When in history do we start getting bells on Jesters outfits? Is there significance to where they are on the outfit? Why arent little belts of bells around the waist more common?
oooooh this is an excellent question thank you anon, here's an excessively long answer for you!
so the "costume" of the jester as we think of it today- that whole particolor jingly situation- was the result of many generations' worth of evolution. dedicated royal fools were a thing in europe as early as 1000CE. as far as i'm aware, those earliest employed fools didn't have much in the way of consistent costuming outside of garish motley. some would wear intentionally shabby looking outfits, some would wear humorously outdated fashions, some would wear hoods kind of like monks did, but it appears that the sole unifying trend among all of those was just the bright clashing motley aspect.
the hoods were the big next evolutionary step. jesters started wearing hoods and cowls with fun donkey ears sewn on the sides cus y'know. they're asses. some would even wear a short donkey tail to complement their fits. and it's on those adorable accessories that the bells first made their appearance, on the tips of the ears and tail. here's an example of the eared hood:
i don't know exact dates on when these trends began, but the earliest appearance of a verified jingly jester i'm aware of is from some marginalia the mid 1300s:
you can see that funky son of a bitch up there has the sort of headgear that most people nowadays associate with jesters: not ears, but like a big ol' set of handlebars. that again is just a form of evolution, those handlebars having grown out from the ears probably (and this is just my educated guess here) for practical reasons- if you want to put bigger louder sexier bells on your hood, you need to have a different structure to support the weight of all that metal. you cant just walk around with your ass ears folded over on themselves, can you? that'd be sad as hell. no one wants that.
i believe the main reason we don't see bells around the waist as often is simply because that'd be soooo fucking loud omg. a couple bells on the head is one thing- you can keep your head fairly still and move it slowly to reduce your jangle in between bouts of whipping that shit around for comedic effect. and sure some of em put a bell or two on a measly little tail for extra fun. but a ring of bells around the waist would be a constant clamor, and something you have less control over. though we do see a tradition of hanging bells from the bottom of their long shirts around ~1500s, that didn't last very long.
there were always jesters that didn't buy into the over the top garb (unconscionable to a guy like me) and they started becoming more common as time went on, a trend that runs parallel to the extinction of the title. perfect example of this is henry the 8th's jester, will sommers. this is a contemporary painting of henry and one of his wives + kid from 1545. on the far left and right through those doorways are believed to be depictions of their two jesters- jane foole and will sommers. and you'll note they look pretty normal.
the royal fool became less overtly silly for a few generations before finally dying out almost entirely by the 1700s. so we get about 500 years or so of fun before it was wiped out by one of society's most ruthless and cruel aspects... the desire to be taken seriously. eugh.
so, in short: jesters got bells cus they were dumb asses
