![[picture of pipe and tabor
player]](pics/arbeau/th_p048_trans.gif)
![[picture of a
capriole]](pics/arbeau/th_p091_trans.gif)
And there is more to it than this, for dancing is practised to reveal
whether lovers are in good health and sound of limb, after which they
are permitted to kiss their mistresses in order that they may touch
and savour one another, thus to ascertain if they are shapely or emit
an unpleasant odour as of bad meat. Therefore, from this standpoint,
quite apart from the many other advantages to be derived from dancing,
it becomes an essential in a well ordered society.
Thoinot Arbeau, Orchesography (1589), trans. Mary Stewart Evans, p. 12
(Images from Dover edition of Arbeau)
SCA Renaissance Dance Homepage
What's New?
If you have any suggestions or contributions for
this page, please write me at lindahl@pbm.com.
Western social dance in the Renaissance is also being actively studied
and recreated by many groups. There is an active Internet mailing
list, named RENDANCE, whose members include SCAdians, historical dance
professionals, and amateurs. There is also an SCA-specific mailing
list, called sca-dance. RENDANCE subscription information is on the
RENDANCE homepage; for sca-dance subscriptions and archive, see
these hints.
- Known World Dance Symposium (current and past)
- The RENDANCE homepage
(includes info about the Rendance mailing list
and its archive.)
- Primary sources on the web
- Other indices
- Cross-era
- Early
- Medieval Images of Dancing
- The Dance of Death in Book Illustration
- Hans Holbein, the younger; his O\d Testament illustrations, Dance of death and other woodcuts;
- The Dance of death: in a series of engravings on wood from designs attributed to Hans Holbein with a treatise on the subject
- The Dance of death: exhibited in elegant engravings on wood with a dissertation on the several representations of that subject but more particularly on those ascribed to Macaber and Hans Holbein:
- The Dance of Death by Holbein, Hans
- The dance of death: the full series of wood engravings reproduced in phototype from the proofs and original editions by Holbein, Hans, 1497-1543 and Lippmann, Friedrich, 1839-1903
- Hans Holbein the younger; his Old Testament illustrations, Dance of death, and other woodcuts by Hind, Arthur Mayger, 1880-1957
- Les simulachres [et] historiees faces de la mort: commonly called "The dance of death" (vol 1) by Green, Henry, 1801-1873 and Holbein, Hans, 1497-1543
- The Black Death and The Dancing Mania , by J. F. C. Hecker, trans. by Benjamin Guy Babington (Gutenberg text)
- Fifteenth Century (and friends)
- Domenico's "De la arte di ballare et danzare" (PnD) manuscript (BnF, c. 1425)
- Domenico's PnD manuscript (c. 1425)
- Gugliomo's "De pratica seu arte tripudii" (PnG) manuscript (BnF, c. 1463)
- Cornazano's "Libro dell'arte del danzare" (Rvat) manuscript (Vatican, c. 1455)
- Les Basses Danses de Marguerite d'Autriche (aka Brussles MS. Transcription and facsimile)
and the Salisbury manuscript (basse dances)
- Toulouze L'art Et Instruction De Bien Dancer (first printed dance manual)
- The Cervera Manuscript (c. 1496, 4 sheets, Spanish source similar to Burgundian basse dance)
- The Nürnberg Manuscript (1517, 15c Italian in style)
- Jacques Moderne's Basses Dances book (c. 1532)
- A Fifteenth-century courtesy book by British Library. Manuscript. Additional 37969 and Chambers, R. W. (Raymond Wilson), 1874-1942 and Seton, Walter W. (Walter Warren), 1882-1927
- A Fifteenth-century courtesy book by British Library. Manuscript. Additional 37969 and Chambers, R. W. (Raymond Wilson), 1874-1942 and Seton, Walter W. (Walter Warren), 1882-1927
- A Fifteenth-century courtesy book
- Knights at Court: Courtliness, Chivalry, and Courtesy from Ottonian Germany to the Italian Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991)
- Sixteenth Century (and friends)
- Arena (1538: etiquette, bransles, basse dances) (facsimile only)
- Lutio Compasso's Ballo Della Gagliarda (1560) (transcription only)
- Arbeau's Orchesography (1589) (or
here), and just the
(images from Arbeau's Orchesography)
- Caroso's Il Ballarino (1581, facsimile and transcription) and
Nobilta di dame (1600, facsimile and transcription)
- Negri's Nuove inventioni di balli (1602/4, facsimile and transcription)
- Il Papa (mid 16th century Italian source, transcription, translation, reconstructions) (and an earlier transcription)
