ABSTRACT
'Fools' for many meant Sebastian Brant. Erasmus called him 'incomparable'. He was famous far and wide for his Narrenschiff, his Ship of Fools, which proved a publisher's dream ever since it first appeared. About his Ship of Fools, Brant was right. It is an accessible work, making few demands on its readers. It is conservative in religion and morality; it has few literary pretensions. The good have the standard virtues of piety, courtesy and prudence. The popularity of the Ship of Fools owes much to its woodcuts; they were copied, pirated and reproduced for decades in several countries. The literary and social antecedents of the Ship of Fools are not those of the Moria. Brant's work is much more at home in a long medieval tradition of fools and foolery. Folly mocking fools in the Moria has closer analogies with Socrates and St Paul than with court jesters. That is what made the Praise of Folly confusing for many.
