Footprints of the Dance: an Early Seventeenth-Century Dance Master's Notebook: An Early Seventeenth-Century Dance Master's Notebook [1 ed.] 9789004377738, 9789004361799

Citation preview

Footprints of the Dance: An Early Seventeenth-Century Dance Master’s Notebook

Drama and Theatre in Early Modern Europe Editor-in-Chief Jan Bloemendal (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Ruhr-Universität Bochum) Editorial Board Peter G. F. Eversmann (University of Amsterdam) Jelle Koopmans (University of Amsterdam) Joachim Küpper (Freie Universität Berlin) Russell J. Leo (Princeton University)

volume 8

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/dtem

Footprints of the Dance: An Early SeventeenthCentury Dance Master’s Notebook By

Jennifer Nevile

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Map of Brussels and its environs from Le theatre du monde, ou novvel atlas by Willem Janszoon Blaeu and Joan Blaeu (Amsterdam: Jean Blaeu, 1647). Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Digital ID number: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3200m.gct00035. Details from the manuscript Cod. Holm S 253 held in the Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Control Number: 2018030410

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2211-341x isbn 978-90-04-36179-9 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-37773-8 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

To Margaret and Sydney – for all their encouragement, support and friendship

∵

Contents Acknowledgements ix List of Tables, Illustrations and Musical Examples xi A Note on Transcriptions and Translations xiii Introduction 1 1 A Dance Master’s Notebook 7 2 Dance in Early Modern Europe 30 3 Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks 65 4 Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils 102 5 Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition 118 6 Dance Music, Dance Songs and Airs de Cour 140 Conclusion 162 Facsimile of Dance-Related Material from S 253 165 Appendix 1: Transcription and Translation of the Six Ballet Plots 244 Appendix 2: The Pike Exhibition (ff. 94r–99v) 252 Bibliography 263 Index 279

Acknowledgements It was almost twenty years ago when my interest was first drawn to the large collection of geometric shapes and figures recorded in a manuscript held in the Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm. At that time I did not realize what other unique features lay hidden in the manuscript. Even ten years later when Margaret McGowan and Sydney Anglo first suggested I should examine the dance master’s notebook in its entirety, I certainly did not foresee what a challenge the manuscript would present, but neither did I realize what a fascinating journey the research would become. If it were not for all the support and help I have received from friends and colleagues along the way then the project would have undoubtedly taken longer than it did, and the final result would have been poorer. My heartfelt thanks to you all. I am particularly grateful for the expertise of Marie-Claude Canova-Green, John Golder, Melinda Gough, Rebecca Harris-Warrick and John D. Lyons who provided advice on questions I had concerning the French text, and my translation of the ballet plots. Tommie Andersson was particularly helpful in responding to my questions concerning some of the dance music recorded in the notebook. Sydney Anglo, Mary Chan, Fiona Garlick, Margaret McGowan, Jennifer Thorp and Tim Wooller were always happy to discuss the questions and speculative ideas I had about the contents of the manuscript, and their critical thinking and wise counsel added immeasurably to the book, as did the comments of Graham Pont, Sydney Anglo, Mary Chan and Margaret McGowan who all read separate chapters at various stages of their evolution, or the complete manuscript. Any errors that remain are solely the responsibility of the author. I also wish to thank the staff at the Kungliga Biblioteket, and in particular Jonas Nordin, who has been extremely helpful and welcoming in my visits to the library. His assistance made working in the library a pleasure. He also kindly translated the catalogue information on the manuscript into English for me. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank John Powell, who drew my attention to MS Add. A. 33 with its dance figures more years ago than I care to remember. I am glad that the material has now received the attention it deserves. Jan Bloemendal, the head of the editorial board of the DTEM series at Brill, has been enthusiastic about the project from the beginning, when all that existed was a two page outline. His comments and those of the other members of the editorial board on an earlier version of the manuscript greatly assisted in tightening and focusing the final text. The comments and suggestions from the three anonymous reviewers were also very helpful, and I am grateful for them.

x

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the support, encouragement and expertise of Margaret McGowan and Sydney Anglo. They have contributed to the book in so many ways. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to them both. In addition to his unfailing love and support, my husband, Tim Wooller, also provided much needed technical expertise, especially with the issues relating to the illustrations and tables.

Tables, Illustrations and Musical Examples All images from Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, Cod. Holm S 253 are reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Sweden. (Reproduction: Andrea Davis Kronlund, National Library of Sweden).

Tables 1 Contents of S 253 17 2 Identification of hands in S 253 26 3 Named figures that represent a physical object 89 4 Named geometric figures 89 5 Miscellaneous named figures 90 6 The alchemical meanings of the named figures 97 7 Identified airs from S 253 and their printed concordances 143 8 Ballet entrées with a title in S 253 158

Illustrations 1 Decorative motif by H7 to end the text of the airs on ff. 56v, 60v, 61v and 64r in S 253 13 2 Example of a squared circle – the eleventh figure on f. 12v in S 253 91 3 A heart on top of a triangle – the fifth figure on f. 16v in S 253 91 4 An upside-down heart on top of a downwards pointing triangle – the first figure on f. 17r in S 253 91 5 The 5th, 7th and 9th figures from a 1616 balletto showing the dancers facing in various directions 93 6 Drawing of a rocket on f. 36r (detail) in S 253 97 7 Engravings 7–10 showing how to move the pike from the ‘advance’ position to ‘pike on the shoulder’. In Jacob de Gheyn, Maniement d’armes (1608). Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute 123 8 Engravings 11–14 showing how to ‘charge’ the pike ready for a forwards thrust. In Jacob de Gheyn, Maniement d’armes (1608). Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute 124 9 Engravings 26–29 showing how to turn 180 degrees when holding a pike. In Jacob de Gheyn, Maniement d’armes (1608). Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute 125

xii

Tables, Illustrations and Musical Examples

Musical Examples

1a Melody of Je voudrois bien by Antoine de Boësset from Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615), pp. 12v–13r 150 1b Je voudrois bien from S 253 f. 64v 150

A Note on Transcriptions and Translations The following principles were observed in the transcriptions of material from the notebook and in the quotations from printed primary sources. Original orthographies are retained, as are original punctuation, capitalization and diacritical marks. Interline insertions are placed between ⌈ ⌉; editorial additions appear between square brackets, and deletions in the text appear between < >. Places in the dance master’s notebook where individual letters or words are obscured to the extent that one cannot determine what was originally written there are indicated by […]. Only when reference is made to material from the dance master’s notebook are the relevant folio numbers given in the body of the text. References to all other manuscripts are given in the footnotes. Translations are by the author unless otherwise noted.

Introduction The handwritten notebook held in the Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm Cod. Holm S 253 (hereafter cited as S 253) is a unique document in the corpus of surviving sources for early modern European dance. Dance treatises have sur­ vived from the early modern period, which, to varying degrees, record choreo­ graphies, step descriptions and the intellectual foundation of the art of dance, but there is no other source that records such a mixture of material relevant to the daily activities of a dance master and teacher. As will become clear, this manuscript is not a dance treatise in the traditional sense. Rather it is a docu­ ment with subject matter drawn from a range of different areas. This study will examine the manuscript in the context of dance during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: dance performance, choreographic activity and dance teaching. The dance treatises that have survived from the fifteenth, sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were written with various goals. Sometimes this goal was self-promotion and self-marketing, as was the case for Cesare Negri when, in 1602, he published his treatise Le gratie d’amore.1 Other trea­ tises were written as a gift to a noble pupil of the dance master, as was the case for the first version of Antonio Cornazano’s treatise, which he dedicated to his pupil Ippolita Sforza in 1455, in order to accompany his practical tuition.2 Other works on dance were written for the edification of the author’s peers, as was the case for Antonius Arena, who in 1528 published a dance treatise that was part of a collection of essays addressed to his fellow law students at the University of Avignon.3 The handwritten notebook differs from these treatises in that the material is not carefully prepared and organized for publication or as a presentation manuscript to a noble patron. The collection of material is essentially personal, so much so that the name of the dance master who re­ corded much of the material is never mentioned. The manuscript of over one hundred folios, which exhibits a number of different hands both musical and 1  For a detailed discussion of Negri’s career and the reasons behind the writing and publica­ tion of Le gratie d’amore, see Katherine Tucker McGinnis, ‘Your Most Humble Servant, Cesare Negri Milanese’, in Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750, ed. Jennifer Nevile (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), pp. 211–28. 2  Diego Zancani, ‘Writing for Women Rulers in Quattrocento Italy: Antonio Cornazano’, in Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society, ed. L. Panizza (Oxford: Legenda – European Humanities Research Centre, 2000), p. 58. 3  Arena was not a dance master who earnt his living by teaching, choreographing and per­ forming. Rather he was a ‘poet, soldier, bon vivant and a judge’. W. Thomas Marrocco and Marie-Laure Merveille, ‘Anthonius Arena: Master of Law and Dance of the Renaissance’, Studi musicali 18, no. 1 (1989): 19.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_002

2

Introduction

textual, is a mixture of dance-related material and resets, the latter being reci­ pes and remedies that would have been useful in daily life, such as remedies for toothache (f. 45v), and for epilepsy (f. 46r), and instructions on how to fumigate one’s house to ward off the plague (f. 38v). The folios in the manuscript related to dance and the production of theatrical spectacles include ballet plots, a list of ballet titles, a canon of geometric figures for five to sixteen dancers, music for ballet entrées, instructions for an exhibition of manoeuvres with a pike, and also a series of instructions for making various types of fireworks. There are also folios related to the teaching of dance and music: the signatures and general descriptions of dance pupils and when they began their lessons, the music of fashionable dances such as the courante in mensural notation, lute tablature and violin tablature, and the notation of words and music of popular airs de cour. There are also two short pieces in mandore tablature.4 It is perhaps surprising that given the widespread nature of dancing in Renaissance Europe across all levels of society, primary sources that document the activities of dance masters are not common, and evidence of their teaching activities is even more scarce. For this reason alone the handwritten notebook held in the Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm is a valuable addition to the ex­ isting sources. The manuscript has several sections that contain material which is unique, such as the canon of dance figures and the sequence of instructions for an exhibition with a pike. Ballets in which the dancers formed geometric shapes and letters were performed throughout Europe in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Sometimes a published description of such a performance would include diagrams of the figures formed by the dancers, as in the festa a ballo performed in Naples during the 1620 carnival season.5 The published account of this danced spectacle includes twenty-four figures for the final dance performed by twenty-four cavalieri. In this case, and in other descriptions of danced spectacles, figures are provided for only one particular dance from the entire event.6 There is also no indication in the 1620 festa a ballo description or in accounts of other danced spectacles of a vocabulary of 4  I am indebted to Tommie Andersson for pointing out that the two pieces on ff. 100v–101r, Robinette and Vive louis are in mandore tablature, for a mandore tuned A-D-A-D-A. 5  Breve racconto della festa a ballo (Naples: Costantino Vitale, 1620). For a modern edition of the music for this spectacle, and the figures for the final dance, see Roland Jackson, ed., A Neapolitan Festa a Ballo ‘Delizie di Posilipo Boscarecce, e Maritime’ and Selected Instrumental Ensemble Pieces from Naples Conservatory MS 4.6.3. (Madison: A-R Editions, 1978). 6  See, for example, the figures for the Grand Ballet from the Ballet de Monsieur de Vendosme (Paris: Jean de Heuqueville, 1610), and the dances from the Jesuit college production Comoedia D. Guilielmus Dux Aquitaniae that was performed in Brussels in 1614 (Oxford: Bodleian Library, MS Add. A. 33). These two examples are discussed in detail in chapters 2 and 3.

Introduction

3

dance figures similar to that with which the dance master was working, as this was not the purpose of such publications. The handwritten notebook, there­ fore, is the only known source that provides a canon of possible figures for differing numbers of dancers, which a dance master could consult when cho­ reographing a figured dance. The instructions for the pike exhibition is also unique. Nothing like this material has ever been found in either choreographic sources or in sources for the martial arts. The dance master’s notebook does raise a number of questions as regards authorship, geography, provenance and dating: not all of these questions can be answered with certainty and verifiable proofs, but when all the material in the notebook is considered together, new insights emerge and additional information can be teased out, all of which significantly adds to the small quantity of existing knowledge of the life of an early seventeenth-century dance master and teacher. The manuscript itself has not received much attention from music and dance historians, and that is one reason for publishing in facsimile the dancerelated material from the notebook as part of this study: this will be the first time the material has been published and thus made available to the wider scholarly community. The dance-related material published here in facsimile comprises the list of ballet titles, the six ballet plots, the canon of dance figures, the instructions for the pike exhibition, and the folios with the signatures and general descriptions of the dance pupils. In 1966 Peter Brinson mentioned the notebook in his survey of European archival materials relevant to early dance.7 In the one and a half pages devoted to this manuscript, Brinson describes it as a ‘handwritten daily notebook of an anonymous French dancing master in Brussels for the years 1614–1619’.8 In 1988 musicologist John M. Ward briefly discussed the manuscript as part of his essay on music for the Stuart masques.9 Ward describes the manuscript as a ‘combination work-and commonplace – book’ of a ‘French dancing master active in Brussels during the second decade of the 17th century’.10 While David J. Buch in his study of the dance music from the ballets de cour has recognized the importance and value of this source,11 he 7  Peter Brinson, Background to European Ballet: A Notebook from its Archives (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1966), pp. 117–8. 8   Brinson, Background to European Ballet, p. 117. The reasons for the dating and nationality of the owner of the manuscript will be discussed in chapter 1. 9   John M. Ward, ‘Newly Devis’d Measures for Jacobean Masques’, Acta Musicologica 60, no. 2 (1988): 111–42. 10  Ward, ‘Newly Devis’d Measures’, p. 115. 11  David J. Buch, Dance Music from the Ballets de Cour 1575–1651: Historical Commentary, Source Study, and Transcriptions from the Philidor Manuscripts (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1993), p. xiii.

4

Introduction

did not present any new information on the provenance, dating or possible ownership of the notebook. In 2000 I published a study of the canon of dance figures only, without examining the rest of the manuscript in any great detail.12 The notebook was originally a bound book of blank folios, as opposed to a collection of individual folios that were collected together and bound at a later date. This is clear from the fact that on several occasions the writer arrived at the end of the last stave on a verso folio before the piece of music was finished: the remainder of the piece is continued on the bottom of the facing recto folio. The notebook is not a daily record of the activities of the dance master who owned it. Certainly it contains material that he could, and most probably did, use for teaching, but the contents are arranged in a more systematic man­ ner than would be the case if that material had been added on a day-to-day basis. In my opinion, the notebook had several functions. It served as a reposi­ tory of music that was useful for teaching. It also served as a record of the dance pupils taught at the school, though not as an account book that recorded pay­ ments for the lessons. It also functioned as a reference work, an aide-memoire for the many possible figures which could be used during the composition of entrées and the closing Grand Ballet of a ballet de cour, an indispensible tool for a professional dance master involved with theatrical dance performances. In part, the notebook also served as a curriculum vitae for its owner, as a writ­ ten document that held examples of what he could teach and whom he had taught, and what he could choreograph and organize for a theatrical specta­ cle, ballet or masquerade. Today one might even describe such a document as an ‘event manager’s handbook’. The notebook also had a domestic purpose; that is, the recording of useful remedies for everyday (and occasional) ills that could beset a person at that time. While the notebook remains at the centre of this study, the monograph is not an edition of the entire manuscript in facsimile or transcription. The con­ tents of each folio have been examined and categorized, but the non-dancerelated material, such as the resets, have not been studied any further as this material lies outside the scope of the present study. The aim of this monograph is to place the dance-related material found in the notebook in the context of court and civic festivity, and in contemporary theatrical genres across Europe more generally, with an emphasis on the situation in Brussels. Throughout this 12  Jennifer Nevile, ‘Dance Patterns of the Early Seventeenth Century: The Stockholm Manuscript and Le Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme’, Dance Research 18, no. 2 (2000): 186–203. Sections of this article appear in chapter 3 as part of the extended discussion of the dance figures, their meanings and significance.

Introduction

5

study I have sought to provide an explanation of why the dance-related mate­ rial would have been recorded in the personal notebook of this dance master and teacher. But even after such a detailed examination of the manuscript, an­ swers cannot be found for all the questions posed by the notebook. The manu­ script presents opportunities for further research by scholars with expertise in areas other than dance and music, by investigating its contents from other disciplinary viewpoints. For example, a linguistic analysis of the seven major textual hands found in the notebook is beyond the scope of the present study, as is any investigation into the names of the individual pupils and the families to which they might have belonged. There is yet more to be discovered in this rare notebook. Chapter 1 establishes a framework for the study with a discussion of the physical details of the manuscript and what is known about its provenance, be­ fore moving onto an examination of the various hands found in the notebook, and what answers can be given to questions of dating and geographic loca­ tion of the notebook. Chapter 2 provides a context for the following chapters through a discussion of the wider practice of dance and the roles it had both in society and in drama of sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Europe. The discussion of dance and drama in early modern Europe is not a comprehensive survey, as that would entail a multi-volume work. Rather the section ‘Dance in drama’ focuses on the parallels between the different functions of dance in the wider society and the roles it played in contemporary dramatic productions. The second half of chapter 2 focuses on Brussels, and presents the current state of knowledge about dance activity in that city during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Chapter 3 discusses the dance-related material in the manuscript: the six ballet plots, the canon of dance figures and the instructions for making fire­ works. The analysis of the ballet plots focuses on their structure and impor­ tant characteristics, such as the manner in which torches are used and the way emotions are portrayed. It also considers what specific choreographic information was included in the ballet plots, as well as discussing what was left out of these plots compared to what was normally found in the published livrets of the ballet de cour. A transcription of the six ballet plots, along with an English translation, is found in Appendix 1. The second half of chapter 3 focuses on the canon of dance figures found in the notebook, which is one of the unique features of this manuscript. While many danced spectacles at this time used geometric figures, and some sources also recorded the figures that were used in parts of the spectacle, no other document records a systematic list­ ing of possible figures as is found in the dance master’s notebook. Furthermore,

6

Introduction

the dance master has appended names to some of these figures, which reveal a range of meanings, including alchemical associations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relationship of fireworks to the art of dance. Dance pupils themselves make an appearance in the notebook: the specifics of dance teaching in Renaissance Europe, and the details that the notebook reveals about the teaching activities and the pupils of the dance master, form the basis of chapter 4. As is discussed in chapter 2, dance teachers were living and working in Brussels from at least the beginning of the sixteenth century, and most likely in the previous century as well. Therefore, in order to provide a wider context for what was happening in Brussels as regards dance teach­ ing, the discussion of dance teaching in chapter 4 begins in fifteenth-century Europe, as it is there that the first records of dance teachers and dance schools appear. In addition, many of the characteristics of dance teaching in the fif­ teenth century persisted into the sixteenth century; so in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the later practices it is necessary to be aware of what preceded them. Chapter 5 examines another unique feature of this manuscript: the sequence of instructions for the pike exhibition. A transcrip­ tion of these instructions and an English translation is given in Appendix 2. In chapter 5 the pike exhibition is considered in the context of danced combats and the military training manuals of the time, as well as the similarities with non-combative choreographies. The music recorded in the notebook covers a number of different genres, but the majority of this music is associated in some way with dancing; that is, music for specific dances such as courantes, and music for ballet entrées and fashionable airs de cour, some of which originated in the ballets de cour performed at the French court. An examination of this music forms the cen­ trepiece of chapter 6 and includes identifying the musical material where possible and the publications from which they came, as well as discussing the changes made to these pieces by the dance master when he recorded them in his notebook, and the significance of such differences. The book concludes by drawing together all the various details of the material recorded in the note­ book to present a synopsis of the teaching and choreographic activities of the anonymous dance master.

chapter 1

A Dance Master’s Notebook 1

Contents of the Notebook

On reading through the dance master’s notebook for the first time it is easy to be slightly overwhelmed by the amount of material recorded in it, the heterogeneous nature of its contents, and the multiplicity of textual hands. When the contents are tabulated, however, coherent patterns begin to emerge. Table 1 lists the contents of each folio, as well as indicating which musical or textual hand was responsible for recording the material on each folio.1 As can be seen from Table 1, the contents of the manuscript are grouped into fairly regular sections, which do not appear to have been added in an ad-hoc or haphazard fashion. The notebook begins with a list of ballet titles, the last three of which on f. 1v refer to three of the ballet plots recorded in the notebook. The first ballet plot follows, interspersed with thirteen geometric figures for ten dancers on the top of f. 2v and the whole of f. 3r. Then comes the second ballet plot, before the canon proper of geometric figures starts on f. 5r. This time the recording of geometric figures is done in a very systematic manner, starting with figures for five dancers and progressing in order until the figures for sixteen dancers are recorded. Furthermore, as the number of dancers required increases, the figures for the new number of dancers always begin on a new recto folio, even if there is space on the previous verso folio. The ‘choreographic’ section of the notebook finishes with three pages of letters (ff. 26r–27r) made up of different numbers of dancers.2 Music for ballet entrées forms the next section of the manuscript, followed by several folios that contain instructions for making fireworks. Then there is a large section that records the music and verses for airs de cour. After the airs de cour there are the folios associated with dance teaching that record general 1  The fifteen different textual hands are identified by the letter ‘H’ followed by a number from 1 to 15, and the six different musical hands by the letter ‘M’ followed by a number from 1 to 6. The squiggles that outline the geometric figures are classified as belonging to ‘F1’, while ‘T1’ refers to the music written out in tablature. 2  The letters also start on a recto folio, leaving the previous verso folio to be filled with instructions for making an alcoholic cordial. One cannot say for certain if this text was added onto the blank f. 25v sometime after the figures and letters were recorded, or if the owner of the notebook wrote out the figures, then the instructions for a cordial, then the letters in a sequential fashion.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_003

8

chapter 1

descriptions and the signatures of the dance pupils. More dance music and music for entrées follows, interspersed with resets. Then there is the section on the pike exhibition, followed by music in lute tablature, interrupted with more ballet plots, with the final folios of the notebook recording more dance music. The sections of the manuscript are further differentiated by the hands in which they are written: these are discussed below in the final section of this chapter. Even though there is a discernible order in the notebook, it is not a manuscript that was ever destined for publication. Some of the hands are clear and legible, others look rushed and messy. There are folios with lines crossed out, and instances of text being roughly squeezed into the available space, whether this space was in line with the majority of the text or not, as occurs on f. 71v. The musical hands look equally untidy with mistakes, such as notes written at the incorrect pitch, being crossed out. 2

Physical Description and Provenance

The notebook is not large. The height of the paper cover is 192mm (7.5 inches) and its width is 145mm (5.75 inches), thus making the size of the open book just marginally smaller than the size of a piece of A4 paper in landscape format. The cover of the manuscript is not the original binding. It is a thickish, paper cover of a greyish-blue colour that was attached to the notebook when it was sold in the nineteenth century.3 The fact that the manuscript was rebound at some stage of its life is also indicated by the presence of previous binding holes close to the inside margin on many of the folios. The paper of the notebook does not appear to be of good quality to begin with, and it has further deteriorated with time. Some edges have been torn off or worn away, and the last two folios of the manuscript are very damaged and worn and have had to be repaired. On many folios the ink has bled badly through the paper. Some folios have not been cut as they are already of smaller size. This occurs for all the folios from 65 to 76. Some folios appear to have been trimmed, resulting in the writing at the top being cut off, as on f. 75r, while other folios have had smaller pieces of paper pasted in on top of the original page in the notebook. This occurs on ff. 70v–73r, and on f. 84v an extra page has been bound into the notebook, but not pasted over the original f. 84v. The pasted-in sheets over ff. 70v–73r all contain signatures of pupils and dates when they started dance 3  In Sweden in the nineteenth century manuscripts were legally required to be sold without their bindings, so they were re-bound for sale in grey covers, which is the cover the manuscript now has.

