Jester-like figures were common throughout the world, including Ancient Rome, China, Persia, and the Aztec empire.

During the post-classical and Renaissance eras, jesters are often thought to have worn brightly coloured clothes and eccentric hats in a motley pattern.

Jesters entertained with a wide variety of skills: principal among them were song, music, and storytelling, but many also employed acrobatics, juggling, telling jokes (such as puns and imitation), and performing magic tricks.

Her son, King James VI of Scotland, employed a jester called Archibald Armstrong.

[11] After the Restoration, Charles II did not reinstate the tradition of the court jester, but he did greatly patronise the theatre and proto-music hall entertainments, especially favouring the work of Thomas Killigrew.

In France and Italy, travelling groups of jesters performed plays featuring stylised characters in a form of theatre called the commedia dell'arte.

[22][23] Poland's most famous court jester was Stańczyk (c. 1480–1560), whose jokes were usually related to political matters, and who later became a historical symbol for Poles.

[26] However, following an objection by the National Guild of Jesters, English Heritage accepted they were not authorised to grant such a title.

[28] In Germany, Till Eulenspiegel is a folkloric hero dating back to medieval times and ruling each year over Fasching or Carnival time, mocking politicians and public figures of power and authority with political satire like a modern-day court jester.

He holds a mirror to make us aware of our times (Zeitgeist), and his sceptre, his "bauble", or marotte, is the symbol of his power.

Mari Bárbola can also be seen in a later portrait of princess Margarita Teresa in mourning by Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo.

[30] The root of the word "fool" is from the Latin follis, which means "bag of wind" or bellows or that which contains air or breath.

[31] The jester can be symbolic of common sense and of honesty, notably in King Lear, where the court jester is a character used for insight and advice on the part of the monarch, taking advantage of his licence to mock and speak freely to dispense frank observations and highlight the folly of his monarch.

This presents a clashing irony as a greater man could dispense the same advice and find himself being detained in the dungeons or even executed.

Shakespearean fools are usually clever peasants or commoners that use their wits to outdo people of higher social standing.

In this sense, they are very similar to the real fools, and jesters of the time, but their characteristics are greatly heightened for theatrical effect.

[32] The "groundlings" (theatre-goers who were too poor to pay for seats and thus stood on the 'ground' in the front by the stage) that frequented the Globe Theatre were more likely to be drawn to these Shakespearean fools.

Most notably, Queen Elizabeth I was a great admirer of the popular actor who portrayed fools, Richard Tarlton.

The tarot depiction of the Fool often shows a man (or less often, a woman) dressed in bright clothes and holding a white rose in one hand and a small bundle of possessions in the other, with a dog or cat at their heels.

The term is now frequently used in a derogatory sense to describe someone considered foolish, or someone displaying inappropriately vulgar, bumbling or ridiculous behaviour which is a source of general amusement.