ABSTRACT
The interaction of folly with politics is a familiar and well-established theme in sixteenth-century literary discourse. It also has a vivid visual tradition. Pictures from at least the fourteenth to the late-sixteenth century show the persistence of images of direct confrontation between fools and secular authority. Finally, the Poor Man of Lyndsay’s play, with his rags and comically forthright but helpless complaints against oppression, acts as the simple fool, the powerless victim of the Spirituality who is defended by John the Common-Weill. The records of the Scottish royal court show how fools were maintained by the monarch right through the sixteenth century, as well as documenting the occasional patronage of fools belonging to other noble households. In the Thrie Estaitis, the truth-telling John the Common-Weill shares in this tradition of provoking disrespectful, foolish but critical laughter.
