogue ensued, founded on the Scripture narrative. Another absurdity, somewhat of the same kind, in commemoration of the flight into Egypt, prevailed in the churches of the diocese of Beauvais, at least as early as the thirteenth century.--A girl richly attired, with a child in her arms, was seated on an ass, and solemnly conducted to the altar, where mass was said, and the ceremony was concluded by the priest braying three times, to which the people all yielded an asinine response, three times repeated.[7] Who but must blush for the men calling themselves Christian ministers, who could not only tolerate, but even engage, in such impious fooleries? The rulers and teachers of the church in such instances, so far from having raised the people in piety and intelligence, had sunk down to the level of popular degradation. It is said that the bishops endeavoured to abolish these absurdities by ecclesiastical censures: but it was strange indeed, if they were strenuously resolved on putting them down, that they should still have permitted them to be performed within the walls of their own cathedrals. Some examples of the superstitious character of the period before us have appeared in the preceding pages; but the shape which superstition took in reference to the legends, relics, and miracles of the saints, demand a distinct, though it must be a brief notice. Indeed scores of volumes like the present might be filled with the stories of the middle ages on these subjects. It is enough to dip into one of the portly tomes of father D'Achery, and take from his ample collection of mediæval documents a specimen of the tales commonly believed. For example, read the following extract from a sermon, by St. Theodore, upon the blessed apostle Bartholomew, preached in the ninth century, not as, by any means, the most marvellous story which might be selected, but as a sample at once of the superstition of the times, and of the kind of instruction imparted by the clergy to their people.