How did the origin of "April Fool's Day" come about?
Great question! I'd wondered about this myself, so I found this quite
interesting to research.
It would be wonderful to be able to say, in an authoritative manner,
that April Fool's Day was invented by a Scottish laborer named Averill
Vuell in 1564. This waggish fellow was well-known for dashing around
Glasgow playing silly pranks on friends and neighbors in the
springtime. His many exploits were reported in the local press, and as
his fame grew, "Averill Vuell" was gradually corrupted into "April
Fool."
However, although it would be wonderful to be able to say that, it
would be a total fabrication. ;-)
April Fool's Day is one of many old traditions whose exact origins are
the subject of speculation. I've gathered some material for you on
various theories about the origins of April Fool's Day. For reasons of
, I'm posting just brief excerpts here; for more information,
you may want to read these articles in their entirety.
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"Throughout antiquity numerous festivals included celebrations of
foolery and trickery. The Saturnalia, a Roman winter festival observed
at the end of December, was the most important of these. It involved
dancing, drinking, and general merrymaking. People exchanged gifts,
slaves were allowed to pretend that they ruled their masters, and a
mock king, the Saturnalicius princeps (or Lord of Misrule), reigned
for the day...
Further afield in India there was Holi, known as the festival of
color, during which street celebrants threw tinted powders at each
other, until everyone was covered in garish colors from head to toe.
This holiday was held on the full-moon day of the Hindu month of
Phalguna (usually the end of February or the beginning of March).
Northern Europeans observed an ancient festival to honor Lud, a Celtic
god of humor. And there were also popular Northern European customs
that made sport of the hierarchy of the Druids. All of these
celebrations could have served as precedents for April Fool's Day...
During the middle ages, a number of celebrations developed which
served as direct predecessors to April Fool's Day. The most important
of these was the Festus Fatuorum (the Feast of Fools) which evolved
out of the Saturnalia. On this day (mostly observed in France)
celebrants elected a mock pope and parodied church rituals. The
church, of course, did its best to discourage this holiday, but it
lingered on until the sixteenth century. Following the suppression of
the Feast of Fools, merrymakers focused their attention on Mardi Gras
and Carnival."
Museum of Hoaxes: The Origin of April Fool's Day
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/aforigin.html
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"The origin of this custom has been much disputed, and many theories
have been suggested, e.g. that it is a farcical commemoration of
Christ being sent from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate,
from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the
crucifixion having taken place about the 1st of April.
What seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those
once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which,
beginning on old New Year's day, the 25th of March, ended on the 1st
of April. This view gains support from the fact that the exact
counterpart of April-fooling is found to have been an immemorial
custom in India. The festival of the spring equinox is there termed
the feast of Holi, the last day of which is the 31st of March, upon
which the chief amusement is the befooling of people by sending them
on fruitless errands.
It has been plausibly suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling
from the French. They were the first nation to adopt the reformed
Gregorian calendar, Charles IX in 1564 decreeing that the year should
begin with the 1st of January. Thus the New Year's gifts and visits of
felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became
associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked or
did not hear about the change were fair butts for those wits who
amused themselves by sending mock presents and paying calls of
pretended ceremony on the 1st of April.
However, it is unlikely that this explanation of April Fool's Day?s
origin is correct. Well before 1582 when King Charles IX of France
brought in the new Gregorian calendar, French and Dutch references
from respectively 1508 and 1539 describe April Fool's Day jokes and
the custom of making them on the first of April.
Though the 1st of April appears to have been anciently observed in
Great Britain as a general festival, it was apparently not until the
beginning of the 18th century that the making of April-fools was a
common custom."
Wikipedia: April Fool's Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fool's_Day#Origin
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"The origin of April Fool's Day is uncertain, but there are lots of
theories. The most commonly heard one has to do with the switch from
the Julian to the Gregorian calendar... There's a small problem with
this story and a big one. The small problem is that the Gregorian
calendar wasn't introduced until 1582... The big problem is that the
story seems to be mainly conjecture. If there's any primary evidence
to support it we haven't seen it. Not all countries adopted the
Gregorian calendar at the same time--England, Scotland, and Germany
didn't do it until the 18th century. Yet the April Fool's tradition is
said to have been well established throughout Europe by then.
