The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Fescennine verses

FESCENNINE VERSES, an early kind of Italian poetry, originally sung at harvest festivals, and finally spreading to the towns where they became common at private gatherings, especially weddings. Later they were restricted to weddings altogether. They were somewhat coarse and often degenerated into malicious raillery and licentiousness. Festus states that the verses were introduced from Fescennia, in Etruria, but such origin is problematical. (See Latin Literature). Consult Knapp (in American Journal of Philology, XXXIII, 146-148, 1912) and Schanz, ‘Geschichte der römischen Litteratur’ (3d ed., Munich 1907).