Feast of, a festival anciently celebrated on New Year's Day in churches and monasteries, particularly in France, and said to have been derived from the Saturnalia of the Romans. The extravagances and indecencies that prevailed at its celebration occasioned much scandal to the church, and various attempts were made to suppress it; but these for a long period were quite ineffectual, and it was not until about the fifteenth century that it began generally to fall into disuse. Many of its characteristic extravagances are still preserved in the modern carnival. (Du Tillot, Mémoire pour servir à l'histoire de la fête des fous.)