The story
Tournai Carnival in Tournai
A themed street carnival in Tournai with roots in a 15th-century tradition of clergy electing a mock bishop of the fools. Unlike Binche's fixed Gilles costume, Tournai's carnival groups design new float and costume concepts each year around a chosen theme, making the creative variation itself part of the draw.
Tournai's carnival traces its own origin story to the 15th century, when the city's junior clergy elected a mock 'bishop of the fools' each year and paraded him loudly through the streets for several days as a sanctioned piece of clerical mockery -- a specifically Tournai tradition distinct from the straw-suited Gilles associated with Binche, further south in Hainaut.