We may go further and say, without much hesitation, that the three latter feasts are of older ecclesiastical standing than their riotous rival. Belethus is the first writer to mention the Feast of Fools, but he is by no means the first writer to mention the Christmas _tripudia_. They were known to Honorius of Autun[1174], early in the twelfth century, and to John of Avranches[1175], late in the eleventh. They can be traced at least from the beginning of the tenth, more than two hundred and fifty years before the Feast of Fools is heard of. The earliest notice I have come across is at the monastery of St. Gall, hard by Constance, in 911. In that year King Conrad I was spending Christmas with Bishop Solomon of Constance. He heard so much of the Vespers processions during the _triduum_ at St. Gall that he insisted on visiting the monastery, and arrived there in the midst of the revels. It was all very amusing, and especially the procession of children, so grave and sedate that even when Conrad bade his train roll apples along the aisle they did not budge[1176]. That the other Vespers processions of the _triduum_ were of deacons and priests may be taken for granted. I do not know whether the _triduum_ originated at St. Gall, but the famous song-school of that monastery was all-important in the movement towards the greater elaboration of church ceremonial, and even more of chant, which marked the tenth century. This gave rise to the tropes, of which much will be said in the next volume; and it is in a tropary, an English tropary from Winchester, dating from before 980, that the feasts of the _triduum_ next occur. The ceremonies of those feasts, as described by Belethus, belong mainly to the Office, and the tropes are mainly chanted elaborations of the text of the Mass: but the Winchester tropes for the days of St. Stephen, St. John, and the Holy Innocents clearly imply the respective connexion of the services, to which they belong, with deacons, priests, and choir-boys[1177]. Of the sub-deacons, on Circumcision or Epiphany, there is as yet nothing. John of Avranches, Honorius of Autun, and Belethus bridge a gap, and from the thirteenth century the _triduum_ is normal in service-books, both continental and English, throughout the Middle Ages[1178]. It is provided for in the Nantes _Ordinarium_ of 1263[1179], in the Amiens _Ordinarium_ of 1291[1180], and in the Tours _Rituale_ of the fourteenth century[1181]. It required reforming at Vienne in 1385, but continued to exist there up to 1670[1182]. In the last three cases it is clearly marked side by side with, but other than, the Feast of Fools. In Germany, it is contemplated in the _Ritual_ of Mainz[1183]. In England I trace it at Salisbury[1184], at York[1185], at Lincoln[1186], at St. Albans[1187]. These instances could doubtless be multiplied, although there were certainly places where the special devotion of the three feasts to the three bodies dropped out at an early date.