There were celebrations of foolishness before 1582. Those close to
April 1 include... the ancient Roman festival of Hilaria, celebrated
March 25, and the Holi celebration in India, which ends March 31.
Going farther afield we have the Roman winter solstice celebration of
Saturnalia, which by medieval times had evolved into the Festus
Fatuorum (the Feast of Fools). This was celebrated mostly in France
and was suppressed, interestingly, in the 16th century, around the
time Gregorian-calendar theory has April Fool's Day starting."
Straight Dope Staff Report: What's the origin of April Fool's Day?
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/maprilfool.html
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"According to the most widely-believed origin for April Fools' Day,
those who could be tricked into believing April 1 was still the proper
day to celebrate the New Year earned the sobriquet of April fools. To
this end, French peasants would unexpectedly drop in on neighbors on
that day in a effort to confuse them into thinking they were receiving
a New Year's call. Out of that one jape supposedly grew the tradition
of testing the patience of family and friends. But that's only one
theory. Others are:
The timing of this day of pranks seems to be related to the arrival of
spring, when nature 'fools' mankind with fickle weather, according to
the Encyclopedia of Religion and the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The Country Diary of Garden Lore, which chronicles the goings-on in an
English garden, says that April Fools' Day 'is thought to commemorate
the fruitless mission of the rook (the European crow), who was sent
out in search of land from Noah's flood-encircled ark.'
Others theorize it may have something to do with the Vernal Equinox.
Some think to tie in with the Romans' end-of-winter celebration,
Hilaria, and the end of the Celtic new year festival."
Snopes Urban Legends Reference Pages: April Fools' Day Origins
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/aprilfools/origins.asp
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"Another explanation of the origins of April Fools' Day was provided
by Joseph Boskin, a professor of history at Boston University. He
explained that the practice began during the reign of Constantine,
when a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that
they could do a better job of running the empire. Constantine, amused,
allowed a jester named Kugel to be king for one day. Kugel passed an
edict calling for absurdity on that day, and the custom became an
annual event...
This explanation was brought to the public's attention in an
Associated Press article printed by many newspapers in 1983. There was
only one catch: Boskin made the whole thing up. It took a couple of
weeks for the AP to realize that they'd been victims of an April
Fools' joke themselves...
April Fools' Day is observed throughout the Western world. Practices
include sending someone on a 'fool's errand,' looking for things that
don't exist; playing pranks; and trying to get people to believe
ridiculous things. The French call April 1 Poisson d'Avril, or 'April
Fish.' French children sometimes tape a picture of a fish on the back
of their schoolmates, crying "Poisson d'Avril" when the prank is
discovered."
FactMonster: April Fools' Day Origin and History
http://www.factmonster.com/spot/aprilfools1.html
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This doesn't deal with the matter of origins, but I found it
fascinating and amusing, and I can't resist including it:
Museum of Hoaxes: Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/
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My Google search strategy:
Google Web Search: origin OR history "april fool's day"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=origin+OR+history+%22april+fool%27s+day%22
I hope this is helpful! If anything is unclear or incomplete, please
request clarification; I'll gladly offer further assistance before you
rate my answer.
Best regards,
pinkfreud April Fool's Day or All Fool's Day::
April Fool's Day or All Fool's Day occurs annually on April 1. The commonly accepted origin of April Fool's Day involves changes in the calendar.
http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/other/aprlfool.htmlHOME |
Parallels boss sees no joke in April Fool's - ZDNet.co.uk::
Apr 2, 2008 Virtualization.com did put in a partial apology for getting Beloussov and his colleagues out of bed early to deal with the April Fool.
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Where did "April Fool's Day" originate?