This, like the Sens choir-boys’ custom of calling their ‘archbishop’ _âne_, would seem to suggest that the _dominus festi_ was himself the ass, with a mask on; and this may have been sometimes the case. But in most of the mediaeval instances the ass was probably used to ride. At Prague, so far as one can judge from Huss’s description, he was a real ass. There is no proof in any of the French examples that he was, or was not, merely a ‘hobby-ass.’ If he was, he came all the nearer to the _Cervulus_. It has been pointed out, and will, in the next volume, be pointed out again, that the ecclesiastical authorities attempted to sanctify the spirit of play at the Feast of Fools and similar festivities by diverting the energies of the revellers to _ludi_ of the miracle-play order. In such _ludi_ they found a place for the ass. He appears for instance as Balaam’s ass in the later versions from Laon and Rouen of the _Prophetae_, and at Rouen he gave to the whole of this performance the name of the _festum_ or _processio asinorum_[1163]. At Hamburg, by a curious combination, he is at once Balaam’s ass and the finder of the star in a _ludus Trium Regum_[1164]. His use as the mount of the Virgin on January 14 at Beauvais, and on some uncertain day at Sens, seems to suggest another favourite episode in such _ludi_, that of the Flight into Egypt. At Varennes, in Picardy, and at Bayonne, exist carved wooden groups representing this event. That of Varennes is carried in procession; that of Bayonne is the object of pilgrimage on the _fêtes_ of the Virgin[1165]. Not at the Feast of Fools alone, or at the miracle-plays connected with this feast, did the ass make its appearance in Christian worship. It stood with the ox, on the morning of the Nativity, beside the Christmas crib. On Palm Sunday it again formed part of a procession, in the semblance of the beast on which Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem[1166]. A Cambrai _Ordinarium_ quoted by Ducange directs that the _asina picta_ shall remain behind the altar for four days[1167]. Kirchmeyer describes the custom as it existed during the sixteenth century in Germany[1168]; and the stray tourist who drops into the wonderful collection of domestic and ecclesiastical antiquities in the Barfüsserkirche at Basle will find there three specimens of the _Palmesel_, including a thirteenth-century one from Bayern and a seventeenth-century one from Elsass. The third is not labelled with its _provenance_, but it is on wheels and has a hole for the rope by which it was dragged round the church. All three are of painted wood, and upon each is a figure representing Christ[1169].