Abstract

There were always allegations against travelling entertainers. They were held responsible for the downfall of morals as well as for the parishoners’ lack of attention in mass. Travelling jugglers ran the danger of being excommunicated and often they were not protected by the law. But how real were the dangers posed by jugglers in the middle ages? And were they offered any opportunity to integrate into wider society? Using theories current in theatre studies, this contribution seeks to demonstrate the nature of the threat posed by jugglers: namely that, in his use of body, voice and gesture, and in the captivation of his audience, the juggler threatened to rival the clergyman, and thus risked effacing the boundary between the sacred and the secular. This is why marginalisation was a deliberate process. It was not only church doctors and academics such as Hugo of Saint Victor who influenced the public treatment of travelling jugglers, but also popularizers of Christian ideas such as the monk Honorius Augustodunensis whose ‘Elucidarium’ proposed a social classification based on ‘proximity to God’.