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook

9

lessons. These folios, as well as ff. 75r–76r that also contain signatures of pupils, all look very worn, much handled and faded compared to the rest of the manuscript. The paper is quarto, and there appear to be three different watermarks that are partly visible. Unfortunately, at least one-half of each of these three watermarks is lost in the binding. The largest watermark appears to be that of a lion, similar to watermarks numbers 3119 and 3121 in Edward Heawood’s publication.4 The other two watermarks are much smaller and I have not been able to gain any impression of what they may be like. Very little is known about the provenance of this manuscript. It was acquired by the Kungliga Biblioteket in 1880. From the handwritten catalogue information we know that in 1847 it was owned by the family Burensköld-Broman who lived in Mellingeholm, north of Stockholm. The name that appears on f. 1r ‘Schürer v. Waldheim’ refers to a nineteenth-century owner, Captain Fredrik August Schürer von Waldheim (b. 1808–d. 1857), and ‘Kat. 104’ is his catalogue number. How the notebook arrived in Sweden is not known. 3

The Different Literary and Musical Hands

The dance master’s notebook contains fifteen different literary hands and six different musical hands. There are seven major literary hands (H1 to H7), all of which are associated with a substantial section of the manuscript, and are clearly able to be differentiated. Hands 8 to 15 only occur once or twice, and it is not so easy to distinguish between them with absolute certainty. Examples of all these hands are given in Table 2. H1 is the hand that occurs throughout the manuscript, for the list of ballet titles, the names under the figures, the text under the majority of the music, and for the majority of the recipes. As can be seen from Table 1, H1 is also the hand that always occurs with the musical hand M1. My hypothesis is that H1 and M1 belong to the same person: the dance master who owned the notebook, and who was also responsible for recording all the geometric figures and shapes (F1). His handwriting is distinctive (large, loopy and messy best describes it), and occurs in another early seventeenth-century manuscript held at the Kungliga Biblioteket.5 This second manuscript is bound in a 4  Edward Heawood, Watermarks: Mainly of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Facsimile edition of the 1957 edition (Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2003). Heawood gives a date of 1589 for watermark 3119 and 1607 for watermark 3121 (p. 133). 5  Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, MS X 104.

10

chapter 1

seventeenth-century binding with ‘Bassus’ on the front cover, that presumably came from a bass part book of music. The contents are not related to dance or music, however, and this manuscript is a heterogeneous collection of many more resets, almost all of which are in the hand I have identified as H1. In spite of the absence of any choreographic or musical material in this second manu­ script, one must conclude that H1 was the owner of both manuscripts. H1 emerges as the authoritative ‘voice’ in the notebook, as it is the hand that on occasions completes a text. This procedure is illustrated by the additions to the conclusion of the first ballet plot recorded in the manuscript, L’enuie de l’honneur de l’Amour. Unlike other ballet plots, L’enuie does not finish with a Grand Ballet. After the two sentences starting with ‘Next, the passionate lovers will enter and dance their ballet’, there is a dividing line drawn across the left hand side of the page, then another four lines written by H2, but preceded by an ‘X’. These four lines appear to end in the middle of a sentence ‘then the three children look around’. A broken dividing line then occurs, followed by four lines written by H1 describing the Grand Ballet. Here we have, in my opinion, the dance master (H1) changing his mind as to the end of the ballet and indicating this change with an ‘X’, then adding the text that describes the Grand Ballet. H2 belongs to the person who copied the six ballet plots into the notebook. All six are in the same hand, no matter whether they occur at the beginning, middle or end of the manuscript. It is much clearer and neater than H1, and gives the impression of being written in less of a hurry. I hypothesize that the person responsible for recording the ballet plots in the notebook copied the material from another source; that is, a document, or documents, written by the dance master. I base this hypothesis on the presence of a few copying errors in the ballet plots. One example is on f. 105v where the word ‘grand’ in the phrase ‘Puis le grand ballet de pages’ has been crossed out as it is a miscopying from the following line ‘Puis le grand ballet entrerat’. H3 is the copyist responsible for recording the text of the titles and poems of the ballet entrées on ff. 29r–30v, the name ‘destourmelle’ on ff. 74r and 93r, the page of resets on f. 113v and the text on f. 120v that mentions a ‘gavotte’. The distinguishing feature of this hand is the use of decorative motifs drawn around the text, particularly one that is like an upper-case ‘S’ with a stroke through it (see the example of H3 in Table 2). Also, for every occurrence of H3 with music, the musical hand is M2. It is possible, therefore, that H3 and M2 are the same person. Whether the copyist H3 is Destourmelle himself is less certain since two of the musical pieces by Destourmelle are copied into the notebook by H1.

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook

11

H4 and H6 each occur in only one section each, and are the hands of the persons responsible for the instructions for the pike exhibition (H4) and the instructions for making fireworks, ointments for burns and six non-fire-related resets (H6). My conclusion is that H4 is the hand of an expert in staff weapons, who the dance master requested to write into his notebook a sequence of instructions for a virtuosic pike display. The reasons for this conclusion are discussed more fully in chapter 5 which focuses on the pike exhibition, but practical factors, such as the specialized nature of the vocabulary and the amount of expert knowledge that would be required to write such a sequence of instructions, all point to the author of these instructions being an expert in the handling of a pike. Given that this hand only appears for these instructions, it seems most likely that its author also wrote them into the notebook himself. A further argument supporting the conclusion that H4 is the hand of a master-of-arms is that there is no known body of contemporary literature that describes such an exhibition with a pike from which the material in the dance master’s notebook could have been copied. It is also possible that H6 is the hand of an artificer; that is, an expert in the design and creation or composition of fireworks. Such people were frequently gunners, who, from the sixteenth century onwards, wrote descriptions of the necessary techniques for the construction of fireworks and also recipes for the different types of fireworks.6 From ff. 34v–37v there are recipes for five different kinds of fireworks, and two recipes for ointment to help heal burns.7 This material could also have come directly from the hand of an expert. After the recipes for fireworks and ointment, however, the sequence of material (and hands) changes, as there is a page of resets in H1 that has been crossed out (f. 38r), followed by another six resets that have nothing to do with pyrotechnic matters, but are all in the same hand – H6 – as the fireworks material. These six latter resets written by H6 include a recipe to improve one’s complexion, instructions on how to fumigate the house during a plague, a recipe to help relieve a cough and to aid in breathing, and instructions on how to make wheat grow in poor soil. In the case of H6, therefore, it seems more likely that the scribe is not a gunner or fireworks expert, but only one who copied such material from a publication written by an artificer, of which there was a growing literature at this period, designed for both fellow practitioners and noble 6  Simon Werrett, Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 8. 7  This material will be discussed in much further detail in chapter 3, along with the connections between the invention and use of fireworks in court spectacles and the art of dance.

12

chapter 1

patrons.8 If so, H6 evidently copied medical, cosmetic and agricultural recipes into the notebook from another source or sources. Certainly H6 is the neatest hand that appears in the dance master’s notebook, and each recipe follows on from the one before, which indicates that the material was copied in a block in one sitting, or in a short interval of time. One possible explanation for the material in the hand of H6 being copied in a short space of time is that a colleague, who was visiting the dance master in Brussels, brought with him a book that contained firework instructions and other recipes. The visitor then showed the book to the dance master who was interested enough to have the visitor copy some of the material into his own notebook. Once his colleague had left Brussels there were no more opportunities for H6 to enter material into the dance master’s notebook. A second possible scenario could be the arrival in Brussels of an expert artificer who came to organize a fireworks display as part of a court celebration, and who also had with him a document or book in which instructions for various fireworks were recorded. The dance master was interested in the display, and was able to arrange for instructions for fireworks that he had particularly liked, or that he thought might be useful to him in the future, to be copied into his notebook. H5 and H7 are the two remaining major literary hands. Both are responsible for recording the verses of the airs de cour. H5 begins the copying of the texts of the airs on f. 40v, and continues until f. 49v, at which point H7 takes over, continuing until f. 64r. Even though H5 and H7 appear more similar to each other than Hands 1 to 4, there are substantial differences in the manner in which they copy the verses of the airs, and in the decorative elements of their hands. When H5 wrote down the texts of the airs de cour he only recorded the first verse, which, with one exception, he wrote underneath the melody.9 The music of all these ten airs copied by H5 is in the third musical hand (M3). H7 had a different modus operandi. He copied the words of the airs onto a separate page from that of the music, as well as recording all the verses of the song. Furthermore, the music of all the H7 airs is written in the hand of M1. The other distinguishing feature of H7 is that the verses he copies are separated by a motif that looks like an ‘S’ with one or two strokes through it.10 H7 also ends four of his airs with a more elaborate decorative motif (see Illustration 1).11 8   Werrett, Fireworks, pp. 36–8. 9  The exception is the air Donc pour aymer, where the second and third verses were copied onto the page before the music and verse 1. 10  This motif is similar to that used by H3 but the ‘S’s are rounder and wider. 11  The one occasion that H7 does not divide the verses of the air with the ‘S’ marker, he ends the song text with his characteristic decoration, so one can be certain that the hand is H7.

13

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook

illustration 1

Decorative motif by H7 to end the text of the airs on ff. 56v, 60v, 61v and 64r in S 253

14

chapter 1

There is a smaller number of musical hands than literary hands in the notebook. M1 is the hand of the owner of the notebook. It occurs much more frequently than the other musical hands and is found throughout the manuscript. M1 is distinguished from the other musical hands by the manner of drawing the soprano clef; that is, with straight lines either horizontal or sloping, and the presence of dots inside the double bar lines.12 By contrast, M2 either writes the dots outside the double bar lines, or both inside and outside the double bar lines, and M2’s soprano clefs have wavy horizontal lines rather than straight. M3 is distinguished by the note shapes; that is, the stems are more consistently drawn from the side of the noteheads rather than the middle, as well as the totally different shape of the treble clef. M2 and M3 occur in discrete sections of the manuscript. Musical hands 4, 5 and 6 each occur only once in the manuscript. Each hand has a different shape for the treble clef and M4 has diagonal lines in the middle of the double bar lines. There is also an association between musical and literary hands in the notebook. As mentioned above, H1 and M1 occur together, as does M2 with H3, and M3 with H5. I have argued that H1 and M1 are the same person, but perhaps M2 and H3 belong to the same person, and M3 and H5 to a third person. 4

Questions of Dating and Geography

Almost all of the notebook is in French, which suggests the unsurprising conclusion that the dance master who owned the notebook was also French. While the orthography throughout is highly variable and idiosyncratic, and sometimes phonetic – as in ‘en gloiet’ for ‘anglais’ (f. 65v) – it also contains many of the features common to French texts from this period. Examples of such orthographic features include the use of ‘ct’ instead of ‘t’ as in faict and poincte; the use of ‘z’ for some plurals and in words such as ‘ils’ and ‘quels’ (ilz and quelz); the use of ‘es’ instead of ‘ê’ as in ‘même’ (mesme); and the consistent use of auecq for ‘avec’. While it may seem self-evident, it is worth making the point that the presence of French as the language of the notebook indicates that our anonymous dance master was not Spanish, and therefore unlikely to be directly connected with the archducal court in Brussels, or to have come from Spain with Albert and Isabella in 1599. The household accounts of the 12  The presence of dots inside double bar lines was a common scribal variant of the period. It was not an automatic indication of a repeat. See Rebecca Harris-Warrick and Carol G. Marsh, Musical Theatre at the Court of Louis XIV: Le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 77–8.

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook

15

Archdukes were all written in Spanish, and the majority of the personnel at their court was Spanish, especially in the early years of their reign. It also means that the dance master was not a native of Brussels, since Flemish was the native tongue of the inhabitants of the city, and all the city, guild and ecclesiastical records were written in that language.13 When collections of popular songs were published in early seventeenth-century Brussels, many of the tunes were airs de cour by French court composers such as Pierre Guédron and Antoine de Boësset. While the music for these songs was preserved, the French texts were not, with new lyrics in Flemish replacing the original French texts in order that the songs would be accessible to all of the city’s elite and middle classes.14 Only a small, cultured minority of people spoke French in the Netherlands in the early seventeenth century.15 The fact that the ballet plots, pike instructions, resets, the general description of the dance pupils, and other parts of the manu­ script are all in French also indicates that the dance master was not English. English musicians did live and work in Brussels at this time, the most celebrated being Peter Philips, who was employed by Albert and Isabella as the organist for the court chapel from 1597 to his death in 1628.16 There were also far less prominent English musicians who lived and worked in the Low Countries, such as Edward Hancock, who worked with Nicolas Vallet in Amsterdam, and who taught music and dance at the school the two men operated in that city during the mid-1620s. Unlike the preceding century, the seventeenth century saw a proliferation of French dance teachers working in foreign (non-French) courts and cities across Europe; so it should not be surprising, therefore, that our anonymous dance master also belonged to this group. In 1966 Peter Brinson concluded that the anonymous dance master was working in Brussels circa 1614–1619. Brinson was basing his conclusion on the range of dates which appear next to some of the signatures of the dance pupils. The signatures with dates of 1614 all appear on pages that are pasted into the notebook, which means that they could have been added after 1614. The 13  Paul Arblaster, ‘Antwerp and Brussels as Inter-European Spaces in News Exchange’, in The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe, ed. Brendan Maurice Dooley (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), p. 197. 14  Maartje De Wilde, ‘Sound and Soul. An Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Musical and Literary Life in Brussels’, in Embracing Brussels. Art and Culture in the Court City, 1600– 1800, ed. Katlijne van der Stighelen, Leen Kelchtermans and Koenraad Brosens (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), p. 259. 15  Peter Rickard, A History of the French Language, 2nd ed. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 83. 16  Klaartje Proesmans, ‘The Key Role of the Archducal Court in Spreading a New Musical Style in the Low Countries’, in Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621, ed. Werner Thomas and Luc Duerloo (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), p. 133.

16

chapter 1

signatures and dates that were written directly into the notebook are all from 1616, 1617 and 1619. There are no other dates that appear in the notebook, but the presence of airs de cour in the manuscript does support the timeframe suggested by Brinson. The twenty identified airs that were copied into the dance master’s notebook are all from collections published in the ten years from 1608 to 1618, with the majority of the songs from collections published from 1615 to 1617 (see Table 7 in chapter 6). In fact only three of the twenty airs appear in collections published before 1614: Ne dois-je donc (1608), Donc pour aymer (1612), and Que de douleurs (1610). Donc pour aymer appears in two collections published in 1612 and 1613, but the other two airs also appear in collections published in 1615 and 1617, collections that could well have been the source used by the dance master for these two songs. So only one song out of twenty was published before 1614 – Donc pour aymer – and in this case the song appeared only one or two years before 1614. It is extremely unlikely, therefore, that the notebook was started before 1608, the date the air Ne dois-je donc was first published. Far more likely is that the notebook was compiled circa 1615 to 1619, the years that most of these airs first appeared, and were the current, fashionable songs from Paris. The conclusion that the dance master who owned the notebook was working in Brussels is based on the entry on f. 68r of the manuscript that records, in the hand of the dance master H1, the starting date of the princes de la sau who commenced their lessons on the 28th February at Brussels (a brucelle). As is discussed in chapter 2, early seventeenth-century Brussels provided a number of employment opportunities for a dance master, and so the conclusion that the owner of the notebook was living and working in Brussels is eminently plausible. A second entry in the notebook also supports the conclusion that the dance master was working in the Low Countries. On f. 71v of the notebook is the sole information regarding payment of any kind, and the currency mentioned is risdalle; that is, rijksdaaler.17 A rijksdaaler was a silver coin that circulated in the Northern and Southern Low Countries in the seventeenth century. It was one of the international trading currencies; that is, coins whose weights were kept consistent and generally were not debased, thus allowing them to be exchanged between different countries. The presence in the notebook of rijksdaalers as opposed to local coinage such as stuivers or groots, may be an indication of the wider international connections of our anonymous dance master.

17  This entry is also in the hand of the dance master. There is no indication of what the payment was for.

17

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook table 1

Contents of S 253

Folio

Contents

Hands

f. 1r f. 1v f. 2r

List of Ballet Titles List of Ballet Titles con. Ballet Plot ‘L’enuie de l’honneur de l’Amour fidelle de passioné’ Top: Geometric Figures for 10 dancers Bottom: Ballet Plot ‘L’enuie’ con. Geometric Figures for 10 dancers Blank Ballet Plot ‘Ballet des mineúrs des Paÿs’ Ballet Plot ‘mineúrs’ con. Geometric Figures for 5 dancers Blank Geometric Figures for 6 dancers Geometric Figures for 6 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 7 dancers Geometric Figures for 7 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 8 dancers Geometric Figures for 8 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 8 dancers con. A Geometric Figure for 8 dancers Geometric Figures for 9 dancers Geometric Figures for 9 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 9 dancers con. Blank Geometric Figures for 10 dancers Geometric Figures for 10 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 10 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 10 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 11 dancers Geometric Figures for 11 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 11 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 12 dancers Geometric Figures for 12 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 12 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 12 dancers con. A Geometric Figure for 12 dancers

H1 H1 H2

f. 2v f. 3r f. 3v f. 4r f. 4v f. 5r f. 5v f. 6r f. 6v f. 7r f. 7v f. 8r f. 8v f. 9r f. 9v f. 10r f. 10v f. 11r f. 11v f. 12r f. 12v f. 13r f. 13v f. 14r f. 14v f. 15r f. 15v f. 16r f. 16v f. 17r f. 17v

F1 (top), H1 (top), H2 (bottom) F1 H2 H2 F1, H1 H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 F1

18 table 1

chapter 1 Contents of S 253 (cont.)

Folio

Contents

Hands

f. 18r f. 18v f. 19r f. 19v f. 20r f. 20v f. 21r f. 21v f. 22r f. 22v f. 23r f. 23v f. 24r f. 24v f. 25r f. 25v

Geometric Figures for 13 dancers Geometric Figures for 13 dancers con. Blank Blank Geometric Figures for 14 dancers Geometric Figures for 14 dancers con. Blank Blank Geometric Figures for 15 dancers Geometric Figures for 15 dancers con. Blank Blank Geometric Figures for 16 dancers Geometric Figures for 16 dancers con. Geometric Figures for 16 dancers con. French text: Instructions for making an alcoholic cordial Figures – Letters Figures – Letters Figures – Letters Music ‘entre de ballet’ Music ‘le ballet’ and ‘allemade nouuelle’ French text: ‘Reset’ (recipe) Top: Music ‘lentres du ballet de tri ages le merquere’ then a poem ‘Nous dessendont du ciel en terre’ for this ballet Top: Music ‘ballet de madame la marquis de baez’ Bottom: Music ‘allemande nouuelle la mare’ Music ‘de lentre du balle de venus et cupitet’ then poem ‘Alons joiunies’ for this ballet Music ‘ballet du justisa / fortitutoç / prudenssia / tenperrancia /fides / es jes / charitas / pacienscia

F1, H1 F1, H1

f. 26r f. 26v f. 27r f. 27v f. 28r f. 28v f. 29r

f. 29v f. 30r f. 30v

f. 31r f. 31v f. 32r

Top: Music ‘entre de ballet’ Bottom: Music 3rd entrée con. Music ‘ballet de griemas/grimas’ Music ‘ballet de griemas’ con.

F1 F1

F1, H1 F1, H1

F1, H1 F1, H1 F1, H1 H1 F1 F1 F1 M1, H1 M1, H1 H1 M2, H3

M1 (bottom), M2 (top), H1 (bottom), H3 (top) M2, H3 M1 (entrées 2, 3, 4), M2 (1st entrée), H1 (rest), H3 (ballet title) M1 (bottom), M2 (top), H1 (bottom), H3 (top) M1, H1 M1, H1

19

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook table 1

Contents of S 253 (cont.)

Folio

Contents

Hands

f. 32v

Top: Music ‘e[nt]r[ée] nouuaue destournielle’ Then poem for ballet ‘Et dendeue par mis les flere’ Bottom: Music ‘premeire er de ballet’ Top: Verses 2 and 3 of ‘Donc pour aymer’ Bottom: Music ‘premeire er de ballet’ con. Music ‘Donc pour aymer’ verse 1 under melody Music ‘Donc pour aymer’ con. French text: Fireworks French text: Fireworks French text: Fireworks French text: Fireworks and a drawing of a rocket French text: Fireworks French text: Fireworks French text: Fireworks French text: ‘resets’ – crossed out (4 diagonal lines) French text: Various remedies French text: Various remedies Top: French text: Various remedies Bottom: French text: ‘reset’ 3 verses of ‘Enchante de vos’ Music and 1st verse ‘Va four lamoureuse’ Music Music and 1st verse ‘tandant que la froide’ Blank Music and 1st verse ‘face le ciel’ Blank Top: Music and 1st verse ‘Vn jour de la semaine’ Bottom: Music ‘la uoltriere’ Top: Music ‘courant nouuelle’ Bottom: Music ‘la uoltriere’ con. Music and 1st verse ‘Las si jorno sois plaindre’ Ballet Plot ‘Subiect du Ballet de sept Vertus’ Top: Music and 1st verse ‘Je pensois qu’Amour’ Bottom: French text: remedy for toothache French Text: remedy for epilepsy

M1, H1

f. 33r f. 33v f. 34r f. 34v f. 35r f. 35v f. 36r f. 36v f. 37r f. 37v f. 38r f. 38v f. 39r f. 39v f. 40r f. 40v f. 41r f. 41v f. 42r f. 42v f. 43r f. 43v f. 44r f. 44v f. 45r f. 45v f. 46r

M1, H1 (bottom), H5 (top) M3, H5 M3 H6 H6 H6 H6 H6 H6 H6 H1 H6 H6 H1 (bottom), H6 (top) H8 M3, H5 M4 M3, H5 M3, H5 M1 (bottom), M3 (top), H1 (bottom), H5 (top) M1, H1 M3, H5 H2 M3, H5 (top), H9 (bottom) H9

20 table 1

chapter 1 Contents of S 253 (cont.)

