In the Limoges manuscript the _Prophetae_ is followed by the words _Hic inchoant Benedicamus_[202]. As has been pointed out in the case of the Bilsen _Pastores_, this is not conclusive as to the hour at which the performance took place. The day was probably that of Christmas itself. But even the day would naturally vary with the variable position of the _lectio_ out of which the _Prophetae_ grew. At Lincoln it was likewise Christmas day. But at Rouen the _processio asinorum_ was on Christmas eve, and took the place of the ordinary festal procession after Tierce and before Mass[203]. And at St. Martin of Tours the _Prophetae_ was on New Year’s day, performances being given both at Matins and Vespers[204]. The question naturally suggests itself: What was the relation of these liturgical plays of the Christmas season to the Feast of Fools and other ecclesiastical _ludi_ of the Twelve nights, which were discussed in the first volume? At Rouen, the _Prophetae_ received the name of _processio asinorum_ and took place at a _festum asinorum_, a name which we know to have been elsewhere synonymous with _festum fatuorum_. At Tours, it was played at a reformed _festum novi anni_, with a Boy Bishop and at least traces of expelled disorder. So, too, with the other plays. The Rouen _Pastores_ was infected by the fifteenth century with the _stultitiae et insolentiae_ of the _triduum_. At Bilsen the _Stella_ was performed before a _rex_, who can hardly have been any other than a _rex fatuorum_ of Epiphany. At Autun the _regnum Herodis_ was considered a Feast of Fools[205]. Probably in both churches the _rex_ acted Herod in the play. I think it must be taken for granted that the plays are the older institution of the two. They seem all to have taken shape by the eleventh century, before there is any clear sign that the Kalends had made their way into the churches and become the Feast of Fools. The plays may even have been encouraged as a counter-attraction, for the congregation, to the Kalends outside. On the other hand, I do not hold, as some writers do, that the riotous Feasts of Asses were derived from the pious and instructive ceremony so called at Rouen[206]. On the contrary, Balaam and his ass are an interpolation in the _Prophetae_ both at Rouen and, more obviously, at Laon. Balaam, alone of the Laon performers, is not from the pseudo-Augustine sermon. Is he not, therefore, to be regarded as a reaction of the Feast of Fools upon the _Prophetae_, as an attempt to turn the established presence of the ass in the church to purposes of edification, rather than of ribaldry[207]? I think the explanation is the more plausible one. And I find a parallel reaction of the turbulence of the Feast of Fools upon the _Stella_, in the violence of speech and gesture which permanently associated itself at a very early stage with the character of Herod. The view here taken will be confirmed, when we come to consider certain ecclesiastical criticisms passed upon the