deformed. He wore a "motley" suit of discordant colours to make him ridiculous, and correspond with the incongruity of his mind and actions--a dress similar to the hundred patched _paniculus centunculus_ of the Roman mimes. Sometimes he wore a petticoat or calf-skin to resemble an idiot. Finally, he had his head shaved and wore a cowl to make him like a monk, as his buffooneries would thus have a stranger character, and the nobles had no great affection for the church.[50] The domestic fool was common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries up to the time of Louis XIV.; but it is said that there were such men at the Court of Louis le Debonnaire. Giraldus Cambrenses writes that when he was preaching for the Crusades in South Wales, one John Spang "who by simulating fatuity, and having a quick tongue was wont to be a great comfort to the court," said to Resus, the king: "You should be greatly indebted to your relative the Archdeacon for sending a hundred of your men to day to follow Christ, and if he had spoken Welsh I do not believe that one of all your people would remain to you." This was towards the end of the twelfth century, but it does not seem clear that John Spang was a court jester. We may fairly consider that the institution of the domestic fools, the employment of men, who professed jocularity as a branch of art distinct from music and legerdemain increased mental activity, and a growing desire for humour. But the men who made jesting their profession were generally regarded with contempt, and an Act of Parliament in the reign of Edward III. ordered strollers of this kind to be whipped out of the town. An old satire written at the time of the Reformation brings together actors, dustmen, jugglers, conjurers, and sellers of indulgences.