Were court jesters really a thing and were they as annoying as they are often portrayed?

Were court jesters really a thing and were they as annoying as they are often portrayed?

yes, they were even let off the hook for saying unPC things like some comedians today

>he didn't manage to get based Feste as a love interest

>Were court jesters really a thing

Yes.

>and were they as annoying as they are often portrayed?

What do you mean by this?
The jester was a salaried worker of the court whose job was to entertain his master and his guests. How jester entertained people depended both on the jester's abilities and his master's taste. It could have been a nuanced intellectual political satire, but it could have been as well lighting farts.

>>Dwarfs were more evenly distributed. Every Infanta of Spain was accompanied by a court dwarf to underscore whatever beauty she possessed. In Vienna, the Emperor Charles VI kept a famous Jewish dwarf, Jacob Ris, as a kind of ex-officio counselor at the Imperial court. More often, dwarfs were kept as human pets whose antics and droll appearance were even more amusing and diverting than talking parrots or dogs that could stand on their hind legs. In Russia, dwarfs were especially prized. Every great noble wanted a dwarf as a symbol of status or to please his wife, and competition among the nobility for their possession became intense. The birth of a dwarf was considered good luck and dwarfs born as serfs were often granted their freedom. To encourage the largest possible population of dwarfs, Russians took special care to marry them together in hopes that a dwarf couple would produce dwarf children.

>>It was a lavish gift when a dwarf or, even more, a pair of dwarfs was given away. In 1708, Prince Menshikov, a particularly keen collector of dwarfs, wrote to his wife: "I sent you a present of two girls, one of whom is very small and can serve as a parrot. She is more talkative than is usual among such little people and can make you gayer than if she were a real parrot." In 1716, Menshikov appealed to Peter: "Since one of my daughters possesses a dwarf girl and the other does not, therefore I beg you kindly to ask Her Majesty the Tsaritsa to allow me to take one of the dwarfs which were left after the death of the Tsaritsa Martha.

>>Peter was enormously fond of dwarfs. They had been around him all his life. As a child, he went to church walking between two rows of dwarfs carrying red silken curtains; as tsar, he kept at court a large population of dwarfs to amuse him and to play prominent roles on special occasions. At banquets, they were placed inside huge pies; when Peter cut into the pastry, a dwarf popped out. He liked to combine their strange shapes with the mock ceremonies in which he reveled. Dwarf weddings and even dwarf funerals, closely aping the ceremonies his own court performed, set Peter to laughing so hard that tears rolled down his cheeks.

>>In 1710, two days after the marriage of Peter's niece Anne to Duke Frederick William of Courland, a marriage of two dwarfs was celebrated with exactly the same ceremony and pomp as the marriage of the royal couple. On the basis of accounts from others, Weber described this festivity, which was attended by seventy-two dwarfs:

>or to please his wife
DWARFED
W
A
R
F
E
D

>>A very little dwarf marched at the head of the procession, as being the marshal . . . conductor and master of the ceremony. He was followed by the bride and bridegroom neatly dressed. Then came the Tsar attended by his ministers, princes, boyars, officers and others; next marched all the dwarfs of both sexes in couples. They were in all seventy-two, some in the service of the Tsar, the Tsarina Dowager, the Prince and Princess Menshikov, and other persons of „ distinction, but others had been sent for from all parts of Russia, however remote. At the church, the priest asked the bridegroom whether he would take his bride to be his wife in a loud voice. He answered in a loud voice, addressing himself to his beloved, "You and no other." The bride being asked whether she had not made any promise of marriage to another than her bridegroom, she answered, "That would be very pretty, indeed." However, when the main question came to be asked, whether she would have the bridegroom for her husband, she uttered her "Yes" with such a low voice as could hardly be heard, which occasioned a good deal of laughter to the company. The Tsar, in token of his favor, was pleased to hold the garland over the bride's head according to the Russian custom.

>>The ceremony being over, the company went by water to the Prince Menshikov's palace. Dinner was prepared in a spacious hall, where two days before the Tsar had entertained the guests invited to the Duke's marriage. Several small tables were placed in the middle of the hall for the new-married couple and the rest of the dwarfs, who were all splendidly dressed after the German fashion. . . . After dinner the dwarfs began to dance after the Russian way, which lasted till eleven at night. It is easy to imagine how much the Tsar and the rest of the company were delighted at the comical capers, strange grimaces, and odd postures of that medley of pygmies, most of whom were of a size the mere sight of which was enough to provoke laughter. One had a high bunch on his back, and very short legs, another was remarkable by a monstrous big belly; a third came waddling along on a little pair of crooked legs like a badger; a fourth had a head of prodigious size; some had wry mouths and long ears, little pig eyes, and chubby cheeks and many such comical figures more. When these diversions were ended, the newly married couple were carried to the Tsar's house and bedded in his own bedchamber.

This is from Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert Massei

>or to please his wife