- Prospero Lutii's Opera bellissima... di gagliarda (transcription)
- Lupi's Libro di gagliarda, 1600 and 1607, facsimile (and transcription in progress)
- Kemps nine daies wonder (an Elizabethan morris-dance saga)
- Baldassare Castiglione, the perfect courtier; his life and letters, 1478-1529
- The Book of the Courtier, by Baldassare Castiglione, ed. by Walter Alexander Raleigh, trans. by Thomas Hoby
- The book of the courtier by Castiglione, Baldassarre, conte, 1478-1529 and Opdyke, Leonard Eckstein, 1888-
- A Treatise of Daunses (anti-dance polemic, 1581)
- THE Schoole of Abuse, Conteining a plesaunt inuective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Iesters and such like Caterpillers of a commonwealth; (1579)
- Extracts from the accounts of the Revels at court: in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I, from the original office books of the masters and yeomen
- Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court, in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I
- Documents relating to the Office of the revels in the time of Queen Elizabeth
- Notes on the History of the Revels Office Under the Tudors
- A renaissance courtesy-book, Galateo, Of manners and behaviours by Della Casa, Giovanni, 1503-1556
- English courtesy literature before 1557 by Millett, Fred Benjamin, 1890-
- Reformation and Revelry: The Practices and Politics of Dancing in Early Modern England, c.1550-c.1640
- Seventeenth Century (roughly)
- Sloane ms. 3858
- MSEng1356 facsimile, transcription, analysis, and article (new ECD source)
- Navarro's Discursos Sobre el Arte Del Dançado (1642)
- John Playford's The English Dancing Master, first edition, 1651 transcription and facsimile;
second edition, 1653 transcription; and a summary of all editions of Playford, and another summary of all editions of Playford
- Traitté contre les danses par Jean Boiseul (1606)
- The Discription of a Maske, Presented before the Kinges Maiestie at White-Hall, on Twelfth Night last, in Honour of the Lord Hayes, and his Bride (Thomas Campion, 1607)
- The Masque of Blackness (Ben Jonson, 1605)
- The Masque of Beauty (Ben Jonson, 1608)
- Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court (Ben Jonson, 1616)
- John Florio's 1611 Italian/English Dictionary (and the smaller 1598 edition.)
- Randle Cotgrave's 1611 French/English Dictionary
- Archaic Italian Verb Conjugations
- Fleur de toutes les plus belles chansons qui se chantent maintenant en France (1614)
- Relation du Grand Ballé (1619)
- Le grand balet de la reyne, dancé au Louvre le 5 mars de l'an 1623
- Extracts from the accounts of the Revels at court: in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I, from the original office books of the masters and yeomen
- Extracts from the accounts of the Revels at court: in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I, from the original office books of the masters and yeomen (vol 13) by Great Britain. Office of the Revels and Cunningham, Peter, 1816-1869
- The seventeenth century accounts of the masters of the revels by Stopes, C. C. (Charlotte Carmichael), 1841-1929
- Later
- Big, Freely-available works
- The Letter of Dance (an amateur newsletter; includes text of back-issues)
- Joy and Jealousy (a book giving reconstructions
of all 15c balli with steps and music)
- Del's Dance Book
- Introduction,
Bibliography,
Other Articles,
France and Burgundy,
15th C Italian Dance,
16th C Italian Dance,
Allemandes,
English Country Dances,
Gresley,
Il Papa,
SCA Inventions,
Music, Videos, Software
- Renaissance dance cheat sheets
- Eric's Music and Dance page including...
- A few Playford tunes arranged by John Chandler
- Practise
for Dauncinge Some Almans and a Pavan, England 1570-1650: A Manual for
Dance Instruction
- Search CDs to find composers/tunes, at medieval.org and freedb.org
- Articles
- Video (!)
- Academic Organizations and Publications
- Vendors: see the Juried Merchants List Music & Dance Index
- Misc
- Dance "Guilds", organizations, mailing lists, & events
Non-Western Music and Dance
I don't have that much good information on non-Western dance or music,
but there are a couple of sources of middle-eastern info on the Web.
Return to the Society for Creative Anachronism Arts and Sciences homepage.
Who else has links to this page?
Gregory Blount of Isenfir (Greg Lindahl)