“When the ceremony took place upon St. Stephen's-day, they sang, as part of the mass, a burlesque composition called the Prose of the Ass, or the Fool's Prose. It was performed by a double choir, and at intervals, in place of a burden, they imitated the braying of an ass. Upon the festival of St. John the Evangelist they had another arrangement of ludicrous sentences, denominated the Prose of the Ox, equally reprehensible. These exhibitions were highly relished by the populace at large, and crept into the monasteries and nunneries, where they were practiced by the female votaries of religion.”