Indulgence And Restraint:A Study Of The Carnival Phenomenon In Late Medieval And Early Modren Western Europe Rituals

Carnival was a traditional festival in medieval Europe.The festival came after the Lent.The main form of the celebration is to imitate various rituals,to reverse social order,and to select the "king" in the game society.In fact,this kind of carnival celebration is not unfounded and frenzied.During it people’s behaviors were outside the festival,but we can find their traces in realities.Besides,this kind of carnival also spread into people’s daily life,and with the fixed form of expression it formed a celebration ceremony with the nature of “carnivalization”,and had the corresponding characteristics of the ceremony,namely the specific performance form,symbolic meaning and actual connotation.This phenomenon of "carnivalization" was reflected in the parade ceremonies,contests,coronation ceremonies and weddings.Through the carnivalization of the carnival and daily ritual celebrations,we can get a glimpse of the living conditions and psychological state of people in the specific social environment in medieval and early modern times.The elegant form,grand scale and implied purpose of the contests and parade ceremonies seemed to be very self-evident.The focus of the contest is no longer a pure martial art contest against the two sides.The precise movements,gorgeous costumes,sophisticated equipment and the dazzling of the ladies in the stands had become the real highlights in the ring.The triumph ritual in ancient Rome was repeated in various parades,and mythological stories and performances were interspersed among them.A personal performance in a contest or a collective carnival in a parade,it was on a deeper level a means used by the participants to consolidate their social status by demonstrating their own strength.The parody wedding ceremony,the coronation ceremony and the "carnivalization" performance in the real wedding in the carnival festival were aimed at some sort of discipline through the noisy and the reversal of the existing order.The game community made noise by expressing the noise in front of the remarried couple to express their dissatisfaction with the order of remarriage to undermine the normal wedding marriage order.In the atmosphere of carnival,the lower priests crowned the sect,regardless of the image,and the manners were arrogant,the food prices were chaotic,and the men’s and women’s clothes were reversed.Here,the festival is not only the release of the priests and the lower-level people’s emotions on weekdays,but also an emphasis of the ruling class on some kind of order.The temporary reversal of the festival is for the long-term follow-up and obedience.