There is no question of the access of dignity, but the amount of
authority enjoyed by him would have depended on the humour of his
fellows, and boys are not always docile subjects even of rulers of
their own election. This, however, is a minor consideration, since the
Boy-Bishop, when we first make his acquaintance, has already emerged
from the obscurity of school and playground, and made good his claim to
the homage of superiors in age and station. Hence the term "Boy-Bishop"
appears to define more accurately than its Latin analogue the rank and
privileges of the immature prelate.
It seems to lie in the nature of things that the Boy-Bishop was
originally an institution of the boys themselves, the chief figure in a
game in which they aped, as children so commonly do, the procedure of
their elders, and that, in course of time, those elders, for reasons
deemed good and sufficient, extended their patronage to the innocent
parade, and made it a constituent of their own festal round.
In tracing the migration of the custom from the precincts to the
interior of the church we must not forget the tradition of the Roman
Saturnalia, with the season and spirit of which it accorded, and to
which the Christian festival, with its greater purity and decorum, may
have been prescribed as an antidote. The pagan holiday was held on
December 17th, and as the Sigillaria formed a continuation of it, the
joyous celebration endured a whole week.
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