Folio

Contents

Hands

f. 46v f. 47r

Music and 1st verse ‘Que de doulours’ Top: Bass part ‘Que de doulours’ Bottom: French text Top: Music and 1st verse ‘Cest toy belle’ Bottom: French text that could be verses 4–6 of Ballet of 8 savages on f. 48r? Also text at right angles along inner edge Verses for ‘ballet de huict sauuages’ Music for ‘Ne dois je donc’ Music for ‘Ne dois je donc’ – 2nd, 3rd & 4th parts Music and 1st verse ‘Allons au nopce’ Blank: [Possibily parts for ‘Allons’ were meant to be copied on this page] Music and 1st verse ‘Cest trop courir’ 4 verses ‘Cest trop courir’ with a title of ‘ballet’ Music for ‘Ces nimphes’ Top: 3 verses ‘Ces nimphes’ from Ballet de Madame. Bottom: Last verse of chanson ‘A Lyson’ with name ‘R Suioy’ just above this verse Music for ‘alison’ Verses 1–5 of ‘A Lyson’ with name ‘R Suioy’ at end verse 5 Music for ‘Voyci mes cheres seure’ 3 verses ‘Voicy mes cheres soeurs’ Music for ‘adorable princesse’ from ‘ballet de moncigneur – le princes’ Verses 1–4 of ‘Adorable princesse’ Verses 5–8 of ‘Adorable princesse’ Music for ‘quont serui tant de pleurs’ 4 verses ‘Q’uont seruy tant de pleurs’ Music for ‘adieu uolage’ 5 verses ‘Ceste Anne si belle’ from ‘troisieme partie du ballet de madame danse par de bergeres’ Music for ‘ceste anne si belle’ from ‘troisieme partie du ballet de madame danse par des bergers’ 4 verses of ‘Lors que je suis’

M3, H5 M3, H10

f. 47v

f. 48r f. 48v f. 49r f. 49v f. 50r f. 50v f. 51r f. 51v f. 52r

f. 52v f. 53r f. 53v f. 54r f. 54v f. 55r f. 55v f. 56r f. 56v f. 57r f. 57v f. 58r f. 58v

M3, H1 (bottom and RHS), H5 (top)

H1 M3, H5 M3, H5 M3, H5

M1, H1 H1 (title), H7 M1, H1 H1 (title), H7

M1, H1 H7 M1, H1 H7 M1, H1 H7 H7 M1, H1 H7 M1, H1 H7 M1, H1 H7

21

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook table 1 Folio

f. 59r f. 59v

Contents of S 253 (cont.) Contents

Music for ‘lors que ie suis’ 5 verses of ‘Fuyes Amants’ from ‘Seconde partie du Ballet danse par Madame’ f. 60r Music for ‘fuiz amantz’ f. 60v 4 verses of ‘Je ne veux’ f. 61r Music for ‘je ne ueux’ f. 61v 3 verses ‘Ò grands Dieux’ f. 62r Music ‘O grande dieux’ f. 62v Verses 1–3 of ‘Soubs la fraischeur’ f. 63r Music ‘Soubs la fraicheur’ f. 63v Verses 4–7 of ‘Soubs la fraischeur’ f. 64r Verses 7–8 of ‘Soubs la fraischeur’ Bottom: Name of ‘Harduin de St Jácques Par.’ f. 64v Music and 1st verse ‘Je uoudrois bien’ f. 65r 5 verses of ‘Je uoudrois bien’ f. 65v General description of dance pupils f. 66r General description of dance pupils con. f. 66v French text: verses f. 67r French text: verses f. 67v French text: verses f. 68r Signatures (not pasted in) and when ‘princes de la sau’ started dance lessons ‘a brucelle’ f. 68v Music with text underneath f. 69r Music with text underneath f. 69v French text: recipes with ‘destourmele’ at bottom of page f. 70r Signatures of 2 pupils and when they started f. 70v Pasted in signatures and general description of dance pupils f. 71r When mâitre d’hotel of Prince of Lorraine started original lessons f. 71r Pasted in page of signatures flap 4 signatures f. 71r back of flap

Hands

M1, H1 H7 M1, H1 H7 M1, H1 H7 M1, H1 H7 M1, H1 H7 H7 M1, H1 H11 (probably) H1 H1 H1 H1 H10 (probably) H1 M5, H10 (probably) M5, H10 (probably) H1 Various Various, H1 H1 Various Various

22 table 1

chapter 1 Contents of S 253 (cont.)

Folio

Contents

Hands

f. 71v

Pasted in page of signatures and writing at right angles Pasted in page of signatures Pasted in page of signatures Pasted in page of signatures Bottom: General description of dance pupils and when people started Numbers – upside down French text: ‘reset’ French text about destourmelle Bottom: when one pupil started lessons General description of dance pupils Signatures and general description of dance pupils on RH side of page Signatures and general description of dance pupils on RH side of page Signatures. Bottom: general description of dance pupils – crossed out. Violin tablature with text Violin tablature with text Bottom: Music for 5 courantes Music for ‘Lab fuiza’ Music for ‘Lozb que’ 4 blank staves 4 blank staves not in ms as numbering skips from 79 to 83 not in ms not in ms not in ms not in ms not in ms Music ‘entre de balle’ Music for ‘entre de balle’ con. Music for ‘entre de ballet a la destournielle’ French text: title ‘Reset’ Bottom: last 4 notes of 2nd entrée from f. 83v

Various, H1 (right angle text) Various Various Various, H1 (bottom)

f. 72r f. 72v f. 73r

f. 73v f. 74r f. 74v f. 75r f. 75v f. 76r f. 76v f. 77r f. 77v f. 78r f. 78v f. 79r f. 79v f. 80r f. 80v f. 81r f. 81v f. 82r f. 82v f. 83r f. 83v f. 84r

H1 H1 (bottom), H3 H1 Various, H1 (RHS) Various, H1 (RHS) Various, H1 (bottom) T1, H1 M1, T1, H1 M6 M6

M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1 (title), H12,

23

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook table 1

Contents of S 253 (cont.)

Folio

Contents

Hands

f. 84v flap f. 84v f. 85r f. 85v f. 86r f. 86v f. 87r f. 87v f. 88r f. 88v f. 89r

French text: recipe

H13

French text: recipes French text: recipes con. French text: ‘resets’ French text: ‘resets’ French text: ‘resets’ French text: ‘resets’ Music for ‘uolte de madamme’ Music ‘uolte de madamme’ con. Music for ‘laúignoie’ Music ‘laúignoie’ con. Bottom: music for ‘courante la vignonne’ Music ‘la sipe[…]ns nouuelle’ Music various Music for ‘entre de ballet des le faus’ Music for ‘entre de ballet des le faus’ con. Music for ‘moleint’ and ‘la vallets courant nouuelle’ Music for ‘la panole’ and ‘la vigonie’ Music for ‘la dofine’ and ‘passemeze’ Top: music for ‘la boimiere’. Then a sentence on social utility of dancing. At the bottom is the continuation of the ‘passemeze’ music French text: ‘reset’ Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition

H14 (perhaps H5) H14 (perhaps H5) H1 H1 H1 H1 M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1

f. 89v f. 90r f. 90v f. 91r f. 91v f. 92r f. 92v f. 93r

f. 93v f. 94r f. 94v f. 95r f. 95v f. 96r f. 96v f. 97r f. 97v f. 98r f. 98v

M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1 M1 (bottom), M3 (top), H1 (bottom), H3 (text – social dancing) H1 H4 H4 H4 H4 H4 H4 H4 H4 H4 H4

24 table 1

chapter 1 Contents of S 253 (cont.)

Folio

Contents

Hands

f. 99r f. 99v f. 100r f. 100v f. 101r

Pike Exhibition Pike Exhibition Blank Mandore Tablature for ‘Robinette’ and ‘viue louis’ Mandore Tablature: last bar of ‘viue louis’. The rest of the page is ruled with blank staves 5 ruled blank staves 5 ruled blank staves 5 ruled blank staves Lute Tablature: ‘la courant’ by Lespine Lute Tablature: ‘la courant’ by Lespine con. Lute Tablature: ‘la courant’ by Lespine con. Lute Tablature: ‘la courant’ by Lespine con. Top: Lute Tablature: ‘la courant’ by Lespine con. Bottom: Ballet Plot ‘L’assaút fúrieux des dames’ Ballet Plot ‘L’assaút’ con. Then Ballet plot ‘Aultre Ballet De la fleur d’Amour des Amants et Amantes’ Ballet Plot ‘De la fleur’ con. Lute Tablature: ‘prelude’ by Lespine Lute Tablature: ‘prelude’ con. then 2nd ‘prelude’ by Lespine Lute Tablature: 2nd ‘prelude’ con. Lute Tablature: 2nd ‘prelude’ con. Then a ‘bergamasce’ by Lespin Lute Tablature: ‘bergamasce’ con. Lute Tablature: ‘bergamasce’ con. Then a ‘balet’ by Lespin Lute Tablature: ‘balet’ con. Then a 2nd ‘balet’ by Lespin Lute Tablature: 2nd ‘balet’ con. Then a 3rd ‘balet’ by Lespins Lute Tablature: last notes of 3rd ‘balet’. Then a 4th ‘balet’ by Lespin

H4 H4

f. 101v f. 102r f. 102v f. 103r f. 103v f. 104r f. 104v f. 105r f. 105v

f. 106r f. 106v f. 107r f. 107v f. 108r f. 108v f. 109r f. 109v f. 110r f. 110v

T1, H1 T1, H1

T1 T1 T1 T1 T1, H1, H2 (bottom) H2

H2 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1

25

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook table 1

Contents of S 253 (cont.)

Folio

Contents

Hands

f. 111r f. 111v

Lute Tablature: 4th ‘balet’ con. Lute Tablature: 4th ‘balet’ con. Then a ‘volte nouuelle’ by Lespin Lute Tablature: ‘volte nouuelle’ con. Lute Tablature: ‘Courante’ by Lespin. Then a 2nd ‘courant’ by Lespine Lute Tablature: 2nd ‘courant’ con. French text: ‘resets’ Lute Tablature: 3rd ‘courante’ by Lespin Lute Tablature: ‘lespanol’ by Lespin. Then a 4th ‘courante nouuelle’ by Lespin Lute Tablature: 4th ‘courante nouuelle’ con. Lute Tablature: ‘uolte’ by Lespine Lute Tablature: ‘uolte’ con. 1 Blank Stave with clef and time signature Ballet Plot ‘L’esperance des malcontens’ Ballet Plot ‘L’esperance’ con. Bottom: French text: ‘resets’ French text: ‘resets’ con. Song Text: ‘L’auignone’ Music for ‘courant de monsieur le pine’ and ‘courant nouuelle de destourmelle’ Music for a ‘courant’ and then text (upside down)

T1, H1 T1, H1

f. 112r f. 112v f. 113r f. 113v f. 114r f. 114v f. 115r f. 115v f. 116r f. 116v f. 117r f. 117v f. 118r f. 118v f. 119r f. 119v f. 120r f. 120v f. 121r f. 121v f. 122r f. 122v

French text: Possibly a list of herbs French text Music for ‘allemant’ and ‘courant nouuel’ Music for ‘courant suises’, ‘entre de ballet’, ‘suict de ballet’, and another ‘entre de ballet’ Top: French text. Bottom: music ‘entre’ Last page in ms. It has been glued to another stronger piece of paper.

The folios in bold appear in facsimile.

T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 H3 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 T1, H1 H2 H1 (bottom), H2 H1 H7 M1, H1 M1, H1, H15 (upside down) H1 H3 M1, H1 M1, H1 M1, H1

26 table 2 Name

chapter 1 Identification of hands in S 253 Sample

Folio no.

H1

f. 1r

H2

f. 4r

H3

f. 74r

H4

f. 94r

H5

f. 41v

H6

f. 37r

27

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook table 2 Name

Identification of hands in S 253 (cont.) Sample

Folio no.

H7

f. 52r

H8

f. 40r

H9

f. 45v

H10

f. 47r

H11

f. 65r

H12

f. 84r

H13

f. 84v flap

28 table 2 Name

chapter 1 Identification of hands in S 253 (cont.) Sample

Folio no.

H14

f. 85r

H15

f. 119v

F1

f. 5r

M1

f. 27v

M2

f. 29r

29

A Dance Master ’ s Notebook table 2 Name

Identification of hands in S 253 (cont.) Sample

Folio no.

M3

f. 33v

M4

f. 41r

M5

f. 68v

M6

f. 77v

T1

f. 103r

chapter 2

Dance in Early Modern Europe Dance in early modern Europe pervaded daily life across all levels of society. While everyone danced, what they performed, and how they moved, varied according to the social level to which they belonged.1 The quantity of surviving material, however, is quite uneven, with the dance practices of the elite and those of the middle level of society being the best documented, especially in regard to specific choreographic details. Much of what is known about dancing by those at the bottom of the social pyramid is found in non-dance sources such as legal cases of people prosecuted for dancing in churchyards on the Sabbath.2 The discussion of dance in society in this chapter, however, will mostly focus on the dance practices of the elite – those who wielded political power – and the middle level of society, the merchants and citizens of the towns, since it is these two groups who lie at the heart of our anonymous dance master’s notebook as students and performers. 1

Dance as Entertainment

Whether the people dancing were villagers dancing in their local churchyard, or members of the elite dancing in their private apartments, one reason for the activity was entertainment: dancing was a source of pleasure and joy to 1  One must make the point that even though movement patterns and movement qualities were different, the barriers between dances performed by the elite and those at a lower social level were not inflexible or impermeable, as dances that originated in an urban or rural environment were adopted and adapted by the elite for their own use. For a discussion of this interaction in France in the first half of the seventeenth century, see Margaret M. McGowan, ‘Ballets for the Bourgeois’, Dance Research 19, no. 2 (2001): 106–26. 2  For a discussion of non-elite dancing in late sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, see Emily Winerock, ‘Reformation and Revelry: The Politics and Practices of Dancing in Early Modern England, c. 1550–c. 1640’. PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 2012; Winerock, ‘Churchyard Capers: The Controversial Use of Church Space for Dancing in Early Modern England’, in The Sacralization of Space and Behaviour in the Early Modern World: Studies and Sources, ed. Jennifer Mara DeSilva (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 233–56, and Christopher Marsh, Music and Society in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 328–90. For non-elite dance in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, particularly in German-speaking regions of Europe, see Walter Salmen, ‘Dances and Dance Music, c. 1300–1530’, in Music as Concept and Practice in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Reinhard Strohm and Bonnie J. Blackburn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 162–90.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_004

Dance in Early Modern Europe

31

those who participated, as well as to those who watched. Letters, diaries, dance treatises, descriptions of festivals and other documents from this period all record how dancing gave pleasure to the participants and to the audience. The French king Charles IX provides an illustration of the entertainment provided by dancing. Brantôme records how one day, while in ill health, Charles IX ordered all to leave him apart from a few close friends. He then ordered the maréchal de Brissac and Filippo Strozzi, both exceptional dancers, to perform for him, with Strozzi playing the lute while de Brissac danced galliards and canaries. Brantôme records how the ‘king watched for a long time, full of pleasure and contentment at such a spectacle’.3 In 1552 the student Felix Platter records in his diary how he was very eager to join in the balls given by well-todo merchants in Montpellier, where many hours were spent dancing branles, galliards and the volta.4 The sixteenth-century Italian dance master Fabritio Caroso opens his treatise Nobiltà di dame with a letter to his readers in which he expresses the view that dancing induces joy in the souls of those who practise it, and that the activity banishes unpleasant thoughts and troubles. In the course of our lives virtuous pleasures and solace for the soul are as necessary as displeasing things and travail are harmful…. Among these virtuous pleasures one places the practice of dancing, … since in human interactions and society [dance] rouses the soul to joy, and when those who find themselves oppressed by some trouble, it eases [these troubles] and revives them, and holds at bay every annoying and unpleasant thought.5 The enjoyment derived from dancing is a recurring theme in Antonius Arena’s dance treatise, including the pleasure found in dancing in public during festivities such as carnival celebrations. On the last day of Carnival, do the sprightly morescas, and farces too, and also momeries…. That is the time, at the end of Carnival, when dancing 3  Margaret M. McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 156. 4  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 8. 5  ‘Alla conversatione di questa nostra vita sono necessarij gli honesti piaceri, & le recreationi dell’animo, quanto à quella i dispiaceri, e travagli sono pernitiosi…. frà le quali hà luogo l’uso del Ballare, … poi che nelle conversationi, & società humane eccita gli animi alle allegrezze, & quando quelli si trovano oppressi da qualche perturbatione, gli solleva, e ristora, e gli tien lontani da ogni pensiero noioso, e dispiacevole’. Fabritio Caroso, Nobiltà di dame (Venice: Muschio, 1600; facsimile ed., Bologna: Forni, 1980), p. 1.

32

chapter 2

is triumphant, and everyone is en fête. People give themselves up to enjoyment.6 2

Dance and Physical Exercise

Dancing was seen as a useful form of physical exercise for both men and women. This view of dance is found in fifteenth-century Italian texts, such as the 1475 letter that Francesco Filelfo, master of rhetoric at the Sforza court, wrote to Matteo da Trevi, a teacher of Galeazzo Maria Sforza. In this letter Filelfo states that [m]any approve of dancing and performing balli because they exercise the mind and the body together, as dancing derives from music. This activity is praised by the philosophers because our soul, the heavens and the universe are all regulated by the same harmonic proportions.7 By the sixteenth century the view that dance was beneficial to one’s health was widely accepted, even by those who saw dancing as a sinful activity and argued against the practice.8 Medical treatises, such as those written by the physicians Jérôme de Monteux in 1557 and Joseph Duchesne in 1606, praised dancing, and their authors often provided ‘lists of dance names … [and] detailed and enthusiastic explanations of the physical benefits these dances could provide’.9

6  Antonius Arena, ‘Rules of Dancing: Antonius Arena’, trans. John Guthrie and Marino Zorzi, Dance Research 4, no. 2 (1986): 38. 7  ‘Molti approvano le danze e i balli, perché esercitano insieme il corpo e la mente, in quanto derivano dalla musica. Questa viene lodata dai filosofi, perché il nostro stesso animo e il cielo e l’universo tutto risultano regolati da proporzioni armoniche’, from Alessandro Pontremoli, ‘Memorabilia saltandi. Archivi e memorie per la danza alla corte degli Sforza’, in Ricordanze: Memoria in movimento e coreografie della storia, ed. S. Franco and M. Nordera (Turin: UTET Università, 2010), p. 250. 8  Alessandro Arcangeli, ‘Moral Views on Dance’, in Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750, ed. Jennifer Nevile (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), p. 289. For an extensive discussion of the differing attitudes to dance in early modern Europe, see Arcangeli, Davide o Salomè? Il dibattito europeo sulla danza nella prima età moderna (Rome: Viella, 2000). 9  Arcangeli, ‘Moral Views on Dance,’ p. 290.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

3

33

Dance as a Social Marker

The dance performed by the elite helped inculcate grace and elegance in its practitioners both on and off the dance floor. The dances taught by the dance masters helped to train all their students, but especially young girls and boys, in the patterns of behaviour and deportment essential for membership in the social elite. If you moved ungracefully you immediately demonstrated to others that you did not belong to the right class of society, as you could not perform the movement patterns appropriate to that class. Dancing taught the chosen members of society control over their body and over all their actions, both when dancing and in day-to-day interactions with their colleagues and superiors. It was visible evidence that a person was capable of appearing in public without making a bad exhibition of herself or himself. If a person could control his or her outward bodily movements, then they were capable of controlling their inner emotions as well. The need for members of the elite to have control over their bodily movements and gestures became increasingly important in the sixteenth century, as the conduct demanded of courtiers became increasingly intricate, both in terms of spoken courtesies and bodily movement. A high level of skill was needed in order to perform gracefully in public, without error. A dancer had to be able to learn the correct carriage of the body, to master the steps and their variants and to memorize the choreographies. Furthermore, the dancer had to possess a thorough understanding of the interaction between the dance and the music, the ability to adapt the patterns of each dance to the available space, the wit and invention to subtly vary each step so that it was not performed the same way several times in a row, a know­ ledge of the gestures and movements of the body which accompanied the steps, an awareness of the phrasing of each step as well as the agility to cope with the speed changes in the choreographies. To acquire such skill and expertise required many hours of teaching and practice, and only those who were wealthy enough to have the leisure time to devote to this activity were able to participate. Dancing in Renaissance Europe, therefore, functioned as a social marker: in a visual age it was an ever-present symbol of the difference between those in the elite level of society and those who were not. In external comportment the courtiers expressed their claim to difference. Through their dance training they moved and danced in a manner completely separate from the rest of society. A striking example of how dance was used to define the elite in society comes from Nuremberg in 1521. In that year those who held political power wished to further limit the numbers of citizens entitled to vote. Therefore they designated the voting elite as ‘those families who used to dance

34

chapter 2

in the Rathaus in the olden days, and who still dance there’.10 In Nuremberg it was the ability to dance in the ‘correct’ style that was used as a means of excluding people from the group who exercised political power. Dance also functioned as a method of discriminating between people of different social levels when it appeared in dramatic productions. One example of dance in drama reflecting its position in society more generally is found in early sixteenth-century French secular plays. While in these plays the basse danse is only performed occasionally, it more often forms part of a conversation in a play ‘for the express purpose of demonstrating the sophistication and elegance of the speaker’.11 4

Dance, Love, Courtship and Desire

Throughout early modern Europe dancing was an activity which both men and women were able to enjoy together. Even if only women or only men were dancing, there was usually the possibility of attracting the attention of members of the audience by one’s performance. The opportunities social dancing afforded for dalliance with the opposite sex were clearly recognized in a society in which men’s and women’s lives were far more regulated and controlled than is the case today. The fact that dancing was an opportunity for flirtation, for inciting desire and for pursuing the object of one’s own desires, was one of the reasons the practice was condemned by some groups in society, who viewed dance as an incitement to lust.12 A further role of dance in Renaissance society was that of ritualized courtship, which can be illustrated most clearly by the choreographies recorded in the contemporary dance treatises, almost all of which are for small groups of men and women. The step sequences and floor patterns of these choreographies also aided in courtship, as they allowed dancers to interact with their partners, to parade before them, to pursue them, as well as engage in mock battles. The sixteenth-century French canon Thoinot Arbeau is quite blunt in his dance treatise as to this role of social dancing. For Arbeau the opportunity dancing provided for a man and a woman to be able to ‘inspect’ each other during the course of a dance was one of the benefits dancing gave to a well-ordered society, since such inspection could reveal whether 10  Keith Polk, German Instrumental Music of the Late Middle Ages: Players, Patrons and Performance Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 11. 11  Howard Mayer Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, 1400–1550 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 156. 12  Arcangeli, ‘Moral Views on Dance’, p. 285.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

35

‘lovers are in good health and sound of limb … [or] if they are shapely or emit an unpleasant odour as of bad meat’.13 5

Dance, Virtue and Ethical Behaviour

Dance was also viewed as a medium of moral instruction: men and women when dancing represented virtues. Thomas Elyot makes this point very clearly: Now because there is no pastime to be compared to that wherein may be found both recreation and meditation of virtue, I have among all honest pastimes, wherein is exercise of the body, noted dancing to be of an excellent utility, comprehending in it wonderful figures, or, as the Greeks do call them, ideae, of virtues and noble qualities, and specially of the commodious virtue called prudence, whom Tully defineth to be the know­ ledge of things which ought to be desired and followed, and also of them which ought to be fled from or eschewed.14 This passage comes from Elyot’s The Boke Named the Governour, published in 1531, which Elyot wrote as a treatise on the education of young boys for careers in England’s administration. He firmly believed that virtue was to be developed through a programme of education and training. According to Elyot, dance was a noble and virtuous pastime, as it provided both recreation and a means to learn and comprehend the virtues and noble qualities necessary for adult life, especially the fundamental virtue of prudence, ‘the porch of the noble palace of man’s reason whereby all other virtues shall enter’.15 Through the study and practice of the basse danse children could learn the important moral truths that were essential for those engaged in public affairs and in the government of the country. And because that the study of virtue is tedious for the more part to them that do flourish in young years, I have devised how in the form of dancing, 13  Thoinot Arbeau, Orchesography (1589), trans. Mary Stewart Evans, 1948. Reprint (New York: Dover, 1967), p. 12. ‘les amoureux sont sains & dispos de leur membres … silz ont l’alaine souefue, & silz sentent vne senteur mal odorat, que l’on nom[m]e l’espaule de mouton’. Orchésographie. Facsimile of the 1596 printing (Geneva: Minkoff, 1972), p. Aii verso. 14  Thomas Elyot, The Book Named the Governor, ed. S. E. Lehmberg (London: Dent, 1962), p. 79. 15  Elyot, The Book, p. 79.

