It is no surprise that the clerics of Laon would have turned to the Joseph story as the basis for a Feast of Fools drama, just as other clerical commu-nities would later. Both the character of Joseph and the scriptural story centered on him would have appealed to the entire clerical community: they offer what Don Handelman has termed a model, a vision of the world as it ought to be, as well as a mirror, a presentation of the world as it is.

JOSEPH AND DANIEL AS MODEL FIGURES

Young and alone, alienated from his family, Joseph's experience was in many ways similar to the lives of those who would act out his tale. The story from Genesis focuses on several acts of familial separation: Joseph is sold by his brothers and cast into a cistern, and is later thrown into jail; Jacob expresses terror at the thought of being left alone and demands that Benjamin stay with him; the brothers must leave one of their own behind as ransom when they return to Canaan. The theme of separation from one's family must have been particularly poignant for many of the Laon cathedral canons. The subdeacons in particular, their clerical office the focus of the Laon Feast of Fools, were young boys – it would not be uncommon for a subdeacon to be barely out of puberty. Many of them had probably been in the chapter from an even younger age. The bishop Roger de Rozoy (1175–1207), for example, who held the episcopal seat during the redaction of Laon 263, is described in an archival document as “a canon since boyhood” (canonicatus a puero). The character of Joseph would have been played by a subdeacon, and so Joseph is in a sense truly one of their own. Joseph's youth would have provided, perhaps, some consolation and encouragement to the adolescent subdeacons who, like Joseph, were separated from their own families at a young age.

Joseph's age and estrangement from his family mirrored the experience of many of the young Laon canons, but his character – steadfast in his vows, wise, and able to interpret the obscure with ease – served as a model of both clerical and intellectual virtue.