No one is going to know that in France, “poisson d’avril,” or “April fish,” is the name for a person duped on April Fools’ Day, and that it was 1st referenced in a 1508 poem by Eloy D’Amerval called Le Livre de la Deablerie, or The Book of Deviltry. The idea of the “April fish” seems to be the fact that fish were plentiful and hungry in the spring, and thus easy to catch—an “April fish” was more gullible than a fish at other times of the year.
The first certain reference to April Fools’ Day comes from a 1561 Flemish poem by Eduard De Dene, which you can read here. (But only if your Renaissance Flemish is good!) In the poem, a nobleman sends his servant on crazy, fruitless errands. The servant recognizes that he is being sent on “fool’s errands” because it’s April 1.
By the late nineteenth century, April Fools’ Day tricks had developed into more elaborate forms, and there were three common artistic representations of April Fools’ pranks. The first one showed a brick under a hat on a sidewalk, the idea being that someone would eventually succumb to the urge to kick the hat and thus stub his toe on the brick. The second involved leaving a supposedly lost, desirable object, such as a wallet or money, in plain view, with a string tied around it. The other end of the string was held by a hidden prankster, who would pull the string and snatch away the object when a passer-by tried to take it. The third was a hot coin, (Mark Twain's favorite prank mentioned in Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer, I can't remember which) one that had been heated up with fire or magnifying lens, and then left where someone might pick it up and get burned.
But assigned to write an article for the newspapers in 1983, Fred Bayles, a Boston reporter for the Associated Press, decided to ask at Boston University, realizing they must have some history expert who knew the history of April Fools' Day.
Boston University referred him to History Prof. Joseph Boskin, who told him, and after the AP published the story (in all the major newspapers) I learned about it, back when I was in 7th grade.
Boston University referred him to History Prof. Joseph Boskin, who told him, and after the AP published the story (in all the major newspapers) I learned about it, back when I was in 7th grade.
The holiday originated in Istanbul, in the reign of Constantine when he was amused to make his court jester the King For a Day, and it happened to be April 1st.
(You've likely seen similar fund raising raffles for high school principal for a day, ships Captain for a day, and other role swapping humorous good natured events. It is fairly common. On my 1st sub we did something similar when crossing the equator after the pollywog to shellback ceremony)
That day the king and court had a good time, so it was made an annual celebration, and every year they celebrated April Fools Day, and people would celebrate it as a day of absurdity. In a way, it had serious basis, because in those times jesters were sharp, and smart, (as stand up comics often are today) and it was the role of jesters to put things in perspective with humor.
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