36

chapter 2

now late used in this realm among gentlemen, the whole description of this virtue prudence may be found out and well perceived, as well by the dancers as by them which standing by will be diligent beholders and markers, having first mine instructions surely graven in the table of their remembrance.16 The basse danse, according to Elyot, was an exercise in virtue, with each step of the dance signifying a different aspect of prudence. For example, the reverence which begins every basse danse signifies the honour due to God, which is the basis of prudence, and should be the starting point for all of mankind’s actions.17 The branle step signifies ‘maturity’, by which Elyot means ‘moderation’, that is, the mean between two extremes.18 The two single steps signify providence and industry. By ‘industry’ Elyot is referring to the combination of intelligence and experience, while ‘providence’ refers to the ability to foresee what is necessary for a good outcome for the public one is governing and then to act to ensure that this outcome is achieved.19 The reprise step signifies ‘circumspection’, that is, the knowledge or ability to see what caused disasters in the past, and what will be the outcome of present actions. ‘Circumspection’ means being able to evaluate events and the consequences of events, so that one can decide if a course of behaviour should be continued or abandoned.20 Because the double step of the basse danse was composed of three forwards movements (or steps) it signified the three branches of prudence: natural authority, experience and modesty.21 Elyot’s view of dance as a ‘visual manifestation’ and a ‘physical embodiment of moral and political order’,22 was adopted and extended by the Jesuits in the plays staged by students at their educational institutions. The Jesuits also ‘sought to inculcate an abstract virtue by physical enactment’23 through the dancing that was frequently a part of their dramatic productions. The Jesuits’ educational philosophy was foremost to develop each student’s faith and commitment to God, but they were also concerned with nurturing the body and 16  Elyot, The Book, p. 79. 17  Elyot, The Book, pp. 79–80. 18  Elyot, The Book, pp. 80–1. 19  Elyot, The Book, pp. 81–2. 20  Elyot, The Book, p. 83. 21  Elyot, The Book, pp. 85–7. 22  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 56. 23  Barbara Ravelhofer, ‘Choreography as Commonplace’, in Commonplace Culture in Western Europe in the Early Modern Period: Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Revolt, vol. 1, ed. David J. Cowling and Mette B. Bruun (Leuven: Peters, 2011), p. 226.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

37

mind as well as the soul through the ‘training of memory, [the] advancement of skills in use of the Latin language, enhancement of rhetorical delivery and physical poise as well as lessons of virtue’.24 In the plays produced each year the students were given an opportunity to display the results of their training in the recitation and acting of the dramas, and in the dances they performed during the course of the plays. The play Crispus by Bernardino Stefonio was first performed in 1597, and it became extremely popular, with additional productions in subsequent years, and with eight editions of the play being published across Europe between 1601 and 1634.25 Crispus is a good illustration of the way in which dance was integrated into the Jesuit dramas, and of the figures around which the choreographies were built, since an edition of this play published in Naples in 1604 contains four figures performed by the sixteen dancers.26 The first dance was devised around the figure of a two-headed eagle, a symbol of the Holy Roman Empire, and it represented ‘the constant quest for honour and the defiance of misfortune’.27 The figure for the second dance is a caduceus, and it corresponds to a prayer that the Chorus of the play addressed to Christ in which they prayed for the protection and salvation of Crispus.28 The third figure is a grid with lines fanning out from the centre representing the spread of malicious rumours and calumnies that, once started, extend to the limits of the universe. The fourth dance was centred around a choreography that traced both a labyrinth and a cross, which together ‘represented the human condition and the need for Christian guidance’.29 As Barbara Ravelhofer explains, when dancing the paths of the labyrinth the students were ‘living their faith … [because] they were made physically aware that, even if a situation seemed chaotic, a higher order was at work, and things would eventually come to a resolution’.30 An argument that links physical movement with ethical behaviour and virtue might seem far-fetched today, but Renaissance Europe still accepted Cicero’s ideas on comportment and gesture as expressed in his work De officiis, 24  Louis J. Oldani and Victor R. Yanitelli, ‘Jesuit Theater in Italy: Its Entrances and Exit’, Italica 76, no. 1 (1999): 19. 25  Ravelhofer, ‘Choreography as Commonplace’, p. 223. 26  The published text represented the version of the play performed in Naples the previous year. For a reproduction of these four figures, see Marc Fumaroli, ‘Le Crispus et la Flavia du P. Bernardino Stefonio S. J. Contribution à l’histoire du théâtre au Collegio Romano (1597–1628)’, in Les fêtes de la Renaissance, 3 vols., ed. J. Jacquot and E. Konigson (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1975), III: Plates I and II. 27  Ravelhofer, ‘Choreography as Commonplace’, p. 224. 28  Fumaroli, ‘Le Crispus et la Flavia’, p. 522. 29  Ravelhofer, ‘Choreography as Commonplace’, p. 225. 30  Ravelhofer, ‘Choreography as Commonplace’, p. 226.

38

chapter 2

a treatise that ‘influenced either directly or indirectly, almost every medieval and Renaissance account of the body in motion: dance, the visual arts, rhetorical theory and practice, table manners, to mention only a few obvious instances’.31 The basis of Cicero’s work was that movements of the body were the outward signs of the state of a person’s soul. Thus when the fifteenthcentury Italian dance master Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro wrote in his dance treatise that ‘this virtue of the dance is none other than an external action reflecting interior spiritual movements’,32 he was following a long-established tradition that went from Cicero to Saint Ambrose,33 to the twelfth-century treatise by Hugh of Saint Victor, De institutione novitiorum,34 to late medieval works addressed to princes and nobility on the control of bodily movement,35 to fifteenth-century humanist treatises on education,36 and also to humanist writings more generally on the movements of the body: people’s carriage, their gestures, and general demeanour while attending to their everyday activities. Matteo Palmierei’s 1439 treatise Vita civile is a good illustration of the sentiments expressed in humanist writings. Now I will discuss that which is appropriate to the body, both in its movements and when it is at rest…. Often it happens that by small signs one recognizes great vices, and these signs give to us a true indication of 31  Dilwyn Knox, ‘Gesture and Comportment: Diversity and Uniformity’, in Forging European Identities, 1400–1700, ed. Herman Roodenburg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 293. 32  ‘La qual virtute del danzare non è altro che una actione demonstrativa di fuori di movimenti spiritali’. Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, Guilielmi Hebraei pisauriensis de practica seu arte tripudii vulgare opusculum, incipit, 1463, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds it. 973, f. 5v. 33  Saint Ambrose (c. 340–397) adapted Cicero’s work so that it applied more particularly to a Christian context. For example, in his treatise De officiis ministrorum he wrote that ‘a state of mind is perceived in comportment of the body. Hence a motion of the body is, so to speak, an expression of the soul’. See Dilwyn Knox, ‘Disciplina: The Monastic and Clerical Origins of European Civility’, in Renaissance Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Eugene F. Rice Jr., ed. J. Monfasani and R. G. Musto (New York: Italica Press, 1991), p. 109. 34  Written sometime before 1125, De institutione novitiorum, was the first treatise devoted entirely to comportment. In it Hugh makes quite clear that learning virtue involves controlling movements of the body, since for him outward comportment was the sign of inner harmony and virtue. See Stephen J. Jaeger, ‘Humanism and Ethics at the School of St. Victor in the Early Twelfth Century’, in Mediaeval Studies 55 (1993): 61. 35  Knox, ‘Disciplina: The Monastic and Clerical Origins of European Civility’, p. 115. 36  For example, in their treatises Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini and Maffeo Vegio repeated the monastic ideals of comportment, declaring them to be appropriate for their well-born students. See Knox, ‘Disciplina: The Monastic and Clerical Origins of European Civility’, p. 120.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

39

the state of our soul, as for example, a haughty glance signifies arrogance, a lowered mien signifies humility, while to lean to one side indicates sorrow…. In walking one must consider one’s age and rank. One must not walk too upright, nor make one’s steps slow, hesitant and of such gravity that one appears pompous, like those in a procession of ecclesiastical dignitaries. Neither should one spread one’s clothes or walk so swollen and rounded that the street appears not capable of holding one…. Neither does one wish to walk too quickly, as this signifies fickleness, and demonstrates that one is lacking in constancy, but rather every movement should express an ordered modesty, in which is observed one’s proper dignity, having nature always as our teacher and guide.37 The same view is expressed in sixteenth-century writings on dance, as, for example, in Caroso’s Nobiltà di dame, where he comments that since it [dance] is joined with poetry and with music, its powers are among those other worthy [arts], and it is a part of those same [arts of] imitation which represent the working of the soul through movements of the body.38 In his defence of dance published in Paris in 1599 entitled Trois dialogues de l’exercice de sauter, et voltiger en l’air, Arcangelo Tuccaro makes similar statements, arguing that through dancing the dancer is able to ‘understand and [to] know virtue’.39

37  ‘Seguita dire quello che ne’ movimenti e riposi del corpo si convenga…. Spesso adviene che per piccoli cenni si conosce maximi vitii e dàssi inditii veri di quello sente l’animo nostro, come per elevato guatare si significa arrogantia; pel dimesso, humilità, per ristrignersi in su il lato, dolore…. In nello andare si de’ considerare l’età et il grado: non andare intero, né muovere i passi tardi, rari e con tanta gravità che si paia pomposo et simile alle processioni delle degnità sacerdotali; non si de’ e’ spandere i vestimenti et andare gonfiato et tondo, siché apaia non capere per la via…. Non vuole però anche l’andare essere sì presto significhi leggereza, et dimonstri non essere in ella persona constanzia, ma ogni movimento si riferisca a una ordinata verecundia, in nella quale s’osservi la propria degnità, avendo sempre la natura per nostra maestra et guida’. Matteo Palmieri, Vita Civile, ed. Gino Belloni (Florence: Sansoni, 1982), pp. 95–7. 38  ‘poiche è congionta con la Poesia, & con la Musica, facultà frà l’altre molto degna; & è parte di quella imitatione, che representa gli effetti dell’animo con movimento del corpo’. Caroso, Nobiltà di dame, p. 1. 39  Kate van Orden, Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 82. Van Orden is quoting from f. 174r of Tuccaro’s Trois dialogues.

40 6

chapter 2

Dance and Civic Pride

So far we have discussed the different roles of dance in society on an individual level, but dance also played a part in society at an official or state level, one example of which is the royal entry. Royal entries were ceremonies in which a city’s status and rights, and those of its corporations, were reaffirmed,40 and dance frequently played a major role in these entries. The time, effort and expense devoted by the guilds and governing councils to the choreographic components of these entries indicate the important role of dance in a city’s demonstration of its civic pride. This is illustrated by the 1570 and the 1599 entries into Madrid. The entry in 1570 occurred nine years after Philip II moved his court to Madrid, and the city wanted to emphasize its new status as the seat of the court. The town council, therefore, commissioned six dances to be performed during the king’s entry at considerable cost to themselves.41 The town council also insisted that they preview the dances twenty days before the entry occurred, in order to make sure they were of high enough quality and to allow time for any necessary changes to be made if they were unhappy. For the 1599 entry the town council commissioned nineteen separate dances at a staggering cost of 5,777 ducats, shared between the city itself (one dance), the surrounding villages (four dances) and the guilds and merchants (fourteen dances). The contracts demanded that these dances were ‘to be very brilliant, as the occasion requires’.42 7

Dance and Social Order

Throughout Renaissance Europe dance played an important part in ritual events, and was part of the ordered, formal behaviour demanded by these rituals. This concern for ‘order’ and the correct protocols was so strong that it was not ignored even during supposedly spontaneous acts of festivity during Carnival. For example, it was the custom in late fifteenth-century Ferrara during Carnival for the duke and members of his family to unexpectedly arrive 40  Nicolas Russell and Hélène Visentin, ‘The multilayered production of meaning in sixteenth-century French ceremonial entries’, in French Ceremonial Entries in the Sixteenth Century: Event, Image, Text, ed. Nicolas Russell and Hélène Visentin (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2007), p. 16. 41  David Sánchez Cano, ‘Dances for the royal festivities in Madrid in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, Dance Research 23, no. 2 (2005): 127. The rest of the information in this paragraph about these entries comes from pages 125–8. 42  Sánchez Cano, ‘Dances for the royal festivities’, p. 127.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

41

at a private house and to join in the festivities there.43 But such occasions were carefully planned and ordered, as can be seen in a letter by Francesco Bagnacavallo to Isabella d’Este, where he details all the planning that preceded a festa for the signorial family. Bagnacavallo is also careful to remark on how the dancing before dinner was ordered by the expected rules, and, upon the banquet commencing, how the guests were all seated in order of precedence.44 The order in which people danced at court balls, at wedding festivals, and at state events reflected their position in the social hierarchy: who danced with whom, and in what order was important, and when this order was not followed much speculation ensued.45 This is clearly illustrated at the court of the French king Henri III, where there was a very clear hierarchy for the order of dancing at the court balls. The king danced with the queen, followed by nobles of the highest rank and their ladies; the monarch could then choose to dance with the bride of a great marriage, or with any lady he favoured. The queen danced with no one except the king, or possibly her brother, the duc de Mercoeur, or with some other prince, on the express command of His Majesty.46 8

Dance and Politics

Throughout early modern Europe courtiers danced in court spectacles, in the ballets de cour, masques, fêtes, masquerades and intermedi. Each event had its own specific political and social context, but in most, if not all, of these events dancing had a political purpose, and was used as a political tool by sovereigns for both domestic and international audiences.47 In fact, choreographic activity occupied a key place in the plans of the rulers of France, and was used not only to impress neighbouring courts, but also to make sure that French 43  Richard Brown, ‘The Politics of Magnificence in Ferrara 1450–1505: A Study in the Socio-political Implications of Renaissance Spectacle’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1982, p. 308. 44  Brown, ‘The Politics of Magnificence’, pp. 313–4. 45  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 21. 46  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 21. 47  Ellen R. Welch, ‘Rethinking the Politics of Court Spectacle. Performance and Diplomacy under the Valois’, in French Renaissance and Baroque Drama: Text, Performance, Theory, ed. Michael Meere (Lanham: University of Delaware Press, 2015), p. 103. Welch’s essay (pp. 101–16) emphasizes how multimedia court spectacles could contain multiple meanings and could be interpreted in different ways by different members of the audience.

42

chapter 2

courtiers had little spare time.48 While this strategy may well have been initiated by François I,49 it was still followed by Henri IV, who, in January 1600 gave orders for more than the usual number of ballets to be performed in order to impress the duke of Savoy with the grandeur and magnificence of the French court.50 In 1610 the masque Tethys Festival was a central part of James I’s political agenda in the creation of his son Henry as Prince of Wales, thereby emphasizing ‘the strength of the Stuart dynasty and the advantages of a peaceful reign’, a message James I hoped would resonate with parliament and encourage that body to grant him the income he wanted and needed to maintain that peaceful reign.51 The Ballet des Polonais (1573) was planned by the Queen Mother, Catherine de’ Medici, to convey several messages that related to her concerns in foreign and domestic policy. The major purpose of this ballet was to pro­ ject the idea of a Valois empire, with her son Henri as a military commander and a ruler fit to be King of Poland. Catherine, however, was also very concerned to present an image of herself as ‘a loving mother, a guardian of dynasty, and a promoter of its power – and, finally, a strong woman who for the sake of the kingdom was capable of overcoming female sentiments’.52 Representing the sixteen provinces of France, the sixteen noble ladies who danced the Ballet des Polonais were chosen for their beauty and feminine appeal, yet their complex figured choreography that lasted for an hour was full of martial and bellicose characteristics and suggestions. It was through the juxtaposition of the beauty and grace of the noble ladies with the martial patterns of their dancing that the multiple messages desired by Catherine were conveyed to those watching. Dancing in court spectacles was also a vehicle for an individual’s selfadvancement, and was seen by contemporaries as a sign of who was currently in favour and who was not,53 as is illustrated by Jonson’s masque Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court (1615). By 1613 Robert Carr Earl of Somerset had gained immense influence and power at the English court through his friendship with James I. In the summer of 1614, however, when James I met George Villiers, the political landscape began to change. Villiers’ 48  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 132. 49  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 128. 50  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 132. 51  Anne Daye, ‘“The power of his commanding trident”: Tethys Festival as Royal Policy’, Historical Dance 4, no. 2 (2012): 19. 52  Ewa Kociszewska, ‘War and Seduction in Cybele’s Garden: Contextualizing the Ballet des Polonais’, Renaissance Quarterly 65, no. 3 (2012): 812. 53  Sharon Kettering discusses this aspect of court spectacles in early seventeenth-century France in ‘Favour and Patronage: Dancers in the Court Ballets of Early SeventeenthCentury France’, Canadian Journal of History 43 (2008): 391–415.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

43

increasing favour with the king made him a magnet for those courtiers – and also the queen – who were opposed to Somerset and his faction. Somerset himself was alarmed at Villiers’ promotion, and did all he could to hinder his rising influence. In November 1614 Somerset prevented Villiers from obtaining a position in the Bedchamber by arranging for Robert Ker, one of his Scottish cousins, to be given this position in Villiers’ place.54 The rivalry between Somerset and Villiers, and the factions behind them, was played out in Jonson’s masque. It was the first masque in which Villiers performed, but which also included Ker among the dancers. From surviving letters of John Chamberlain and John Donne it is clear that they expected this masque, and specifically the dancing of Villiers and Ker, would reveal to them and other courtiers the relative prestige of the two men, and thus the state of Somerset’s favour with the king.55 9

Dance in Drama

As John Powell has remarked, it should not be surprising that the plays and ballets of the early seventeenth century should have so much in common, since leading playwrights of the time also provided verses for the ballets de cour.56 The participation by playwrights in danced spectacles was not confined to France, as a similar situation existed in England with authors such as Ben Jonson writing for the public theatre and for court masques. From his work as a dramatist, Jonson was well aware of the tradition of ending a theatre performance with a jig, and from his work writing masques for the court over a period of about three decades, he had regular contact with musicians and dancers.57 Because dance was so ubiquitous in society the presentation of different types of dancing on stage would resonate with the audience and elicit reasonably predictable responses to it: dance was part of an audience’s collective memory in early modern Europe.58 The important roles that dance played in society at this time was mirrored by the various ways dramatists used dance 54  Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 221. 55  See Ben Jonson, Works, 11 vols., ed. C. H. Herford, Percy and Evelyn Simpson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), X: 553, and P. M. Oliver, ed., John Donne: Selected Letters (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 80. 56  John S. Powell, Music and Theatre in France 1600–1680 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 77. Powell goes on to discuss the shared characteristics on pp. 77–81. 57  Barbara Ravelhofer, ‘Dance’, in Ben Jonson in Context, ed. Julie Sanders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 171. 58  Ravelhofer, ‘Dance’, p. 173.

44

chapter 2

in their comedies and tragedies. If one includes discussion of dances and dancing between characters in plays, as well as occurrences of dance performances, it appears that dance was as frequent a part of dramatic presentations as it was in daily life. In England, for example, there are over two hundred extant comedies from 1553 to 1625, with all except twenty-nine of them either mentioning dancing or containing scenes where the actors dance.59 Dance functioned as entertainment in both scripted and improvised dramas, such as those presented by the commedia dell’arte troupes. Often comedies or farces concluded with a dance or several dances that were not related to the preceding play, but ‘were meant to be simply enjoyed for their entertainment value’.60 In late sixteenth-century England both comedies and tragedies ended with a jig; that is, a dramatic entertainment where the characters sang and danced as well as acting.61 As Stephen Orgel has commented, sometimes a jig was ‘comic or burlesque, but it could also be dignified and elegant, a short formal dance by the performers’.62 The dancing component of a jig could be extensive, with much of it being improvised, and jigs often lasted for an hour.63 Dancing often functioned purely as entertainment when it was part of wedding scenes in plays. One illustration of this is the commedia play performed on 8 March 1568 in Munich as part of the wedding celebrations of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Bavaria and Princess Renée of Lorraine.64 The play which was filled with music and acrobatics, concluded with the characters performing Italian dances to celebrate the wedding of Zanni, the former servant of Pantalone (who was played by the celebrated musician and composer Orlando Lassus), to Camilla.65

59  Mary V. Pyron, ‘ “Sundry Measures”: Dance in Renaissance Comedy’, Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1987, p. 18. Pyron’s list is taken from that in Alfred Harbage, Annals of English Drama 975–1700. Revised by Samuel Schoenbaum (London: Methuen, 1964). 60  Powell, Music and Theatre, p. 98. 61  Ken Pierce, ‘Coarse, Odd and Comic: A New Study of Jigs’, Dance Chronicle 38, no. 1 (2015): 81. 62  Stephen Orgel, Foreword to Shakespeare’s Songbook, by Ross W. Duffin (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 12. 63  William N. West, ‘When is the Jig Up – and What is it Up To?’, in Locating the Queen’s Men, 1583–1603: Material Practices and Conditions of Playing, ed. Helen Ostovich, Holger Schott Syme and Andrew Griffin (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), p. 203. 64  M. A. Katritzky, ‘The Diaries of Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria: Commedia dell’arte at the Wedding Festivals of Florence (1565) and Munich (1568)’, in Italian Renaissance Festivals and their European Influence, ed. J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), pp. 147–50. 65  Katritzky, ‘The Diaries of Prince Ferdinand’, p. 149.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

45

In a passage discussing the benefits of dance to society, the fifteenth-­ century Italian dance master Guglielmo Ebreo stated that ‘the character of ­everyone is made known by the dance’ (la qual da apertamente a cognoscere la qualità di tutti).66 His comment could also serve as a model for dramatists in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, who also used dance in their plays to reveal the true nature of a character, especially if that character was disguised for some reason. In Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, for example, it is Perdita’s dancing that reveals her inner nobility and royal pedigree to King Polixenes and Prince Florizel, as well as to the audience of the play. ‘Nothing she does, or seems / But smacks of something greater than herself, / Too noble for this place’ (ll. 157–159) is the conclusion of Polixenes after watching her dance.67 In Cynthia’s Revels (1600) Jonson uses dance as one means of demonstrating the pride and self-love of Lady Philantia.68 As Ravelhofer has pointed out, dance was a particularly apt tool for playwrights to use in the course of unfolding the personal relationships between characters because it was – and still is – a communal activity, that ‘thrives with onlookers and unfolds its dynamic in group interaction’.69 Playwrights also utilized dance as a dramatic device to move the plot in a new direction, as illustrated by the melodramatic tragicomedy Agarite by Sieur Durval, which was performed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1633. In this play the author called for a ballet that was used as a cloak for a premeditated murder.70 A Ballet des quatre vents is organized by the plotters in order to hide the murder they are planning to commit. The ballet, which takes place on the eve of the victim’s wedding, is performed in semi-darkness, with the candles being extinguished and the only light for the dancers being provided by torches that shone through coloured glass. The culmination of the ballet is a thunderstorm, with pistol shots being fired to create the necessary thunder and lightning. When the storm is finished and the hall relit, the audience is presented with a dead body of one of the four dancers on the floor of the hall who has been shot. Thus a murder occurs in front of the audience while they are distracted by the ballet.71 The use of dancing or masquing as a cover for murder and treachery was also common in Jacobean revenge tragedies, such 66  Gugliemo Ebreo, MS fonds it. 973, f. 19v. 67  Pyron, ‘“Sundry Measures”: Dance in Renaissance Comedy’, p. 52. 68  Ravelhofer, ‘Dance’, p. 172. 69  Barbara Ravelhofer, ‘Middleton and Dance’, in The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton, ed. Gary Taylor and Trish Thomas Henley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 137. 70  Powell, Music and Theatre, pp. 98–9. The rest of the information about this play is taken from p. 99 of Powell’s monograph. 71  Powell, Music and Theatre, p. 99.

