Bobelins

“As of the 16th century, Spa is in vogue, attracting the informed curists, but also the Protesting S driven out of France and Spain. In front of these foreigners with the blazing costumes which arrive of remote regions, the inhabitants express their legitimate amazement in the term which they choose to characterize them: they call these curious characters of the bobelins . The word Wallon boublin nominates a stupid and odd person. Then derision yields to leave the place with the respect and admiration, and the bobelins are converted into noble curists”.

Another etymological assumption of the word bobelin affirms us that it comes from the Latin bibelus , heavy drinker. Whatever the etymological truth, the neutrality of the Principality of Liege, the borders of the the Rhineland and the Netherlands, and the tolerance and the protection of sound Prince-bishop, allow the arrival of “bobelins” of all the Europe, in full safety, in Spa.

Source

Towns of water in Europe , pp. 58-59, Catherine Sauvat and E. Lennard, ED. Oak, 1999, ISBN 2842771591

Note

"Like entertainment, one often created and named King of Bobelins that of the drinkers which showed the most spirit and which seemed able to make the honors of the place the abroads and to direct the walks and the pleasures of accustomed during a whole season. One made this royalty and those which recognized it, a kind of burlesque and récérative brotherhood which had her laws and her payments. (...) There exists a part become rare: Loves of Fontamorose, king of Bobelins, or the Conceited person par excellence , comedy in prose and worms (by Gullence). Bollen, 1791, in-8" (Dinaux, I, p. 100-101) ".

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