History’s Finest Court Jester Was Sentenced to Death

This is how Triboulet got out of it using humor.

The look of the jester in the painting above is thought to have been inspired by Triboulet. By William Merritt Chase — The Athenaeum, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Historically, jesters played a much more important part in kings’ courts than was previously thought. These fools were mostly men and were chosen for the position for several reasons.

1. Disability

Do you remember when in “Game of Thrones,” slavers captured Tyrion Lannister and wanted to cut off his “dwarf penis” and sell it because it had magical properties… and Tyrion told them that it would be worthless since it was not dwarf-sized? Well, George Martin based his “A Song of Ice and Fire” series of novels on Medieval Europe.

And during Medieval times, people really did think that dwarves and other “deformed humans” were somewhat magical. This was one of the reasons why many disabled people were chosen as court jesters. It was believed that keeping them in court — where they could mock others — would appease them and prevent them from causing magical mayhem elsewhere in the kingdom.

2. Marginalization

Another characteristic that court jesters needed to have was that they were marginalized by society. A lot of people with physical and mental disabilities already met this criterion as well. But this meant that nonconformist…