The period from 1200 to 1600 was the golden age of fools. There is almost no Arthurian hero without a phase of madness, and almost no gothic church without mocking misericords, not to speak of the spread of the literature and the iconography of the fool around 1500. But can we read them appropriately? Is it possible to reconstruct the fascination that fools exerted on (almost) everyone's mind in medieval and early modern Europe? While modern theories give us the analytical tools to explore this subject, we are faced with the paradox that by striving to understand fools and foolishness we no longer accept their ways but impose rational categories on them. Together these essays propose one way out of this dilemma. This volume is not another attempt to define the fool or to find the common denominator that hides behind his many masks, but rather focuses on the qualities, acts, and gestures that signify a fool. By investigating the behaviour that made people laugh rather than the figure of the fool himself, we can begin to understand the proliferation of fools and foolish behaviour in texts and images.