46

chapter 2

as John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge (c. 1600). In this play the dance in the last act allows the three murderers to disguise themselves, as well as heightening the suspense.72 Throughout the early modern period dancing invoked debate as to its merits or the harm it caused to individuals and to society, with its supporters often defending dance with arguments drawn from the Platonic and Pythagorean philosophic tradition. For Plato the beauty and order of the cosmos could be interpreted as a measured dance, with human dancing an imitation of this celestial dance.73 Plato’s belief that ‘human dance was in imitation of the celestial dance, and that both reflected an order based on harmony and reason, remained a commonplace of neo-classical thought until the age of Newton’.74 This belief can be found in dance treatises such as the work of Tuccaro,75 in the writings of poets such as Ronsard,76 and in educational treatises such as Elyot’s The Boke Named the Governour, where his chapter on dance begins with a repetition of Plato’s worldview.77 Dance as a symbol of order and harmony would be easily recognized by the audiences of court danced spectacles, as well as by the educated members of the audience who attended plays in public theatres. Playwrights used dance in the same fashion in their works, especially in romantic comedies, where a final communal dance would often signify harmony 72  Alan Brissenden, ‘Jacobean Tragedy and the Dance’, Huntington Library Quarterly 44, no. 4 (1981): 251. 73  Some of the detailed accounts of how meaning was found in the geometric shapes and ordered movements of Renaissance dance include chapter 4 (pages 81–106) in John C. Meagher’s Method and Meaning in Jonson’s Masques (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966); Sarah Thesiger, ‘The Orchestra of Sir John Davies and the Image of the Dance’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973): 277–304; Françoise Carter, ‘Celestial Dance: A Search for Perfection’, Dance Research 5, no. 2 (1987): 3–17; Françoise Carter, ‘Number Symbolism and Renaissance Choreography’, Dance Research 10, no. 1 (1992): 21–39; A. W. Johnson, Ben Jonson: Poetry and Architecture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); Thomas M. Greene, ‘Labyrinth Dances in the French and English Renaissance’, Renaissance Quarterly 54, no. 4.2 (2001): 1403–66; and McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, pp. 110–8. 74  Graham Pont, ‘Plato’s Philosophy of the Dance’, in Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750, ed. Jennifer Nevile (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), p. 275. See also James Miller, ‘The Philosophical Background of Renaissance Dance’, York Dance Review 5 (1976): 10–1, and John Hollander, The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry 1500–1700 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), chapters 1 and 2. 75  See Tuccaro, Trois dialogues, f. 36r–v. 76  See Margaret M. McGowan, Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), especially chapter 6 pages 209–41, and McGowan, ‘The Arts Conjoined: A Context for the Study of Music’, Early Music History 13 (1994): 171–98. 77  Elyot, The Book, p. 73.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

47

and cohesion.78 John Ford’s The Broken Heart has a dance as the centrepiece of the final act to celebrate three weddings.79 The choreography for three couples is interrupted three times when bad news of the deaths of those close to her is brought to Princess Calantha. Understanding as she does the symbolic importance of the wedding dance, Calantha continues to dance, refusing to allow her personal calamity to interrupt the enactment of harmony and order. While in The Broken Heart Ford has used dance as an affirmation of order, playwrights also used dance to represent disorder, or discontinuity, as in Jonson’s Epicene, where dancing indicates riot, noise and discomfort, the exact opposite of order and harmony.80 Dance also appeared in plays as a symbol of vice, drunken revelry or lewdness, as an incitement to lust, or as a representation of wickedness and corruption.81 In tragedies dance was often associated with deception, and provided a cover for evil, as well as frequently being ­associated with death.82 10

Dance in Brussels

In 2001 Keith Polk began his article on instrumental music in Brussels with the statement: ‘[p]rospects for a study of music in Brussels in the 16th century would appear to be bleak’.83 At first glance the same situation might also appear to apply to a study of dancing in Brussels during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. However, when the disparate sources of information on dance activity in Brussels during this period are brought together, and augmented by information from other centres in Europe, it is possible to present a picture of dancing in Brussels in both the courtly and civic spheres. Just as in other European cities (as we will see in chapter 4), dance teachers lived and worked in sixteenth-century Brussels. Their existence is documented by the statutes of the musicians’ guild of Saint Job. These musicians were freelance players who were not employed either by the court or by the church. Members of the guild taught both music and dance, as well as providing instrumental ensembles to perform at banquets, weddings and other festivities. 78  Ravelhofer, ‘Dance’, p. 174. 79  The information on this play is from Ravelhofer, ‘Middleton and Dance’, p. 137. 80  Ravelhofer, ‘Dance’, p. 174. 81  For examples of such usage from English comedies circa 1600 see Pyron, ‘ “Sundry Measures”: Dance in Renaissance Comedy’, pp. 60–3. 82  Brissenden, ‘Jacobean Tragedy and the Dance’, p. 251. 83  Keith Polk, ‘Instrumental Music in Brussels in the Early 16th Century’, Revue Belge de Musicologie 55 (2001): 91.

48

chapter 2

Musicians employed by the court were ‘completely beyond the reach of guild officials’, and the musicians who performed in the official civic ensembles, although they belonged to the guild, were still able to operate outside the guild’s regulatory environment.84 Among the restrictions laid out in the statutes was a prohibition on members of the guild performing with non-members. Furthermore, the guild sought to restrict the paid teaching and performing to only those musicians who were both members of the guild and citizens of Brussels.85 Even though the statutes date from 1574, they refer to an earlier docu­ ment from 1507.86 Thus we have evidence that dance was taught in Brussels from at least the beginning of the sixteenth century, and that this instruction took place in dance schools. Evidence of the elite dances enjoyed and performed in Brussels is preserved in the luxurious manuscript presented to Margaret of Austria.87 This manuscript contains the steps and music of fifty-eight basse danses, as well as instructions on how to perform the four steps of the basse danse, and information on the choreographic structure of these dances; that is, the rules by which the four steps were organized into differing sequences. All of this material was recorded on twenty-five folios of ‘black-dyed parchment ruled with lines of gold ink on both sides’.88 The sumptuous nature of the manuscript extended to every aspect of the musical and written text, with the ‘musical clefs and the descriptive headings of the dances … in gold; the text of the treatise, the notes of the music and the steps of the dances … all in silver; and the fancy initials … in a combination of both metals’.89 The manuscript is believed to have been created for Margaret in the last few years of the fifteenth century.90 Margaret of Austria served as the regent of the Low Countries from 1507 to 1515 and then 84  Polk, ‘Instrumental Music’, p. 98. 85   Piet Stryckers, ‘Music and Music Production in Seventeenth-Century Brussels’, in Embracing Brussels. Art and Culture in the Court City, 1600–1800, ed. Katlijne van der Stighelen, Leen Kelchtermans and Koenraad Brosens (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), p. 73. For a more extensive discussion of the guild regulations, see pages 94–9 and 108–10 of Edmond van der Straeten’s Les ménestrels aux Pays-Bas (Brussels: A & F Mahillon, 1878). Reprint (Geneva: Minkoff, 1972). 86  The text of the statutes are reprinted in their original Flemish in Van der Straeten, Les ménestrels aux Pays-Bas, pp. 99–107. Statute 18 on page 105 deals with the operation of dance schools. 87  The manuscript was listed in an inventory of the library of Margaret of Austria in 1523, but it is now held in Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, MS 9085. 88  David Wilson, The Basse Dance Handbook: Text and Context (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2012), p. 75. 89  Wilson, Basse Dance Handbook, p. 75. 90  For a discussion of the reasons for this dating, see Wilson, Basse Dance Handbook, p. 77.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

49

again from 1519 to her death in 1530. Even though her principal residence during these years was in Mechelen, she made frequent visits to Brussels during her tenure as regent, and musicians employed by the court would have moved between these two centres as well.91 In the first half of the sixteenth century Brussels supported a community of first-rate instrumentalists,92 both at the court and employed by the civic authorities, thus providing a pool of competent musicians who were available to accompany dancing at balls and other festivities throughout the city. The carnival celebrations held in Brussels in 1550 were the culmination of the heir to the Habsburg empire Prince Philip’s journey through the countries ruled by his father Charles V. These celebrations provide an illustration of danced entertainments enjoyed by the court in Brussels, especially when Charles V, and then Philip II, were in residence. On 18 February 1550 a dramatic entertainment was staged by the court that began with a joust, and ended later in the evening with a banquet followed by a danced spectacle.93 The conceit behind the joust was that Don Alonso Pimentel, who had been treated badly by Cupid, would accept combat against all comers, and, if he was successful, Cupid would be hanged. Don Alonso was, of course, victorious, and Cupid was indeed killed. In the evening eight masked nobles who were dressed as friars and six professional singers entered the hall, all carrying lighted wax candles and singing in a solemn manner. Cupid was borne in on a bier carried by two sacristans. The bier was set down in the middle of the hall in front of Eleanor, the queen of France, and Mary of Hungary, who was Regent of the Low Countries. Then six masked male courtiers entered, led by Philip,94 and all were costumed as gods. The six gods were accompanied by six nymphs, who were also masked.95 The twelve masked gentlemen entered the hall dancing an alemana (allemande). The music for their dance was provided 91  Polk, ‘Instrumental Music’, pp. 94–5. 92  Polk, ‘Instrumental Music’, p. 97. 93  The information on the 1550 danced spectacles in Brussels is taken from Daniel Heartz, ‘A Spanish “Masque of Cupid”’, Musical Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1963): 59–74. Heartz draws on the account of Jean de Vandenesse, Charles V’s chronicler, and the much more detailed account by Juan Calvete de Estrella, which was published two years later as part of a larger work entitled El felicisimo viaje del muy alto y muy poderoso principe Don Felipe (Antwerp, 1552). 94  The other five nobles were ‘the Prince of Piedmont, Don Antonio de Toledo, Ruy Gomez de Sylva, Don Hernando de la Cerda, and Don Alonso Pimentel’. Heartz, ‘A Spanish “Masque of Cupid”’, p. 61. 95  The roles of the nymphs were performed by six male courtiers; that is, ‘the Count of Gelves, Don Pedro de Avila, Don Rodrigo Manuel, Don Pedro de Velasco, Don Diego de Cordova, [and] Don Luys Capata’. Heartz, ‘A Spanish “Masque of Cupid” ’, p. 61.

50

chapter 2

by the musicians who entered with them, also dancing the alemana.96 Cupid was restored to life by one of the gods and one of the nymphs, and immediately sprang up and fired an arrow at the guest of honour, Madame de la Thuloye, then led her into the middle of the hall and danced with her. Once the dancing had been initiated by Cupid and Madame de la Thuloye, the other masque participants, the gods, nymphs and friars, all took partners from among the ladies who were present. The dancing then continued for ‘the better part of the night’.97 A few days later on the following Sunday more dancing occurred. On this occasion twenty masked gentlemen entered dancing an alemana accompanied by musicians. The twenty gentlemen then performed a dance in front of the ladies of the court, before inviting the latter to dance with them. From the carnival celebrations of 1550 we can gain a picture of court danced spectacles in mid-sixteenth-century Brussels. Gone was the basse danse of a generation before: the court now danced at their masquerades the newly-fashionable alemana. These masquerades were a combination of dancing, music and song, with lavish costumes and an elaborate conceit that included Cupid, gods and nymphs, characters that continued to appear in danced entertainments at European courts throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The social dancing between the masked dancers and the audience members that concluded the spectacle was also a characteristic of court danced spectacles across Europe, and one that continued into the seventeenth century. The next substantial source of dance performances at the court in Brussels comes from the reign of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella. On 18 February 1608, as part of the carnival celebrations for that year, a ballet entitled Les noces de Psyché et de Cupidon took place in the great hall of the palace, where it was performed by noble ladies of the court. It is worth discussing this performance in detail, not only because of the scarcity of contemporary sources, but also because of the interesting parallels – and differences – between this ballet and the six ballet plots recorded in the dance master’s notebook from the same time period.98 96  Heartz, ‘A Spanish “Masque of Cupid”’, p. 66. 97  Heartz, ‘A Spanish “Masque of Cupid”’, p. 61. 98  The information on the 1608 ballet in the following paragraphs is taken from Ernest Gossart, Les espagnols en Flandre (Brussels: Lamartin, 1914), pp. 301–8, and a reasonably detailed, contemporary account of the performance written in Spanish. Gossart draws his description from this Spanish source that was published in an appendix to Antonio Rodríguez Villa’s publication, Correspondencia de la Infanta Archiduquesa Doña Isabel Clara Eugenia de Austria con el duque de Lerma y otros personajes (Madrid, 1906), pp. 338–47.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

51

The ballet took place on the floor of the hall: there was no stage. At one end of the hall was a dais on which Isabella and Albert sat, and to the right of this dais and a little behind it was the seating reserved for the ambassadors of the pope and the king of Spain. The rest of the court sat on two rows of benches that extended along both sides of the hall. The opposite end of the hall from the archducal dais was occupied by a machine (a mountain representing Parnassus) hidden behind a curtain. Throughout the course of the performance various performers exited from, and returned to, the mountain. The other piece of stage machinery in this ballet was a cloud that was used to carry performers into the middle of the hall. The resting position of the cloud was on the ground beside the mountain. No other scenery seems to have been present. After Isabella and Albert had entered the hall, followed by members of the court, and seated themselves on the dais, the performance commenced. Coming from behind the curtain were flashes of lightening and the sound of thunder, while at the same time the cloud rose up from the floor of the hall, moved to the centre of the hall, and then descended slowly back to the ground again, where, to the accompaniment of more flashes, Cupid emerged with his eyes bandaged, a golden bow in one hand, a quiver full of arrows, and a large leather sack on his shoulder. The cloud then disappeared as noisily as it had arrived, while Cupid advanced towards the Archdukes. A long speech from Cupid ensued during which he invited the Archdukes to his wedding celebrations. He then withdrew two papers from his leather bag, which contained the words of the airs that were going to be sung, and kneeling, handed the papers to Albert and Isabella. Cupid then distributed copies of the song texts to the other members of the audience, before he disappeared behind the curtain. At this point the curtain ‘disappeared’ (desapareció el velo)99 and a craggy mountain was revealed. A painted figure of Pegasus sat on the top of the mountain, while lower down Apollo was surrounded by the Nine Muses, each of whom carried a different instrument. Cupid and Psyche were seen near the bottom of the mountain in a hollow. Psyche was played by Clara Laura, one of Isabella’s ladies-in-waiting.100 Instrumental music was then played by Apollo and the Nine Muses, after which Apollo sang of the glory of Cupid. The Nine Muses then called upon the principal goddesses to come and assist at the wedding. The large cloud returned, descending again into the middle of the hall, to the accompaniment of more thunder and lightning. In the interior of the cloud were revealed six goddesses, illuminated by invisible lights. The goddesses were represented by 99  Villa, Correspondencia, p. 341. 100  Villa, Correspondencia, p. 341.

52

chapter 2

six of Isabella’s ladies-in-waiting; that is, Mlle d’Epinoy (Juno), Dona Catalina Livia (Diana), Mlle de Croÿ (Flores), Mlle de Licques (Venus), Dona Maria Walter Zapata (Pallas) and Mlle de Willerval (Ceres). Once they had exited the cloud the six goddesses danced their ballet to warm approbation, and then returned to the mountain next to Cupid. Apollo and the Muses sang another air, the text of which appealed to the Hours and to the small cupids to come to the wedding. In response to this song, eight Hours emerged from crevices in the mountain, and together with Cupid and Psyche, all descended to the floor of the hall, where Psyche and the eight Hours danced their ballet. The Hours were danced by two dwarfs and six well-born girls, and their costumes included wings to indicate the rapidity with which Time passed. No choreographic information is given in the account of the ballet, and consequently we do not know what steps or figures (if any) were performed. But it seems reasonable to assume that the dance master who devised the choreography for this ballet could well have included fast, light steps and rapid movement around the dance space by the performers to further represent the swiftness of Time. The entrée of the Hours and Psyche was followed by an entrée of six small cupids, who also emerged from crevices in the mountain. This dance was performed by the six cupids holding hands in a circle with Cupid in the middle. The cupids danced and sang to the accom­ paniment of violins.101 This entrée concluded with a courteous reverence, after which all the dancers returned to their positions on the mountain. A musical interlude followed with Apollo and the Muses singing another air in Spanish about the triumph of true love. This song ushered in the Grand Ballet, the final dance in which all performers participated; that is, Cupid, Psyche, the six goddesses, the eight Hours and the six small cupids. Reverences again completed this dance, after which the noble ladies and girls went to take their places on the benches at the sides of the hall. The six noble ladies were paired with six noblemen,102 and arranged themselves on the floor of the hall in order of precedence. After the command for the social dancing to begin was given by the Archduke Albert, Charles de Guise duke of Aumale led the dancers in a branle.103 Dancing continued for a further two hours with many other dances being performed, before Albert and Isabella retired.

101  ‘ellos asidos de las manos, en coro, teniendo en medio á Cupido danzaban y cantaban al son de muy bien acordados violines’, Villa, Correspondencia, p. 345. 102  See Gossart, Les espagnols, p. 308 for the names of the partners of the six noble women. 103  The Spanish account calls this dance ‘un brande, danza muy usada en estos Estados’, Villa, Correspondencia, pp. 346–7.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

53

The Spanish account of the 1608 ballet is found in a handwritten manuscript of four folios.104 There is no name given as to who wrote the account, but it reads like an official report of the event, as it starts by discussing the purpose of the entertainment, and continually emphasizes the ingenuity, magnificence and splendour of the spectacle, and the astonishment and pleasure of those watching. The account is also careful to relate where the Archdukes and other important persons were seated in relation to one another, as well as providing the names of the noble performers and listing who danced with whom in the opening dance of the ball that followed the ballet. It could well have been written to increase the status of the court in Brussels and to help to augment Albert and Isabella’s desire to be seen as sovereign rulers. It was wellestablished by the first decade of the seventeenth century that such danced spectacles were a frequent and important part of court festivals. Albert and Isabella could well have wanted to assert their equality in this regard by having such a record of the 1608 dance performance.105 Another reason why the account reads more like an official report of the event, rather than a description of the spectacle by the person in charge of the performance, is that no mention is made of who choreographed the dances, nor of who was responsible for devising the conceit (if this was a different person from the dance master), nor of who was in charge of organizing and coordinating the performance. We do not have any evidence or names of dance masters who worked in Brussels at this time, either at the court or free-lance for the city. The exception is Juan (or Hans) Vermeulen, a member of a local family who was a member of the meninos of the Archduke; that is, young men who were responsible for the entertainment of the Archduke. Vermeulen was known as the dansador, and he had the responsibility of teaching dance steps to the Archduke.106 We do not know whether Vermeulen was involved in any way in this ballet, but given the description we have of the ballet, there must have been a dance master involved to choreograph the four danced entrées, and to teach these choreographies to the performers and to take rehearsals beforehand. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries rehearsing for 104  Villa, Correspondencia, p. 338. 105  For a discussion of the various ways in which Albert and Isabella sought to promote their independence from Spain and assert themselves as true sovereigns, see the volume of essays edited by Werner Thomas and Luc Duerloo, Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998). 106  Diederik Lanoye, ‘Structure and Composition of the Household of the Archdukes’, in Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621, ed. Werner Thomas and Luc Duerloo (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), p. 112. See page 110 of this essay for a chart that shows the position of the meninos in the court structure.

54

chapter 2

danced theatrical events by members of a court was taken very seriously: the number of rehearsals was not small. For example, Medici court records from 1600 to 1640 indicate that rehearsal periods of six to eight weeks were frequent for large-scale events, and similar time periods were the norm for rehearsals at the French court in the later sixteenth century. Reports written six to eight weeks before the 1581 wedding celebrations record that the king ‘was absorbed in his horse ballets and tourneys, and the queen and her ladies in preparation for their ballets, to the extent they do nothing else’.107 There was a similar situation in England. For example, in 1611 the two dance masters Jeremy Hearne and Nicolas Confesse were paid for their ‘peyns bestowed almost 6 weeks continually’ for the masque Oberon, while in 1616 masquers are recorded as practising for fifty days.108 Les noces de Psyché et de Cupidon has a number of similarities with the six ballet plots recorded in the dance master’s notebook, as well as with other contemporary ballets de cour. The 1608 ballet has four separate danced entrées including the Grand Ballet, with first six, then nine, then seven, then sixteen dancers. The ballet plots from the dance master’s notebook have a similar number of danced entrées; that is, eight or fewer. A further shared structural feature of the 1608 ballet and other ballets de cour and the six ballet plots is the manner in which they end; that is, with a Grand Ballet followed by reverences to the rulers or guests of honour, then a period of several hours of social dancing by members of the audience and the noble performers. The staging is also similar in that both the 1608 ballet and the ballet plots from the dance master’s notebook take place on the floor of a hall rather than on a stage, with very little fixed scenery. A mountain from which dancers emerge occupies a central place in both the 1608 ballet and in the Ballet des mineúrs des Paÿs (f. 4r–v). The machinery is more complicated in the 1608 ballet with its large cloud that ascended into the air at one end of the hall, moved to the middle of the hall, then descended slowly, all the while carrying either Cupid or the six goddesses. The triumphal chariots that appear in most of the six ballet plots in the dance master’s notebook would be simpler technically speaking, as all movement around the hall would be terrestrial, not aerial. That the 1608 ballet at the court in Brussels participated in the wider European tradition of danced spectacles is revealed in another feature; that 107  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 85. 108  Barbara Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 75. For further discussion of the rehearsal practices in danced spectacles across Europe, see Jennifer Nevile, ‘Dance Rehearsal Practices in Early Modern Court Spectacles’, Parergon 28, no. 1 (2011): 135–53, and for the situation in France, see McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, pp. 61–90.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

55

is, the distribution of song texts to audience members. In Brussels Cupid performed this service at the beginning of the performance. In the 1575 masquerade held in honour of Diane de Foix at the house of a prominent lawyer in Bordeaux, poems were written for the guest of honour or other members of the audience, were distributed at various point during the masquerade, and then read aloud by members of the audience.109 From the early seventeenth century onwards the ballets de cour performed at the French court had a printed programme that was distributed to members of the audience. Included in these programmes were the texts of the songs and the names of the performers and the roles that they played. The participation of the sovereign in the performance of court ballets even when he or she was not dancing but only seated among the spectators, can be seen from the second half of the sixteenth century. For example, the Balet comique de la royne, performed at the French court in 1581 as part of the wedding celebrations of the duc de Joyeuse, and Mademoiselle de Vaudemont, half-sister of the Queen, begins with the appearance of Sieur de la Roche. Lord de la Roche, coming from Circe’s garden, ran into the middle of the room. Stopping there, he turned his frightened face toward Circe’s garden to see if the enchantress were following. When he saw that no one was pursuing him, … [he was] somewhat reassured, [so] he walked slowly toward the King and, having made a deep bow to his Majesty, began, with assured demeanor and in language full of sage eloquence, to speak as follows…. When his speech had ended, he knelt before the King, as though putting himself under his protection.110

109  Jasmine Dawkins, ‘Provincial Entertainment in the Renaissance: Le Triomphe de Diane by Pierre de Brach’, Nottingham French Studies 8, no. 1 (1969): 12. The text of this masquerade by Pierre de Brach is contained in his work Les Poèmes (Bordeaux: Simon Millanges, 1576), pp. 171r–201v. 110  Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx, Le Balet comique de la royne, 1582. Translation by Carol and Lander MacClintock (np: American Institute of Musicology, 1971), pp. 41 and 43. ‘le sieur de la Roche … sortant du iardin de Circé, courut iusques au milieu de la salle, où arresté tout court, tourna tout effrayé le visage du costé du iardin pour voir si Circé l’enchanteresse le poursuiuoit. Et ayant veu que personne n’accouroit apres luy, … puis s’estant vn peu r’asseuré, & ayant comme prins haleine, il marcha au petit pas vers le Roy: & apres auoir faict vne grande reuerence à sa majesté, commença auec vne action asseuree, & vn la[n] gage ressentant vne sage eloquence, de parler ainsi que s’ensuit…. Sa harangue finie, il meit vn genoil en terre aupres du Roy, comme se mettant en seureté sous sa sauuegarde’. Facsimile ed., Margaret M. McGowan, ed., (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), pp. 7v and 9v.

