By Erin Sherry
Spring 2018 Intern
This week, people across the globe are
dusting off their pranking shoes and plotting which practical jokes they’ll
attempt to pull on their friends and families for April Fools’ Day. From
good-humored gags to elaborate hijinks, there’s no shortage of fun to be had on
the year’s unofficial day of tomfoolery . . . but where did
it all start?
Turns out, no one’s quite sure!
According to a Time article, countless cultures around the world have celebrated a version of
April Fools’ Day since antiquity, yet historians remain locked in heated debate
about when and where—not to mention why—April
1 became recognized as a day of international funny business.
Some trace its origins to the Greco-Roman Hilaria
festival, which celebrated the first day following the Julian calendar’s vernal
equinox with parades, masquerades and jokes.
Others think the answer lies in after the
Christian world transitioned from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar,
which moved the date of New Year’s Eve to January instead of early spring, and
made “fools” of the uninformed folks who continued to celebrate the new year on
the wrong day.
Though hotly contested, one theory even
points to Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury
Tales as predicting April 1 (alluded to in the text as March 32) as a day
of trickery, as it is when the character Chauntecleer is outsmarted by a fox.
However, most scholars seem to be in agreement that the March 32 reference was
most likely the medieval version of a typo, and warn of its extreme
unlikelihood as the origin of early-April antics.
Maybe April Fools’ Day can’t claim one creation
story for certain, but we at PSG think the beginning of spring is an excellent
time to celebrate light-hearted hilarity. Bring on the friendly fooling!
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