No Fooling: A History of April Fool’s Day
Tracing the origins of April Fool’s Day may be a fool’s errand, but the history behind the pranks is anything but.
April Fool’s Day is for jokes and hoaxes, so maybe it’s appropriate that no one knows exactly how the holiday came to be. There are references to playing pranks on April 1 as early as the 16th century, but the custom appears to have been well established by then. Historians have come up with various possible origin stories; although some of them, like a Boston University professor’s claim that it began with a medieval jester being crowned king, are April Fool’s jokes themselves.
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Historians have drawn comparisons to earlier festivities marked by jokes, merriment, and the reversal of societal rules. In the medieval Feast of Fools, celebrated on January 1, religious ceremonies were parodied by temporarily elevating lower-ranking clergy to higher ranks. To go back even farther than that, the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, observed at the winter solstice, included electing a temporary King who usually gave silly, nonsensical orders; possibly resembling the “fool’s errands” of April Fool’s Day. Another ancient Roman celebration, Hilaria, observed at the spring equinox, involved dressing in disguises and imitating people in power.
A common theory for the origin of April Fool’s Day is that it started with the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1563. Following the Julian calendar, the year began at the end of March. The Gregorian calendar, however, starts on January 1. Those who continued to observe the Julian new year were apparently regarded as fools.
Another possibility comes from “fool’s spring,” a brief stretch of warmth and sunlight in late winter and early spring. It might fool you into thinking winter is truly over, but then the cold weather comes back. (Where I am writing this, the temperatures are rising to the 70s at the end of March and expected to drop to the 40s on April 1.) The original “April fools” may have been people who were fooled by a brief warm spell and planted their crops too early, something with more serious consequences than a simple practical joke.
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The French term for April Fool’s Day, “Poisson d’Avril,” literally “April fish,” is also a general expression for a foolish or gullible person. It may be a reference to newly hatched fish being plentiful and easy to catch in April. A favorite April 1st joke is to attach a paper fish to someone’s back without their noticing it. You can find French April Fish postcards from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, with humorous greetings or verses and usually a photograph of a person holding a fish or an anthropomorphized fish.
No matter how it started, there’s apparently something about the beginning of spring that makes us want to celebrate with laughter and levity. The origins of the holiday may not matter as much as the fun we have with it. After all, if there’s one truth about April Fool’s Day, it’s that you can’t take it too seriously.
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