56

chapter 2

In Brussels in 1608 Cupid’s speech to the Archdukes certainly did not have the political implications of de la Roche’s address to Henri III, but the same device was used in both spectacles. So far we have evidence of dance teaching and performance in Brussels at the court and at the civic level. A third sphere of dance activity in Brussels, that of dance performances as part of dramatic productions, is documented by the play produced in February 1614 by the Jesuit college in Brussels. The first Jesuit school in the Southern Low Countries was opened in 1574, with seventeen more institutions starting up throughout the region by the early seventeenth century.111 The Jesuit education in Brussels was strongly supported by Albert and Isabella, but it was not until 1603 that the first classes started there, due to the direct intervention of Isabella herself,112 as up until 1603 the ‘nations’, one of the three factions involved in the governing of the city, had opposed the construction of a college by the Jesuit order.113 The Jesuit college in Brussels was one of the larger institutions in the Southern Low Countries, with around four hundred pupils from 1604 onwards. By 1638 the number of pupils had grown to 491.114 From its inauguration in 1604 to its closure on 20 September 1773, the college produced around 1,200 school plays.115 The four hundred male students were divided into five classes depending upon their previous level of education, with a sixth class added in 1620 to cope with the pressure of student numbers. Throughout every year members from each class performed a play, while the final play to celebrate the end of the academic year was held in mid-September, for which students from all classes were eligible for selection. Thus in a normal school year the college in Brussels would present six (or seven from 1620) plays, all of which were open to the public. In addition to these productions the Jesuits were also responsible for organizing additional spectacles for occasional events, such as entries of sovereigns, regents or new bishops; processions; commemorations of historic events; the 111  Goran Proot, ‘Augustine on Stage in the Southern Low Countries in the Early Modern Period’, in Augustine Beyond the Book: Intermediality, Transmediality and Reception, ed. Karla Pollmann and Meredith Jane Gill (Leiden: Brill, 2012), p. 111. 112  Werner Thomas, ‘Andromeda Unbound: The Reign of Albert and Isabella in the Southern Netherlands, 1598–1621’, in Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621, ed. Werner Thomas and Luc Duerloo (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), p. 10. 113  Margit Thøfner, ‘The Court in the City, the City in the Court: Denis van Alsloot’s depictions of the 1615 Brussels “ommegang”’, Netherlands Yearbook for the History of Art 49 (1998): 205. The ‘nations’ were a grouping of nine civic organizations representing the forty-eight craft guilds of the city. 114  Proot, ‘Augustine on Stage’, p. 117. 115  Proot, ‘Augustine on Stage’, p. 117.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

57

canonization of Jesuits, and the consecration of new buildings.116 The plays produced by each class were performed at set times throughout the year. The most advanced students who formed the rhetoric class performed first in either December or January. Students from the next level – poetry – produced their play at the beginning of Lent, with that of the syntax class presented after Easter. The grammar class followed a month later, with the figures class some time later again. After 1620 when the lowest level class – rudiments – was added, these students performed in either July or August.117 Therefore, the Brussels Jesuit college play produced in February 1614 for which there is documentation of the choreographic figures, was probably the play produced by the poetry class, that is, by more senior students. The play could have been produced to celebrate a one-off event, but this is unlikely, as in 1614 the Jesuit college in Brussels already produced an extra play; that is, a stupendous drama in honour of the canonization of Teresa of Avila.118 Mounting seven plays in one year, one of which was extremely elaborate, would be a heavy workload, without adding another occasional play. The play performed by the students at the Jesuit college on 9 February 1614 was written half in Latin, half in French, and retold episodes from the life of William IX, duke of Aquitaine (d. 1137).119 Now held in the Bodleian Library at Oxford,120 the manuscript contains not only the music from the play, but also the figures created by the dancers in Act 2. These figures occur in the Balet des onze Anges, and are interspersed with the music on ff. 66–69 of the manuscript. The figures are notated with the position of each dancer being represented by a small lozenge. The fifth and seventh figures spell out the names Jesus and Maria, while figures one to four, six, and eight to nine are the same, or very similar to figures recorded in the dance master’s notebook. The first figure is a cross, with dotted lines joining the eleven lozenges. It is almost identical to the ninth figure on f. 14r of the dance master’s notebook, also for eleven dancers and which is labelled as a cross (croi). The second figure from the Balet des onze Anges is a string of lozenges, and is exactly the same as the third figure on f. 15r, also for eleven dancers. The third figure from 116  Goran Proot, ‘Musique, danse et ballet dans le théâtre scolaire des jésuites de la Provincia Flandro-Belgica (1575–1773)’, Revue de la Société liègeoise de musicologie 27 (2008): 127. 117  Proot, ‘Musique, danse et ballet’, p. 126. 118  Proot, ‘Augustine on Stage’, pp. 118–9. 119  The title of this play is Comoedia D. Guilielmus Dux Aquitaniae. E. A. Francis, ‘Jeu de la conversion de Saint Guillaume d’Aquitaine’, Humanisme et Renaissance 4, no. 3 (1937): 293. 120  Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Add. A. 33. E. A. Francis concludes that the manuscript in the Bodleian ‘appears to be a presentation copy to Philip William, Prince of Orange, from the stamp on the side of the binding’. Francis, ‘Jeu de la conversion’, p. 293.

58

chapter 2

the 1614 Jesuit play is made up of two lozenges separated by a straight line in the middle. It is almost identical to the tenth figure for twelve dancers on f. 16r of the notebook that is labelled lozane. The only difference between these two figures is accounted for by the extra dancer in the figure from the notebook which has been added to the three dancers who already made up the straight line. The fourth dance figure from the Jesuit college play is also a string of two lozenges, but this time with a straight line at the bottom of the figure rather than in the middle. Once again the only difference between this figure and the third figure for ten dancers on f. 12v of the notebook is the number of dancers that make up the straight line. The sixth figure from the Balet des onze Anges also has dotted lines joining the positions of the eleven dancers, which help delineate the figure. This figure is most like the thirteenth figure for thirteen dancers on f. 18r, but rotated ninety degrees, and with only one dancer in the middle of the two ‘Vs’ rather than the three on f. 18r. The eighth and ninth figures from the Balet des onze Anges are based on a square, and so there is a number of ‘square’ figures in the dance master’s notebook that are almost identical. For example, the tenth figure for twelve dancers on f. 16v is the same as the eighth figure from the 1614 Jesuit play except that it has a dancer in front and behind the square, rather than just one in front. The figure in the dance master’s notebook that is closest to the ninth figure formed by the eleven angels is one for only six dancers; that is, the third figure on f. 6v. Once again we do not know who provided the choreography for the Balet des onze Anges; that is, whether the dance master responsible was employed by the college in a permanent position and gave dance lessons to the students on a regular basis, or whether the choreographer was employed just for the production of the play. Evidence from other centres, however, point to the employment of dance masters, who were also instrumentalists, on a casual basis in the early seventeenth century. For example, there are records from the Jesuit college in Lille from 1604 that document the presence of five instrumentalists who were employed by the town, but who also came to the college four or five times a week in order to provide dance classes for the students, and to play for the rehearsals of the next play.121 Given the similarity in the figures from these two manuscripts, it is tempting to hypothesize that the choreographer for the 121  Municipal records indicate that it is only in the second half of the seventeenth century that dance masters were employed in Jesuit colleges as more-or-less permanent employees. Margaret M. McGowan, L’art du ballet de cour en France 1581–1643 (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1963), p. 208. For further discussion on dancing in Jesuit dramas in France in the early seventeenth century, see pages 205–27 of this work.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

59

1614 Jesuit play in Brussels is the same person as the anonymous owner of the dance master’s notebook, but there is no concrete evidence on which to base such an hypothesis. All one can say for sure is that the Jesuit college in Brussels had access to a capable and competent dance master. It is worth noting that the lack of any choreographic attribution in the 1614 Brussels Jesuit play is not an unusual occurrence in the records of Jesuit college dramas at this time. For example, the Annali of the Jesuit seminary in Rome records information on the spectacles performed by their students every year from 1565 until 1647. For some of these productions dancing is mentioned in the Annali, but the name or names of a dance master is never recorded there.122 The plays produced by the Jesuit college in Brussels ranged from those with modest stage settings and properties to those for which no expense was spared. An example from the lavish end of the spectrum is a play produced in 1610 that included an artificial lake complete with giant swans.123 One would have to assume that the 1614 play on the life of William IX was closer to those produced according to a more modest scale, since there is only one ballet in the three acts of the play. Yet even these more modest plays provided regular opportunities for the Brussels public to see choreographed group dancing similar to what occurred in danced court spectacles to which they might not have had access.124 The Jesuits were not the only organization in Brussels that produced plays for the public: the Chambers of Rhetoric also did so. These organizations were found throughout the Low Countries from the first half of the fifteenth century onwards, in both large centres like Brussels and Antwerp, and in small towns as well. The Chambers of Rhetoric were essentially guilds, whose members were devoted to the writing, production, and performance of plays in the vernacular.125 The plays were often staged at local fairs and as part of the 122  Alessandra Sardoni, ‘“Ut in voce sic in gestu”: Danza e cultura barocca nei collegi gesuitici tra Roma e la Francia’, Studi musicali 25, nos. 1–2 (1996): 311. 123  Proot, ‘Augustine on Stage’, p. 118. 124  It is clear that audiences at the time did appreciate and enjoy the dancing that they saw in Jesuit productions, as illustrated by the 1613 play by the students at the Jesuit college in ‘s Hertogenbosch, where the audience members were ‘pleased by “the magnificent stage scenery and the ballet of dancing and singing tritons”’. Ingeborg de Cooman, ‘Dance and Ballet in Seventeenth-Century Theatre of the Southern Netherlands’, in Terpsichore, 1450– 1900: Proceedings of International Dance Conference Ghent, Belgium, 11–18 April 2000, ed. Barbara Ravelhofer (Ghent: Institute for Historical Dance Practice, 2000), p. 116. Cooman is quoting from M. A. Nauwelaerts, Latijnse school en onderwijs te ‘s Hertogenbosch tot 1629 (Tilburg: 1974), p. 303. 125  For a description of the organization of the Chambers of Rhetoric, the types of plays they performed, the performance spaces used, and their role in processions, entries and other urban rituals, see Anne-Laure van Bruaene, ‘ “A wonderfull tryumfe, for the wynnyng of a

60

chapter 2

celebration of the patron saint of the Chamber, as well as for the theatre competitions organized by the Chambers of Rhetoric.126 By the mid-sixteenth century, just before the start of the Dutch Revolt in 1566, Brussels had a population of around fifty thousand making it a substantial city,127 and boasted three Chambers of Rhetoric, whose members were recruited from the middle level of society: merchants, highly-skilled artisans such as painters and tapestry weavers, and shopkeepers.128 The Jesuit colleges and the Chambers of Rhetoric sometimes cooperated with each other, as, for example, in 1621–22 where the Jesuit college in Antwerp borrowed costumes from one of the Chambers of Rhetoric in that city, the Olijftak.129 Furthermore, just as the plays produced in the Jesuit colleges included figured dances by the students, so too did the Chambers of Rhetoric incorporate dancing into their productions. Documents concerning dancing in the three Chambers of Rhetoric in Brussels have survived from the end of the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century, but not for the early seventeenth century. Given the records surviving from Antwerp that document dancing in plays in the first half of the seventeenth century, it seems reasonable to conclude that a similar situation must have existed in Brussels in the early decades of the seventeenth century. From the records of the Antwerp Chambers of Rhetoric it is clear that during the first five decades of the seventeenth century dancing often occurred in plays that contained pastoral scenes, with dances by characters such as shepherds or nymphs, or in scenes of villagers dancing.130 At this time the dances were still performed by the actors, as had happened in the previous century, but from pryse”: Guilds, Ritual, Theater, and the Urban Network in the Southern Low Countries, ca. 1450–1650’, Renaissance Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2006): 374–405. 126  Van Bruaene, ‘“A wonderfull tryumfe”’, pp. 376 and 384. 127  Antwerp at the same time had a population of around ninety thousand, but Ghent and Amsterdam only had about thirty thousand and twenty-five thousand inhabitants respectively. See Margit Thøfner, A Common Art: Urban Ceremonial in Antwerp and Brussels during and after the Dutch Revolt (Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2007), p. 37. By comparison, in 1550 London’s population was similar to that of Brussels being around fifty-five thousand, but London’s population increased dramatically in the subsequent fifty years to reach a figure of about two hundred thousand in 1600, making it the third largest city in Europe behind Paris and Naples. But the rest of the urban centres in England c. 1600 were much smaller than Brussels, with the next three largest cities in England only having populations of fifteen thousand (Norwich) or twelve thousand (York and Bristol). See Jean E. Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy 1598–1642 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), p. 1. 128  Van Bruaene, ‘ “A wonderfull tryumfe” ’, pp. 382–3. 129  Cooman, ‘Dance and Ballet’, p. 116. 130  Cooman, ‘Dance and Ballet’, p. 117.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

61

1600 onwards the Chambers of Rhetoric hired professional musicians and/or dance masters to provide the choreography and to teach the dances to the actors.131 It is not until after 1650 that we find evidence of professional dancers being employed by the Chambers of Rhetoric in Antwerp, with dancers being hired from the city of Brussels, as well as other centres in the French-speaking Netherlands, or even further afield from France.132 In 1626 the Violieren, one of the three Chambers of Rhetoric in Antwerp, hired the musician and dance master Hans van der Briel to choreograph two dances for the play Sophonisba Africana, and then to teach these two dances to the eight actors who had to perform them.133 In one of these two dances the eight actors danced with torches. This information about the torches comes from a stage direction in a 1635 edition of the play,134 and it is worth noting because of the use of torch dances in court ballets and masques in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.135 Unfortunately, the 1635 edition of Sophonisba Africana does not provide any other information about the choreography of the torch dance, so we do not know what steps and floor patterns were employed in this dance, but its presence in the Violieren tragedy might point to the adoption by the Chambers of Rhetoric of some danced theatrical elements from court spectacles into their choreographic repertoire. The same play Sophonisba Africana also illustrates a further characteristic of the dances in the Chambers of Rhetoric plays; that is, the vast majority of the dances were for a group of performers, whether shepherds, peasants, or allegorical characters.136 Apart from simple dances in a circle or a line, choreographies for larger numbers of participants usually require more rehearsals in order to coordinate all the individual dancers’ movements around the dance space. Such dances also were far more likely to require someone to choreograph the movement patterns beforehand, and then to teach the dance to the performers. All of this points to the presence of a dance master. In spite of the lack of records concerning dance in the Brussels’ Chamber of Rhetoric plays in the early seventeenth century, it still seems a distinct possibility that these plays provided another opportunity for a dance master working in Brussels to gain employment, and for the citizens of Brussels to watch, and to participate in, choreographed group dances. 131  Cooman, ‘Dance and Ballet’, p. 119. 132  Cooman, ‘Dance and Ballet’, p. 120. 133  Cooman, ‘Dance and Ballet’, p. 115. 134  Cooman, ‘Dance and Ballet’, pp. 117–8. 135  See chapter 3 for a discussion of torch dances in court spectacles. 136  Cooman, ‘Dance and Ballet’, p. 124.

62

chapter 2

The Chambers of Rhetoric were also involved in local processions and in the performance of tableaux vivants during such processions. Dancing was a part of these processions, as illustrated by the local Holy Cross procession in the town of Bergen op Zoom. In the early sixteenth century the Chamber of Rhetoric in that city, the De Vreugdebloem had the responsibility for organizing, preparing and setting up, and coordinating the tableaux vivants and the dances for this procession, particularly the dance around the Golden Calf.137 Dance was still part of public processions one hundred years later, including the ommegang in Brussels. This procession was an important civic and religious ritual that in a symbolic form united the municipality despite all the political, social and religious tensions that were present in the city.138 The ommegang was a procession that involved all levels of society in Brussels, from ducal officials to artisans, the secular and religious clergy, members of the militia guilds, and members of the municipal government. In Brussels the number of citizens who took part in these processions were often as high as five thousand or more.139 The accounts of the Archduke Albert reveal that dancers were among the participants, as each year the Archduke paid forty-eight florins to sword dancers for their performance in the Brussels’ ommegang.140 Sword dances were very popular in the Southern Low Countries in the seventeenth century, and occurred in plays as well as in processions. For example, the play Vlaemsche Vrede-vrengd from 1659 by J. Lambrecht includes a sword dance by six performers to a sung accompaniment.141 The dance begins with the entry of Mars who dances for the first verse of the song. For the second verse Mars is joined by a Spaniard and a Frenchman, and the latter two continue to dance the sword dance. Then a Danish and a Swedish swordsman arrive, and all four dance to the third verse of the song. The fourth verse sees an English and a Flemish swordsman join the dance, which is now choreographed for six dancers.142

137  Van Bruaene, ‘ “A wonderfull tryumfe” ’, p. 386. 138  Thøfner, ‘The Court in the City’, p. 190. 139  Thøfner, A Common Art, p. 47. 140  Jean-Philippe van Aelbroeck, Dictionnaire des danseurs à Bruxelles de 1600 à 1830 (Liège: Mardaga, 1994), p. 16. The accounts that detail these payments are found in the Archives générales du Royaume, CC 1838. 141  The information on this sword dance is from Cooman, ‘Dance and Ballet’, p. 125. 142  Once again the stage directions for this play do not provide any specific choreographic information.

Dance in Early Modern Europe

63

11 Conclusion Even though the records of dance activity in Brussels in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries are not extensive, it is clear that the city enjoyed a thriving culture of music and dance, both in the city itself and in the court establishment. Brussels was a wealthy city, with its economic prosperity based on the production of luxury items, especially textile products such as tapestries, damask and lace, as well as furs and goldsmith’s ware. Along with Antwerp, it was a major commercial centre, and attracted many foreign merchants as well as musicians. Brussels was also the centre of the royal government of the Habsburg Netherlands, and so its population included courtiers and members of the ever-increasing bureaucracy.143 Charles V stayed in Brussels for several lengthy periods from 1540 to 1555; that is, in 1540, 1543 to 1544, 1548 to 1550 and 1554 to 1555. When Charles V was in residence his court numbered around two thousand five hundred persons, including servants.144 His successor Philip II arrived in Brussels in September 1555 and continued in residence until 1559. The Archdukes Albert and Isabella arrived in Brussels in 1599, with both remaining in the city until they died, Albert in 1621 and Isabella in 1633. Their court was international in character, with most of its positions being filled by Spaniards, but also with Italians, members of the local nobility, as well as English, Irish, Scottish and French exiles,145 and Germans who were employed as palace guards. Even though Brussels suffered under decades of warfare, the city and court were rich and diverse enough to support dance teaching. There were enough wealthy citizens who could afford to pay for dance lessons, and for musicians to accompany dancing at weddings and other festivities. Brussels and the Southern Low Countries were part of a common European dance tradition of the time, so much so that it surprised Marguerite de Valois when she visited Flanders in 1577.146 After Albert’s death in 1621 the court in Brussels contracted, and Isabella’s attention turned away from festivities to religious matters. After her death in 143  Thøfner, A Common Art, p. 38. 144  Harald Deceulaer, ‘Fashion, Innovation and Regional Distribution. The Clothing Trades in Brussels, Sixteenth – Eighteenth Centuries’, in Embracing Brussels. Art and Culture in the Court City, 1600–1800, ed. Katlijne van der Stighelen, Leen Kelchtermans and Koenraad Brosens (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), p. 23. 145  Paul Arblaster, ‘Antwerp and Brussels as Inter-European Spaces in News Exchange’, in The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe, ed. Brendan Maurice Dooley (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), p. 195. 146  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 9.

64

chapter 2

1633, however, the court in Brussels became home to a number of royal exiles, and the performance of court ballets recommenced. 1634 saw the Balet des Princes Indiens performed in honour of the new governor-general Ferdinand of Austria.147 Robert Ballard was responsible for the music for this ballet, and the dancers included noblemen from the Brussels’ court, as well as professional dancers.148 In the early 1630s there are records of the activities of the La Grené family of musicians and dance teachers,149 who were active in Brussels in teaching and performing over a number of decades. Thus as the seventeenth century progressed, so too did Brussels see its dance traditions continue to flourish. 147  For an extensive discussion of this ballet and its social and political context, see Stijn Bussels, ‘Le Balet de Princes Indiens 1634’, in Terpsichore, 1450–1900: Proceedings of International Dance Conference Ghent, Belgium, 11–18 April 2000, ed. Barbara Ravelhofer (Ghent: Institute for Historical Dance Practice, 2000), pp. 105–14. 148  Bussels, ‘Le Balet’, p. 109. 149  Stryckers, ‘Music and Music Production’, p. 73.

chapter 3

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks Scattered through the 122 folios of this collection of diverse material are outlines for six ballets.1 These outlines, or ballet plots, are not very long when compared to the published livrets (the printed programmes that were developed under Louis XIII), yet they do provide us with a substantial amount of information concerning danced dramatic spectacles from what appears to be a non-courtly environment. From their descriptions it is clear that the six are all ballet à entrées, that is, a danced dramatic work of separate parts, each of which was tied only loosely to the overall theme of the work as expressed in its title. The number of entrées in each of the six ballet plots is small, eight or less, and the number of dancers in each entrée is likewise small in number,2 although the Grand Ballet at the conclusion of each ballet is choreographed for either six, ten, twelve or fourteen dancers. Thus the size of these ballets means that they fall into the smallest of the three categories of ballets as described by Saint-Hubert in his 1641 La manière de composer et faire réussir les ballets, that has only ten to twelve entrées.3 The number of dancers in each of the entrées in these six ballet plots also agrees with Saint-Hubert’s dictum that the optimal number of dancers for an entrée lies between three and six.4 While the published ballet de cour livrets included the names and role of each performer in every entrée, this element is missing from the ballet plots recorded in the dance master’s notebook. Thus we do not know for whom these ballets were devised, or when and if they were performed, although the most logical assumption is that they were indeed enacted in a large hall. These ballet plots also share other features with the better-known ballets de cour from the French court, such as the use of machines or triumphal carts, the characters portrayed, the terminology employed by their author, the use of musicians and torchbearers, and the use of combative dancing as well as imitative dancing and mime. 1  A facsimile of the ballet plots is provided, while a transcription and an English translation can be found in Appendix 1. 2  In the ballets where the number of dancers for each entrée is clear, these numbers range from three to seven. 3  By comparison, royal ballets, the largest of his three categories, usually had thirty entrées. See Saint-Hubert, La manière de composer et faire réussir les ballets, trans. Andrée Bergens, ‘How to Compose a Successful Ballet’, Dance Perspective no. 20 (1964): 26. 4  Saint-Hubert adds that the entrées in large, spectacular ballets should have more than six dancers, as should a Grand Ballet. Saint-Hubert, La manière de composer, p. 29.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_005

66 1

chapter 3

Structure and General Characteristics of the Ballet Plots

One standard feature that recurs in four of these ballet plots is the entry of a triumphal chariot, which is pulled along either by cleverly constructed animals (a lion and a lioness, or seven unicorns, or two stags) or by three goddesses. The chariot is used as a means of facilitating the entrance of the main characters in the ballets, and also groups of costumed musicians. For example in the ballet L’enuie del’honneur del Amour fidelle de passioné a lutenist dressed as Orpheus sits playing in the chariot, while around the chariot more musicians appear playing various instruments and dressed as slaves from different countries. In the ballet of the Seven Virtues the triumphal cart is accompanied by musicians, and singers, the latter of whom include two singers dressed as nymphs who sing the subject of the ballet while the chariot processes around the hall. In the ballet De la fleur d’Amour there are musicians inside the chariot dressed as Pantalones who play duets with a singer at the front of the chariot representing an Angel. Sometimes the instrumentalists and singers are just designated as such, while at other times they are named by the character they represent: Orpheus, Pantalone, or slaves. In the latter case it is not made explicitly clear whether the people playing instruments are the same as those who perform a danced entrée later in the ballet. In the case of Orpheus he does not reappear again, but the four Pantalones and the slaves of every nation do return to dance their ballet, and thus open up the possibility that the people performing these roles were skilled in both music and dance, as opposed to having musicians appearing at the beginning of the ballet to be later replaced by dancers similarly costumed. Certainly in the French court ballets the performers were multi-skilled, so much so that one of the leading scholars on the ballet de cour Georgie Durosoir feels that the ability of the performers to move between the different disciplines required by the ballet de cour lay at the heart of this medium.5 The composer, violinist, dancer and choreographer Jacques de Montmorency, or Belleville as he was known to his contemporaries, is an excellent example of these multi-skilled artists. Belleville was the leader of the violons du cabinet (a smaller, elite group of musicians taken from the larger King’s Chamber) and he composed the string parts for the dance music of the ballet de cour for a

5  Georgie Durosoir, ‘Les compositeurs du ballet de La Délivrance de Renaud: l’art musical confronté aux exigences du ballet de cour’, in La Délivrance de Renaud. Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617, ed. Greer Garden (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), p. 56.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

67

number of years.6 In the ballet La Délivrance de Renaud Belleville is specifically named in the livret as the choreographic director of the dancers who portrayed the Demons invoked by Armide. Durand also adds the comment that Belleville was ‘generally in charge of all the music and dances for the ballet’.7 In the same ballet the celebrated character dancer Marais took the role of Armide, a role that involved both dancing and singing.8 Given the practices in the French court ballets, it therefore seems mostly likely that a similar situation existed for the performance of these ballets from the dance master’s notebook. Another recurring feature of the triumphal chariots is the figure of Fortune (f. 2r, f. 45r and f. 105v). In two of her three appearances Fortune appears carrying pennants which represent the principal characters: the seven virtues from the Ballet de sept Vertus and the male and female lovers from the ballet De la fleur d’Amour. In the latter, when the male and female lovers enter to dance their ballet towards the end of the spectacle, they dance while carrying a pennant in their hands. Thus one may conclude that the purpose of Fortune’s earlier entry and parade around the hall with these pennants was one method the choreographer used to inform the audience in advance of the characters that would appear later. While the six ballet plots share common elements, they are not all identical. The appearance of Fortune holding pennants is one example of this variability. In the ballet L’assaút fúrieux des dames a triumphal cart enters to begin the ballet. This time, however, Fortune is not one of the characters in or around the chariot. Yet in the Grand Ballet performed by the ladies and the most courageous warriors, each dancer carries a pennant. So for this ballet the tactic of using Fortune as a mobile and living livret was not employed by the choreographer. The number of characters sitting or standing on the triumphal carts also varies from just three (Orpheus, Fortune and the goddess Cypris; that is, Venus) to what must have been a rather crowded cart with Fortune, Mars, the Queen 6  Durosoir, ‘Les compositeurs du ballet’, p. 60. 7  ‘Belleuille (qui generallement auoit fait tous le Airs & toutes les dances du Ballet)’. Étienne Durand, Discours au vray du ballet dansé par le Roy (Paris: Pierre Ballard, 1617), f. 19r, trans. Charles T. Downey and Greer Garden, in La Délivrance de Renaud. Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617, ed. Greer Garden (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), p. 252. 8  For more information on Armide’s moving solo air ‘Quel subit changement’ which was composed by Guédron, see Greer Garden, ‘Vocal Music, Singers and Singing in La Délivrance de Renaud ’, in La Délivrance de Renaud. Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617, ed. Greer Garden (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 69–70, and for information on the other danced roles of Marais see Georgie Durosoir, ‘Illustre … et inconnu: quelques notes sur Marais’, in La Délivrance de Renaud. Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617, ed. Greer Garden (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 157–9.

