'Dancing in the Streets' by Barbara Ehrenreich does a very good job of discussing, what you might call, 'power reversal festivals' from Roman times to the modern day. Specific examples would be the Roman festival of 'saturnalia' and the middle ages 'feast of fools'.

Those 'receiving' power were not only the enslaved but all sorts of 'lower orders'. As well as an exchange of traditional roles it provided an opportunity for the hoi polloi to mock those, such as senior clergy, whose positions in society would usually not allow for widespread public questioning of their standing.