I feel some details might have lost in 500 years :) The council probably liked the decadence of the happening and they added some fuel. It was probably unreal to be at a "festival" you never seen before so I can understand.
I learned recently that when elephants are very hot, they need to wildly flap their ears to cool their blood (as the blood flows from the body to the brain by way of the ears.) Maybe they hypothesized a similar effect?