68

chapter 3

of Sheba, four Pantalones, as well as an unspecified number of knights, and perhaps also a cupid and a singer dressed as an angel.9 Thus the size of these carts must have been relatively large in order to accommodate those being transported in them. This was certainly the case for the 1606 ballet staged to celebrate the marriage of Henri, duc de Bar with Margherita, daughter of Vincenzo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua. The ballet began with the entry of eight pages, each of whom carried two large torches of white wax. The pages were followed by a group of instrumentalists and a group of singers, the latter of whom were dressed as slaves and were attached to a triumphal chariot that they pretended to pull into the hall. The chariot carried twelve goddesses and a Cupid on the front.10 The account books reveal that the triumphal chariot was a substantial sixteen feet in length by twelve feet in width, (that is, 4.5m long by 3.4m wide).11 A further example of the variability in the ballet plots is the presence in half of the ballets of a group of pages, who enter, dance together, then retire from the hall. On one occasion the pages’ entrée begins the ballet, while in the other two ballets the pages dance later, nearer to the closing Grand Ballet. The lack of a consistent presence of the pages, as well as the changing position of their entrée, points to the flexible structure of these ballets. One wonders whether the presence or absence of dancing pages in these ballet plots is a small clue as to their performance context; that is, were the ballets with pages written to be performed for an environment in which a number of young dancers were readily available, while the ballet plots without the pages were created for a different context in which such a group of dancers was not present? Certainly entrées for pages or young children were a common feature of the ballet de cour, as is illustrated by the Ballet de la reine from 1605 and the Ballet de Madame ten years later. In the Mascarade des eschecs (1607) sixteen young children danced as pawns ‘very prettily’ ( fort joliment), with the first group of red pawns performing different figures and steps to the second group of white pawns,12 while in the 1619 Ballet de la reyne eight small boys danced together to imitate the contrary nature of the winds.13 9   Although the angel and cupid could be positioned in front of the chariot rather than in it. The text does not make this absolutely clear (S 253, f. 106r). 10  Paulette Choné and Jérôme de La Gorce, Fastes de cour au xviie siècle. Costumes de Bellange et de Berain (Oise: Éditions Monelle Hayot, 2015), p. 74. 11  Choné and La Gorce, Fastes de cour, p. 48. 12  Paul Lacroix, Ballets et masquerades de cour de Henri III a Louis XIV (1581–1652), 6 vols. (1868; facsimile reprint, Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1968), I: 167. 13  Paul Lacroix, Ballets et masquerades de cour de Henri III a Louis XIV (1581–1652), 6 vols. (Geneva: J. Gay et fils, 1868), II: 204.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

69

The flexibility in the structure of these ballet plots is highlighted by the way in which the ballets begin, a place where one might perhaps expect more consistency, even if only for an announcement of the subject of the ballet. Two ballets do begin with the entrance of singers who, through their songs, present the subject of the ballet to the audience. In one ballet this also happens, but only after the performance of the pages’ ballet. In the other three ballets there are no announcements or presentation of the subject at all: not at the beginning, nor at any time during the course of the ballet. Two of these three ballets begin with the entrance and parade of the triumphal chariot, where the characters are displayed before the audience. But in the Ballet des mineúrs des Paÿs there is no triumphal chariot, nor any other method of presenting the subject of the ballet to the audience, with the ballet commencing with the entrée of the miners. This latter ballet also has additional features that distinguish it from the five other ballet plots in the dance master’s notebook. For example, it is the only ballet plot in which no mention is made of musicians or singers in any capacity whatsoever. It is also the ballet with the greatest number of entrées – eight – and the only one which employs stage machinery, that is, a mechanical device representing a grotto, out of which emerge birds and small wild animals, followed by two satyrs and two wild moors, then finally six small dwarfs (f. 4r). One aspect of the ballet plots that is consistent, however, is the manner in which they finish. After the Grand Ballet there is a short phrase which states that they will dance whatever they feel like;14 that is, the dance performers and members of the audience dance together. It is interesting that the dance master does not specify exactly what dances were performed at this stage of the spectacle. One must assume, therefore, that the performers as well as audience members participated in the social dances that were commonly performed at balls. Certainly in Brussels in 1608 the social dancing that followed the ballet commenced with a branle. In 1585 Henri III set out not only which dances were to be danced at the balls held at the French court, but also the order in which they were to be performed; that is, pavanes, allemandes, branles, courantes, la volta and finally galliards.15 Similarly, the dancing that occurred during the revels in the English masques were the social dances currently enjoyed in the ballroom, such as the measures, galliards, corantos and la volta. These 14  The only ballet plot that does not end in this manner is the first one L’enuie de l’honneur de l’Amour, where the ending has been altered by the dance master. See chapter 1 for a discussion of this alteration. 15  David Potter and P. R. Roberts, ‘An Englishman’s View of the Court of Henri III, 1584–1585: Richard Cook’s “Description of the Court of France”’, French History 2, no. 3 (1988): 341.

70

chapter 3

dances were very familiar to the noble performers and to the members of the audience who partnered them, and this familiarity with the repertoire, the sequence of dances, and with the order of precedence that determined who danced with whom, allowed the revels to proceed without rehearsal and with some measure of spontaneity.16 The key difference between the social dancing that occurred as part of the English masques and in the French ballet de cour was that in England the social dancing was integrated into the masque, with the final main-masque dance being performed after the revels.17 In France the ball followed the completion of the ballet, and the ballet plots from the dance master’s notebook follow the French fashion in this regard. Yet the fact that a reference to the social dancing which occurred after the conclusion of the Grand Ballet is included in the ballet plots from the notebook is significant. These ballet plots were not fully developed livrets: they were several stages closer to the beginning of the production process, more like a summary than a complete description of a danced spectacle, and as such they lack a number of features that are commonly found in a typical livret.18 Therefore, the inclusion of a sentence referring to social dancing in these ballet plots is an indication of how essential social dancing was to the overall structure of a ballet de cour. 2

Torchbearers in the Ballet

The presence of torchbearers at some point or other is also a recurring feature of the ballet plots recorded in the dance master’s notebook. Three of these ballets include an entrée in which the dancers are holding torches, while in the other three ballets the torchbearers walk alongside the triumphal chariot as it parades around the hall. Torchbearers were used in sixteenth-century English masques as one method of providing additional lighting to illuminate the dancers and the dancing space. They were also employed to add to the display of brilliance and splendour and to help create a sense of wonder in the minds of the spectators.19 By the early seventeenth century their presence had become less frequent and from 1613 torchbearers also performed as

16  For a discussion of how the revels were organized and managed, see Anne Daye, ‘ “Youthful Revels, Masks, and Courtly Sights”: An Introductory Study of the Revels within the Stuart Masque’, Historical Dance 3, no. 4 (1996): 15–9. 17  Daye, ‘Youthful Revels’, p. 10. 18  See below in the section entitled ‘What is left out of the ballet plots’ where this question is considered in detail. 19  Anne Daye, ‘Torchbearers in the English Masque’, in Early Music 26, no. 2 (1998): 247.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

71

dancers in the English masques.20 Similarly, in the masquerades at the French court pages would often enter carrying torches or candles and then arrange themselves around the performance space so as to provide an even lighting for the rest of the performers.21 When expense was not a consideration beeswax candles were used instead of tallow ones, as the former provided greater illumination while burning more cleanly with less smoke, thus making them more desirable for use in masques.22 Illuminating an entry of aristocratic dancers by torches of white wax ensured that there was much less smoke haze, and the dancers’ costumes were brighter and had greater visual impact. As mentioned previously, the ballet held at Nancy in 1606 began with the entry of eight pages each of whom carried two torches of white wax. The costume designs by Jacques Bellange for this ballet include images of two pages with their white wax torches.23 Both these designs convey a visually stunning impression with the elaborately and sumptuously decorated costumes of the pages from their headgear to their shoes, and with the large torches they hold in each hand. It is interesting to note that both pages are wearing flexible but sturdy gloves in order to protect their hands from any dripping wax, which is shown as running down the sides of the torches. In this ballet the pages do not dance, but in other early seventeenth-century ballets de cour there are examples of dancers entering carrying torches and then continuing to dance with their torches. In the 1605 Ballet de la reine, for example, twelve pages enter ‘each holding two white torches in his hands, dressed in incarnat and white, wearing little white boots covered in tinsel, making a thousand passages and figures’.24 Danced spectacles were also a common practice at the Spanish royal court from the mid-sixteenth century onwards,25 and the Spanish spectacles shared the practice of using pages carrying torches. The performance at Valladolid in 1605 to 20  Daye, ‘Torchbearers’, p. 260. 21  Melinda J. Gough, ‘Marie de Medici’s 1605 ballet de la reine: New Evidence and Analysis’, in Early Theatre 15, no. 1 (2012): 129, ftn. 1. 22  Barbara Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume and Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 164. 23  The designs are reproduced in full colour on pages 76 and 77 of Choné and La Gorce, Fastes de cour. 24  ‘douze pages avec deus flambeaux blancs chascun en leur mains uestues dincarnat et blanc portant de petites botines blanches couvertes de clinquan faissant mille passages et figures’. See Gough, ‘Marie de Medici’s 1605 ballet de la reine’, p. 123 for the original French text and p. 129 for Gough’s translation. This account of the 1605 ballet is from an unsigned letter written by an audience member. The manuscript is now held in Carpentras, Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, MS 1794, ff. 429r–430v. 25  Mark Hutchings and Berta Cano-Echevarría, ‘Between Courts: Female Masquers and Anglo-Spanish Diplomacy, 1603–5’, in Early Theatre 15, no. 1, (2012): 97.

72

chapter 3

celebrate the ratification of the peace treaty between Spain and England, for example, started with an initial song, then the entry into the hall of thirty musicians all playing their instruments followed by twenty-four pages carrying lanterns.26 Once this procession had reached its proper place in front of the four-year old Infanta, twenty-eight ladies and gentlemen appeared in a gallery, all carrying candles. Once all twenty-eight had been lowered to the floor of the hall via a mechanical cloud, the group performed a dance with their candles still in their hands.27 Cesare Negri published two theatrical torch dances in his treatise Le gratie d’amore in 1602, the Ballo fatto da sei dame and the Ballo fatto da sei cavalieri. While we cannot determine the precise relationship between Negri’s choreographic practice and that employed in the ballets I have just been discussing, his choreographies do provide one model of what was possible for dancers to perform while carrying a large burning torch. Negri’s choreographies include far more than simple processing in a line. The dancers execute jumps, cross diagonally, and weave around each other in hays, with each crossing movement necessitating a change of the torch from one hand to the other in order to present the appropriate ‘empty’ hand to the next approaching dancer. Thus these six ballet plots from the dance master’s notebook present both stages in the changing usage of torchbearers as identified by Anne Daye in regard to English Tudor and Stuart masques. In half of the ballets the torchbearers do not dance, but are mobile light towers for the procession of the cart, musicians and other characters around the hall. In the other three ballets the torchbearers are dancers who perform an entrée while holding their torch, thus creating what must have been stunning ribbons of light. Even when the torchbearers were not dancing the effect of massed candles was to increase the sense of splendour for the audience, as Beaujoyeulx emphasizes in his description of the Balet comique de la royne. In addition to these lights, [twenty-four large tapers of white wax carried by twelve pages] around the edge of the basin, the seats, and the dolphins of the fountain, there were a hundred tapers of white wax, each two feet long. All this splendour converted the darkness of the night into a great joyous light and made the water of the fountain, represented by gold and silver, dazzle the eyes of the spectators by its brilliance.28 26  Hutchings and Cano-Echevarría, ‘Between Courts’, p. 101. 27  Hutchings and Cano-Echevarría, ‘Between Courts’, p. 102. 28  Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx, Le Balet comique de la royne, 1581, trans. Carol and Lander MacClintock (np: American Institute of Musicology, 1971), p. 49. ‘Outre lesquelles

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

73

The effect of torchlight, whether fixed or mobile, on the costumes of the dancers is highlighted by Étiènne Durand’s description of Louis XIII’s costume as the Demon of Fire in the ballet La Délivrance de Renaud. [H]is flames were enamelled and made with such skill that fire itself was rendered more striking through them, as the beams of light from the room’s countless torches were directed upon them, and those watching them received their reflection. His mask and headdress were made in the same manner as his costume, and were it not for the extreme gentleness of his actions, one would have thought that from that moment His Majesty had covered himself with fire in order to consume his enemies.29 Exactly how many candles were used in the 1617 ballet is not recorded, but two years earlier a description of the Ballet de Madame records that the Great Hall of the Bourbon palace was lit with 1,200 white wax candles.30 In addition to these candles that were fixed on ‘consoles and silver brackets’,31 the first entrée was performed by nine children each of whom carried two torches, and whose dance provided a moving light display. Each of these little children bore on his head four great lights and in his hands two great torches that flared from the wrists upwards, which meant that the flame was a good two feet high, without there being, however, any spark from it and without its in the least way troubling those who were carrying them…. The vessels in which the torches were placed lumieres, au circuit des bassins, chaires & dauphins de la fontaine y auoit cent fla[m]beaux de cire blanche, de deux pieds de longueur: toute laquelle splendeur con­ uertissoit l’obscurité de la nuict en vne ioyeuse & grande clairté, & faisoit que l’eau de la fontaine representee par l’or & l’argent, esblouissoit par son estincelleme[n]t les yeux des regardans’. Facsimile ed., Margaret M. McGowan, ed. (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), p. 17r. 29  ‘& ses flammes estoyent esmaillées & faites auec vn tel artifice, que le feu mesmes se rendoit plus esclatant par elles, lors que les rayons des flambeaux innombrables de la salle estoyent adressez dessus, & que ceux qui les regardoyent en reçeuoyent la reflexion. Son masque & sa coiffure estoyent de mesme composition que son habit, & n’eust esté la douceur extresme de ses actions on eust creu que deslors sa Majesté s’estoit couuerte de feu pour consommer ses ennemis’. Durand, Discours au vray, f. 6r, trans. Downey and Garden, in La Délivrance de Renaud, p. 246. 30  An anonymous contemporary description of this ballet is found in the publication Description du Ballet de Madame (Lyon: Yvrad, 1615). Sections from this account have been translated in William D. Howarth, ed., French Theatre in the Neo-Classical Era, 1550–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 95–9. 31   Description du Ballet de Madame, trans. in Howarth, ed., French Theatre, p. 96.

74

chapter 3

were glided, and while the children danced it seemed as if it was not they that were there, but just lights that were continually changing position.32 3

Characters of the Ballet Plots

The characters in the ballet plots from the dance master’s notebook represent familiar figures: gods and goddesses, nymphs, lovers, knights, war-like females, satyrs, moors, Pantalones, dwarfs, slaves from every nation, as well as miners, dancing storks and unicorns. For example, slaves were a common character in the ballets performed at the court of Lorraine in Nancy in the years 1602, 1603 and 1606.33 One of the entrées in the 1610 Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme, for example, is performed by a group of dwarfs, who, armed with a mace and shield, engage in combat among themselves. The same ballet also features dances by different groups of twelve nymphs, twelve knights and three Turkish slaves, characters who also make their appearance in the ballet plots from the notebook, as well as a young Moor who directs the dancing in the first entrée. While the range and type of characters described in these six ballet plots are similar to those found in contemporary ballets from the French court, the latter possessed far more coherent, well-developed narratives which tied together such a diverse medley of characters. The six ballet plots recorded in the dance master’s notebook, however, are far more skeletal and simple, with only a loose connection, or sometimes none at all, between one entrée and the next. Often one group of dancers will follow a second group with the only connection between these two groups being that they engage in combat with one another. For example in the Ballet des mineúrs, the six dwarfs perform a victory dance, after which the dwarfs remain in the hall, but with their backs to the door through which a group of storks will enter. The dwarfs then turn around, and seeing the storks coming towards them, charge at the storks and the two groups engage in danced combat, with the dwarfs eventually driving the storks from the hall. The storks do not re-appear, nor do they appear to have any other relationship to other characters in the ballet. Even when gods such as Saturn or Mars, or goddesses such as Venus or Minerva appear, they do not have any impact on the plot.

32   Description du Ballet de Madame, trans. in Howarth, ed., French Theatre, p. 97. 33  Choné and La Gorce, Fastes de cour, p. 75.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

4

75

Choreographic Descriptions

The quantity and detail of the choreographic description also varies between the six ballet plots recorded in the dance master’s notebook. Two of the six ballet plots only record that a group of characters will ‘enter and dance their ballet’.34 The other four ballet plots are slightly more generous in what they reveal about the choreography, with the most persistent reference to the dance performers as ‘dancing their figures’. It is clear that entrances into, and exits out of, the hall were to be made in figures, as were the rest of the entrée, as for example, in the ballet De la fleur d’Amour. Then the female lovers will hold a palm branch in their hands with a taffeta pennant in the colours of their male lovers, with a sun and stars on it, and they will all enter in figures, and they continue until the end of the ballet (f. 106r). Earlier in this ballet the entrée of the four Pantalones, Franchescina and Isabella is similarly described as ‘a ballet of grimaces with figures, after which, all still in figures, they will leave the hall’ (f. 106r). Thus it is clear from these six ballet plots that their choreographies were constructed around geometric shapes and patterns, not only for more ‘abstract’ dances like those of the female lovers that do not have an obvious narrative, but also for those choreographies which depict combat, or involve mimed actions. This is clearly demonstrated by the entrée of the miners, where ‘at the end of [their entrée] they will turn their backs to the doors as the mechanical device representing a mountain in the shape of a grotto will enter. And as the miners turn around they will act astonished, still dancing their figures, and will then come and surround the mountain in order to work with their tools and to discover what is inside [it]’ (f. 4r). The references to danced figures in the ballet plots from the notebook are very similar to the descriptions of other ballets de cour, as well as to late sixteenth-century French court fêtes and English masques. Geometric figures, squares, circles, triangles, groups of dancers forming each letter of a noble’s name, continually changing panoramas of shapes dissolving one into another, are all characteristic of the accounts of these spectacles. For example, Durand’s livret of the 1617 La Délivrance de Renaud comments several times

34  For example, in the ballets L’enuie de l’honneur de l’Amour, and de sept Vertus (S 253, f. 4r–v and f. 45r).

76

chapter 3

on the ‘beauty of their figures’ (la beauté de leurs figures)35 and how much the spectators appreciated the beautiful dances, the varied figures and the playful movements.36 Similar references to danced figures also occur in the description of the entrées from the 1610 Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme, while the Grand Ballet from the 1581, Le Balet comique de la royne, is described as having ‘forty passages or geometrical figures. These were all exact and well-planned in their shapes, sometimes square, sometimes round, in several diverse fashions; then in triangles accompanied by a small square and other small figures’.37 On other occasions the figures formed by the dancers were letters spelling out the name of the person in whose honour the festivity was being held. When the ballet was part of wedding celebrations the dancers could also form the initials of the bridal couple, as happened in 1606 at Nancy when the twelve masked ladies descended from the triumphal chariot and commenced their ballet, whose choreography included the depiction of the initials of the bride and groom, that is, ‘M’ and ‘H’.38 Thus a canon of dance figures and letters such as is recorded in the dance master’s notebook was a flexible and dynamic tool in the creative resources of the dance masters of the day. Figures were obviously used as a method of creating the appearance of continuous shifting movements, of dissolving and re-forming patterns and shapes which amazed and delighted the audience. What is not revealed, or commented upon, in these choreographic descriptions is the steps employed by the dancers. Even though sixteenth and early seventeenth-century French dance masters did not describe or record their choreographies in terms of step sequences and movement directions to anywhere near the same extent as did the late sixteenth-century Italian dance masters Fabritio Caroso and Cesare Negri, steps are mentioned in some of the descriptions of the ballet de cour. Sometimes the reference to steps is very general, as in the Grand Ballet that concluded the 1615 Ballet de Madame, where the fifteen noble ladies varied each musical air of the Grand Ballet 35  Durand, Discours au vray, f. 9r, trans. Downey and Garden, in La Délivrance de Renaud, p. 247. 36  See Durand, Discours au vray, ff. 6r, 7r, 8r and 25r, trans. Downey and Garden, in La Délivrance de Renaud, pp. 246, 247 and 254. 37  Beaujoyeulx, Le Balet comique, trans. Carol and Lander MacClintock, p. 90. ‘danserent le grand Balet à quarante passages ou figures Geometriques: & icelles toutes iustes & considerees en leur diametre, tantost en quarré, & ores en rond, & de plusieurs & diuerses façons, & aussi tost en triangle, accompagné de quelque autre petit quarré, & autres petites figures’. Facsimile ed., McGowan, ed., pp. 55v–56r. 38  Choné and La Gorce, Fastes de cour, p. 73.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

77

with different steps.39 In this account there is no indication of what these steps were, but at other times specific steps are mentioned, such as caprioles, entrechats, a demy sault rond, and other different jumps starting from one foot or from both feet.40 At other times the word ‘step’ is qualified by different adjectives; for example, grave and sweet (grave & doux), rapid (prompt), slow (à pas lent), light (lèger), low and strong (bas & fort), and ‘sometimes elevated, sometimes close to the ground’ (tantost par haut, tantost par terre).41 It is also clear that dance masters of the period believed that certain steps were appropriate when forming certain figures while other steps were not. This is illustrated by the entrée of the two pots de fleurs and two hiboux from the 1610 Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme. The flower pots enter first and when the owls enter they do so with ‘slow steps, making a semblance of jumping’ (lesquels marchans à pas lent, faisant semblant de sauter).42 The two owls then join the flower pots, although they dance different steps from those the latter did, and the owls ‘do not allow their steps to agree with their figures’ (ils ne laissoient pas de s’accorder à leurs figures).43 The necessity for dance steps and gestures to be in harmony, or agreement, with the accompanying music, the costumes of the dancers, and in social dancing particularly, the gender of the dancer, is a long-held principle that goes back to the fifteenthcentury Italian dance treatises. A constant refrain in Guglielmo Ebreo’s dance treatise is that in order to be eloquent the bodily movements of a dancer had to be in harmony with the steps and gestures performed and with the clothes he or she was wearing. Movements that would look dignified and seemly when dancing in a long garment would appear slightly ridiculous when dancing in a short tunic. Similarly, the jumps, turns and flourishes that appear elegant when wearing a short garment would have the opposite effect if observed on a dancer in a long tunic. Two hundred years later the same principle of harmony still existed. Saint-Hubert was most insistent that the choreographed dance steps must be appropriate to the music that accompanied each entrée, and to the character being represented.44 Mesura (‘measure’ or ‘proportion’) was one of the fundamental principles of the quattrocento Italian dance practice, and the word was often used to 39   Description du Ballet de Madame, trans. in Howarth, ed., French Theatre, p. 99. 40  For example in the 1605 Ballet de la reine and in the 1610 Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme. 41  All these examples occur in the Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme. 42   Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme (Paris: Jean de Heuqueville, 1610), p. 19. 43   Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme, p. 19. 44  Saint-Hubert, La manière de composer, p. 29.

