Origins of Carnival / Aux origines de carnaval

Carnival is the most celebrated pagan festival in the Christian world. It forces the church to tolerate the wearing of masks - insults to the idea of ​​a man created in the image of God -, feasts, dances and laughter banned during Lent. What does Carnival mean? What are its origins? Anne Lombard-Jourdan has conducted her investigation in all the directions that the history of Carnival indicated to her. And she helps us understand its posterity. Carnival is at the same time the myth of the mythological fight between the deer and the serpent that ensures the return of spring after the terrors of winter. It is also the time when deer lose their horns and its festival mocks the horns of cuckolds. The giant deer is still our national hero, Gargantua. But above all, the great stag is the mythical ancestor of the kings of France, whose kite became the emblem at the end of the 14th century. Anne Lombard-Jourdan thus makes us discover entire sections of our religious, cultural and political past that help us understand our practices today. Anne Lombard-Jourdan, archivist paleographer, worked at the Historical Research Center of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.