Where does the term “Ship of Fools” originally come from? I know at least three different songs that use this as a title (one by the Grateful Dead, one by Bruce Hornsby, one by…I don’t know who he is)as well as a title for a handful of books, and it crops up as a reference in dozens of other places (one arbitrary example: a “Far Side” depicts the Ship of Fools / carload of idiots). But for such a ubiquitous term, I can’t find out where it actually came from. Does anyone know?
IIRC, it refers to the Children’s Crusade. All these kids volunteered during the Crusades, were rounded up and put in a ship (from Southern France maybe?) and sent to the Middle East? where they were promptly sold as slaves.
The Children’s Crusade did happen and most of the children who survived were sold into slavery. But I think “Ship of Fools” refers to something else. As I recall, towns were responsible for taking care of people who couldn’t take care of themselves (the physically and mentally impaired). When the town could no longer cope, it put all these people on a boat and set them adrift. The idea was that God would direct the boat to a place better equipped to take care of them.
There was also a 1509 satire by Alexander Barclay called “The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde.”
There’s a painting by Hieronymous Bosch entitled The Ship of Fools. I don’t have my references in front of me, but he was active I believe in the late 1400s / early 1500s. And if I recall the back story correctly, it illustrated (in Bosch’s own inimitable, incomprehsible style) a folk tale of long standing, even back then.
So my guess is it antedates any pop music references.
Earliest references I know of are an early 15th C poem called De Blauwe Schuut (the Blue Ship) by Jacob van Oestvoren, and later in the century Sebastian Brandt’s Ship of Fools (Das Narrenschiff), which was quite popular-- several editions. They’re both sort of moralizing things about vanity and sensuality-- the usual. I don’t know about any earlier references. Precedes Jerry Garcia, anyway.
Perhaps the third band you’re looking for is World Party? Erasure also has a song by that name on “The Innocents.”
The group, World Party.
Peace.
There’s also a “Ship of Fools” by Erasure… is that a remake of one of the other versions?
The Henry Holt Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins says that in 15th-century Germany there were Narrenschiffs, which literally means ships of fools – “riverboats used to imprison the insane and thus clear the city streets of them.” Sebastian Brandt published a work called Narrenschiff in 1494, which “had as its theme the shipping of fools of all kinds from their native land of Swabia to te fictional Land of Fools.”
Robert Plant did one too, maybe ?
World Party! I’d forgotten about them. But their “Ship of Fools” is the one i’d heard before. (I don’t think I’ve ever heard the Erasure version.) Thanks for reminding me – as well as filling me in on the origins of this phrase!