78

chapter 3

describe dancing in a variety of sources from the fifteenth century onwards.45 That this principle was still important in the dance practice of the early seventeenth century is illustrated by its appearance in the description of the danced combat in the Ballet des mineúrs from the dance master’s notebook. In this ballet plot six small dwarfs emerge from the mountain, each carrying a cutlass in his hand. The dwarfs then charge at the miners and chase them from the hall, with the admonition that ‘all this is to be done in good rhythm (cadence, that is, with the dancers’ movements in time with the music), mesura, and in danced figures’ (f. 4r). Given that not a great deal of choreographic information is provided by these ballets plots, what is included is significant. 5

Gestures, Masks and the Portrayal of Emotions

One way in which dance masters encoded meaning at the macro-level of their choreographies was through the use of geometric shapes and figures and the spelling out of names. Geometric figures, either planes or solids, were one way of representing the cosmos. The figure of a square, for instance, represented the earth, while a circle represented the divine world, while the triangle (or pyramid) represented the path from one world to the other: movement from the physical, sensual life to an intellectual understanding of the divine realm. In addition to these uses, danced figures were also employed as the basis of imitative, pantomimic dancing in which specific situations and specific emotions were depicted. Indeed it is clear from the information recorded in the six ballet plots from the dance master’s notebook that their choreographer used various means to create and convey meaning in the dances: shapes and figures, arm and hand gestures and mimed actions. One illustration of this is the entrée of the malcontents, ‘who will dance their ballet, all using different grimaces, all in figures and with a number of signs and in a number of [different] ways’ (f. 117r). Unlike today where the word ‘grimace’ is commonly taken to mean an exaggerated or distorted facial expression, in the choreographic sources from the first half of the seventeenth century the word is used more widely to describe extravagant gestures, mostly performed with the arms, but sometimes with the legs. The word occurs frequently in the ballets de cour from the 1630s, but, as we can see from the anonymous dance master’s ballet plots, and from other 45  For further discussion on the principles of misura and gratia and their significance in the fifteenth-century Italian dance treatises, see Jennifer Nevile, The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 76–80, 84–6.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

79

ballet livrets circa 1600 to 1620, these types of gestures also occurred in the earlier ballets. In the ballets from the first two decades of the seventeenth century the word ‘grimace’ is used in relation to grotesque or burlesque characters. The word occurs by itself, as well as with other words which describe actions or steps; for example, grimaces, capers and entrachats,46 jumping and grimacing,47 and gestures and grimaces.48 In the ballet plots recorded in the dance master’s notebook the word ‘grimace’ also occurs in conjunction with different figures. One has to conclude, therefore, that the performance of whatever extravagant gestures was indicated by the term ‘grimaces’ had limits, and these gestures could not have been so extreme as to distort, obscure or hinder the formation of the different geometrical shapes and patterns. It was almost universally the case that male dancers wore masks, as did the musicians who provided the music for the ballet. Female figures wore masks much less frequently. One occasion we know that the twelve noble ladies were masked was in 1606 at the ballet performed in honour of the LorraineGonzaga marriage. After their ballet was concluded, the twelve ladies removed their masks and returned to sit on the dais with the invited princes.49 While the use of masks by dancers would have obscured changes in facial expression, this did not mean that an array of blank, expressionless features was seen by those watching. As Paulette Choné reminds us when describing the masks seen in the costume designs of Bellange, these masks appear malleable, almost living, and truly expressive of the character that the dancer was portraying.50 Unfortunately, one cannot state definitely whether the dancers and musicians of the ballet plots from the notebook were masked or not, since the ballet plots do not mention masks at all. Yet these outlines do not discuss any aspect of the performers’ costumes in great detail, and so it is entirely possible that the performers followed the usual practice and wore masks. Throughout the early modern period dance, through its connection to music and through the continuation of classical beliefs linking outward movement to interior spiritual states, was inextricably linked to emotion. The emotional content of the choreographies composed during this period was complex, and operated on multiple levels, both in social dances and in theatrical danced spectacles. Often it was the combination of multiple choreographic elements in a single dance that created the portrayal of emotions. This is illustrated 46  These terms all occur in the 1605 Ballet de la reine. 47  These terms all occur in the Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme. 48  These terms all occur in the Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme. 49  Choné and La Gorce, Fastes de cour, p. 74. 50  Choné and La Gorce, Fastes de cour, pp. 128–33.

80

chapter 3

in the victory dance by Diana and her nymphs over Cupid and his followers from the 1575 masquerade by Pierre de Brach. The joy of the victors is expressed through lively, energetic steps – hops and jumps – gestures like hand-clapping and foot-stamping, a multitude of rapid, ever-changing patterns and figures, and a series of complicated interactions between the dancers.51 That the depiction of specific emotions by the dancers was just as important to the anonymous dance master as it was to de Brach, is confirmed by the fact that the ballet plots found in the notebook often mention the emotional state of the dancers: the astonishment of the miners, the joy of the dwarfs at their victory over the storks, the wild and furious nature of the dancing of the ladies from the ballet L’assaút fúrieux des dames. In this last case, the emotions portrayed by the dancers are also revealed by several choreographic elements: gestures, grimaces, and other signs with the dancers’ arms and hands. 6

What Is Left Out of the Ballet Plots

As mentioned previously, the six ballet plots in the notebook are closer to frameworks rather than complete descriptions of a danced spectacle. Various elements of performance are either not mentioned, or are only briefly described. One element which receives short shrift is the music for the ballets. While musicians are mentioned, both instrumentalists and singers, there are no details as to how many musicians were present, nor what instruments they played, with the exception of the musician costumed as Orpheus playing the lute. Late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century danced spectacles at the French court employed large groups of musicians. For example, the 1615 Ballet de Madame employed ‘thirty-four musicians from the King’s Chamber and Chapel’,52 while the 1581 Balet comique de la royne utilized forty singers 51  ‘en dançant vn balet gay, inuenté tout a propos, ores s’entre-faisants sauter l’vne l’autre, ores s’entre-frappans des mains, puis des pieds, ta[n]tost se tenans d’vne main seulement, puis des deux ensemble, ores elles tournoyoient comme en rouë d’vne vitesse presque incroyable, auec vne infinité de passages, cadances, & mesures, coup sur coup entrecoupées, qui ne se peuuent representer qu’en les voya[n]t a l’oeil’, Pierre de Brach, Les Poèmes, (Bordeaux: Simon Millanges, 1576), p. 195v. For an extensive discussion of this masquerade, see Margaret M. McGowan, ‘Recollections of Dancing Forms from SixteenthCentury France’, Dance Research 21, no. 1 (2003): pp. 17–23, and Jasmine Dawkins, ‘Provincial entertainment in the Renaissance: “Le Triomphe de Diane” by Pierre de Brach’, Nottingham French Studies 8, no. 1 (1969): 3–15. 52  Garden, ‘Vocal music, singers and singing’, p. 68.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

81

and instrumentalists,53 which included ‘lutes, harps, flutes, violins and other instruments’,54 although different combinations of instruments and voices were employed at different times in any such spectacle. For the dance music in the Balet comique de la royne, for example, Beaujoyeulx specified ten violins, by which he meant ten instruments belonging to the violin family; that is, violins, violas and bass violins, which were tuned a tone lower than violoncellos.55 In the ballet La Délivrance de Renaud the musical forces were much larger than those employed in 1581 and 1615. For example, the ensemble that was positioned among the foliage of Armide’s garden comprised sixty-four voices, twenty-eight viols and fourteen lutes.56 Towards the end of the ballet two ensembles played together which meant that an even larger group was heard, that is, ninety-two singers and forty-five instrumentalists.57 Furthermore, there is no mention of specific airs or choruses in the ballet plots recorded in the dance master’s notebook – even when singers enter in order to present the subject of the ballet to the audience the verses that they sang are not recorded. This state of affairs is slightly unusual in that vocal music was normally a part of the ballets de cour, providing both a break for the audience between the entrées, and also at times heightening the dramatic content of the spectacle.58 The 1608 ballet Les noces de Psyché et de Cupidon performed in front of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella had songs interspersed with the dances. In this case the songs served to introduce the next group of dancers (the Hours and six small cupids), or to reinforce the theme of the ballet; that is, the triumph of true love. Even in more impromptu danced theatrical events outside of the French court, such as the masquerade performed in 1575 in honour of Diane de Foix, comtesse de Gurson, words and songs played an important part, as the masquerade’s creator Pierre de Brach explains. 53  Carol MacClintock, Introduction to Le Balet comique de la royne, 1581, by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx, trans. Carol and Lander MacClintock (np: American Institute of Musicology, 1971), p. 19. 54  Beaujoyeulx, Le Balet comique, trans. Carol and Lander MacClintock, p. 48. ‘ioüans de lyres, lutz, harpes, flustes, & autres instrumens’. Facsimile ed., McGowan, ed., p. 17r. 55  Jeremy Barlow, ‘Honneur a la dance: A Choreographic Analysis of Le Premier Ballet in Le Balet Comique de la Royne’, in Terpsichore, 1450–1900: Proceedings of International Dance Conference Ghent, Belgium, 11–18 April 2000, ed. Barbara Ravelhofer (Ghent: Institute for Historical Dance Practice, 2000), p. 66. 56  Durand, Discours au vray, f. 3r, trans. Downey and Garden, in La Délivrance de Renaud, p. 245. 57  Durand, Discours au vray, f. 22v, trans. Downey and Garden, in La Délivrance de Renaud, p. 253. 58  Garden, ‘Vocal music, singers and singing’, p. 67.

82

chapter 3

He emphasizes that the verses and songs explain ‘the nature of the action, [participate] in the emotions roused by the mime and the dance’, and reinforce the victory of Diana over Cupid, that is, the triumph of Chastity over Love.59 For the French court ballets the composers of such songs were often celebrated musicians, such as Pierre Guédron and Antoine de Boësset, but in the ballet plots from the notebook no musicians or composers are named, nor are any song texts recorded. Yet it is clear from the presence in the dance master’s notebook of vocal airs from several ballets de cour performed at the French court in the second decade of the seventeenth century, that the omission of any reference to vocal airs in the six ballet plots was not due to ignorance of the prevailing norms on the part of the dance master. Rather their absence supports my hypothesis that these ballet plots are closer to a summary of a ballet that contained the broad outline of the action and the nature of the entrées, and which could be presented to the person who had commissioned the spectacle for their approval. The requirement for a draft or outline of a dance master’s ideas for his proposed choreographies to present to the royal, or noble, instigator of a danced spectacle must have been common, especially given the royal interest in the creation of danced spectacles, as well as in their performance in them. This very procedure Beaujoyeulx claims happened in the creation of the Balet comique de la royne, where the queen of France ordered him ‘to draw up a plan for her’ (luy dresser quelque dessein). Beaujoyeulx continues: ‘When I had written it [the plan] out I immediately went back to the court to present it to the Queen…. Her Majesty, after having me read the discourse in the presence of several princesses and ladies who were with her – when my work had been examined, commanded me to carry out my plan forthwith’.60 Furthermore, two such drafts have survived in the papers of Georg Rudolf Weckherlin, who had made a successful career as an author and producer of danced spectacles for the Duke of Württemberg’s court at Stuttgart from 1616 to 1618. As part of his duties as secretary to the Duke, Weckherlin not only created several ballets but he also produced detailed accounts of the festivals in these three years.61 By 59  McGowan, ‘Recollections of Dancing Forms’, p. 21. 60  Beaujoyeulx, Le Balet comique, trans. Carol and Lander MacClintock, p. 35. ‘finablement ie m’ arrestay sur le dessein, qui depuis a esté mis à execution: lequel ayant redigé par escript, ie retournay aussi tost en Cour, le presenter à la Royne,…. Saditte maiesté m’en aya[n]t deslors faict lire le discours, en la presence de plusieurs princesses & dames qui se trouuerent pres d’elle: & mon œuure ayant esté examiné, saditte maiesté me commanda de promptement l’executer’. Facsimile ed., McGowan, ed., pp. 2r–v. 61  Sara Smart, ‘The Württemberg Court and the Introduction of Ballet in the Empire’, in Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe, 2 vols., ed. J. R.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

83

1627 Weckherlin had moved to England where he was employed as secretary to Lord Conway, the then Secretary of State. In the period between 1627 and 1633 Weckherlin composed two drafts for a masque he had devised for the queen, Henrietta Maria. The first draft for the proposed masque is entitled Le Subiect d’un Ballet, and what it contains is similar to the anonymous dance master’s ballet plots. The amount of detail provided on the performers’ costumes and the lack of any awareness of the audience or the latter’s reaction to the performance compared to the published contemporary livrets, also supports the hypothesis that the ballet plots are just a summary or outline. The livret for the Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme, one of the largest and most spectacular ballets of the early seventeenth century, for example, provides an enormous amount of detail concerning the costumes of all the dancers, down to the types of fabrics used and details of decorations. In fact, far more pages in the livret are devoted to a description of the costumes than to the choreographic description. In the ballet plots from the dance master’s notebook, however, the attention given to the costumes is much less than in the 1610 publication. Important features are noted, such as the malcontents’ costumes covered with painted tears, hats like wide dishes, and small boots; the weapons carried by the dwarfs; or essential props such as the mirrors borne by the miners that are used to dazzle and subdue the dwarfs, Venus’s bow and arrows; and the symbols that adorn the pennants carried by the furious ladies and the courageous warriors, and by the male and female lovers. Other costumes, however, go completely unmentioned. For example, no details are provided of the costumes worn by the five female courtiers, nor of the costumes of the storks. For the latter there is no mention of any masks, or the materials from which the costumes were constructed (whether, for example, they were covered in feathers to simulate the appearance of real storks). Even for the court ladies (or perhaps courtesans) from five different countries there is no mention of the fabrics or metal decorative threads used, the colours and decoration of the costumes, or if any jewels were worn. In other ballet de cour descriptions, even when the author obviously did not wish to go into such detail as is found in the 1610 ballet, there is still an attempt to describe in general terms the splendour of the costumes worn by royalty, as, for example, in the Ballet de la reine from 1605. Here the author says it is impossible to adequately describe the costumes of the queen and the princesses, but all he can say is that ‘on their costumes, Mulryne, Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly and Margaret Shewring (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), II: 35.

84

chapter 3

which were carnation and white, one saw only diamonds, pearls, gem ornaments, precious stones, and jewels. Seeing it, you would have said that they were covered with stars. All was only light, brightness, flames, suns. In brief, the rays from their costumes blinded the eyes of the spectators’.62 The livret of the 1617 La Délivrance de Renaud provides a very clear example of the way the published livrets often mediated between the performance itself and those who observed it. Throughout the description of this ballet de cour, Durand notes the effect the dancing had on the spectators, in passages such as ‘their entrée was ornamented with such beautiful dances, such varied figures, and such playful movements that they left those who saw them with the belief that they would be unable to see anything better’, or ‘the beauty of their figures almost made us forget what we had admired before, and everyone hardly knew what to take pleasure in, for having had too much enjoyment’.63 Durand writes as a spectator himself, recounting a performance that has occurred in the recent past. By comparison, the six ballet plots from the dance master’s notebook do not contain any reference to an audience, or to a performance that has actually happened. Most of the action is described in the future tense. Furthermore, unlike other ballet de cour livrets, there is no mention of to whom the performance was directed. The characters enter, dance, then leave the hall, or sometimes arrange themselves at the sides of the hall, but they never advance towards a particular member of the audience. There is no indication that the ballets were performed in front of Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella at the royal palace in Brussels, or whether they were performed in a nobleman’s house. In ballets performed at the French court before the king, the monarch took an active part in the performance even when he was not dancing. For example, near the end of the Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme, the twelve knights, having been released from their immobility, move towards the King, giving him thanks for their deliverance.64 62  ‘sur leur habis estoient incarnas et blancs on ne uoioit que diamans que perles quenseignes que joyaux que pierraries uous eussiés dict à le uoier quelles estoient couvertes destoilles ce nestoyt que lumière que clarté que flambeaux que des soleil bref les rayons de leur habits offusquoient la ueue des assistans’. See Gough, ‘Marie de Medici’s 1605 ballet de la reine’, p. 123 for the original French text and p. 130 for Gough’s translation. 63  ‘leur entrée fut ornée de si belles dances, si diuerses figures, & si follastres actions, qu’ils laisserent à ceux qui les veirent vne creance de ne pouuoir rien voir de mieux’, and ‘la beauté de leurs figures, fit quasi oublier ce qu’ auparauant on auoir admiré, & chacun ne sçauoit a quoy se plaire pour auoir trop de plaisir’. Durand, Discours au vray, ff. 6r and 9r, trans. Downey and Garden, in La Délivrance de Renaud, pp. 246 and 247. 64  ‘Durant ceste musique, les douze chevaliers marchoient tous d’vn pas grave droict vers sa Majesté, luy rendant grace de leur totalle delivrance’. Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme, p. 31.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

85

Another important omission from these ballet plots is the names of the performers. Thus, it is impossible to tell whether the dancers, singers and instrumentalists were both men and women, or if the women’s roles were sometimes, or always, taken by men. In the French ballet de cour men, whether royal, aristocratic or professional dancers, frequently danced women’s roles. One only has to think of Marais portraying the sorceress Armide, or Louis XIII dancing the part of an old woman in the Ballet de la vieille cour in 1635. In the Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme, for example, the role of the two female giantesses were danced by two male nobles, the marquis de Termes and the marquis de la Ferté.65 Royal and aristocratic women also performed in ballet de cour, most often in larger ensemble dances, especially in the ballets commissioned by the queen, as with Marie de’ Medici’s dancing with eleven princesses in the 1605 Ballet de la reine. At the ballet performed in Nancy in 1606 twelve noble ladies costumed as goddesses descended from the triumphal chariot to dance their ballet in couples.66 Records of professional women dancers, however, do begin to appear later in the ballets from Louis XIV’s reign. Thus the most likely practice as regards the ballet plots recorded in the notebook is that the female roles were danced by men. It would make sense that combative dances, of which many of the entrées in the six ballet plots are, would be performed by men rather than women, as the former were trained in the use of arms and techniques and practices of combat. Having said this, however, some entrées could have been danced by both sexes, with the most obvious example being the three male and three female lovers, whose separate entrées and then their ensemble dance conclude the ballet De la fleur d’Amour. Their dances are all in figures, as was usual for the Grand Ballet, and there is no indication of any combative or mimed action. Similarly, in the ballet L’esperance des malcontents, the concluding Grand Ballet is performed by five dancers all dressed as Mercury, and five female courtiers from France, Spain, Italy, Hungary and England. In this case the female courtiers could also have been danced by women as opposed to cross-dressed men.

65  Georgie Durosoir, Les ballets de la cour de France au xviie siècle (Geneva: Mélophiles Editions Papillon, 2004), p. 34. For further discussion on the roles in the French court ballets from 1613 to 1620, and who danced those roles, see Sharon Kettering, ‘Favour and Patronage: Dancers in the Court Ballets of Early Seventeenth-Century France’, Canadian Journal of History 43, no. 3 (2008): 391–415. 66  Choné and La Gorce, Fastes de cour, p. 74.

86 7

chapter 3

Clues to the Staging of the Ballets

There are only a few clues as to the staging of the ballet plots in the notebook. The six ballets are described as occurring on the floor of a hall, not on a stage or raised platform. The triumphal chariots arrive and process around the hall, and then retire, which could not happen if most of the hall was taken up with an elevated stage and seating for those watching. There is almost no indication of scenery in the ballet plots. Often the performers just retire to the side of the hall or exit from the hall. They are never described as retiring to a forest or to a grotto that had been constructed at a strategic point around the hall. There is only one ballet plot in which stage machinery is mentioned, that is a ‘mechanical device representing a mountain in the shape of a grotto’ (f. 4r), from which subsequent performers emerge. In this case the mountain is just described as entering through the doors of the hall. Nothing is said as to how the mountain moves into the hall. Furthermore, there are no instructions for the removal of the mountain, so one has to assume that it remains in the hall for the entire ballet. The performance of these ballets on the floor of a hall is also consistent with the staging of the ballet at the Brussels’ court in 1608. This ballet took place in a hall, with benches along each side, and a dais at one end for Albert and Isabella. The dais faced the mountain out of which the performers emerged to dance on the floor of the hall. The fact that at the end of five out of the six ballet plots the performers and audience members dance together also points to the performance occurring on the floor of a hall rather than on a stage. In the French ballets de cour c. 1600 to 1650 there is only one instance of members of the audience moving onto the stage to dance with the performers; that is, in the 1641 Le Ballet de la Prosperite des armes de la France. In this instance the king and other members of the audience walked across a bridge, which had emerged from the stage into the auditorium, in order to join in social dances with the performers on stage.67 There is also no mention of an audience in the ballet plots, to where they might be sitting, or their reaction to what is being performed. There are only two indications that imply there will be people watching the ballet. The first occurs at the end of the Ballet des mineúrs, where the miners, with the dwarfs on their shoulders, ‘all make a reverence before they retire’ (‘et ala fin de leur ballet prendront chascun leur nein sur leurs espaules et en faisant la reuerence pour se retirer’, f. 4v). Normally dancers would address a reverence to another person: their partner, to the king or prince (the ‘Presence’), or to the guest in whose honour the ballet was being staged, as indeed happened in the 1608 court ballet performed in Brussels. This phrase then presupposes the existence 67  I would like to thank Margaret McGowan for drawing my attention to this occurrence.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

87

of an audience, and perhaps also of a ‘Presence’. The second indication of an audience is the final sentence in the ballet plots that refers to the performance of social dances by the performers and members of the audience. 8

The List of Ballet Subjects

The dance master’s notebook begins with a list of ballet subjects or titles. The list is written in the hand of the dance master (H1), and starts reasonably neatly recording ballet subjects down the left-hand side of f. 1r, before degenerating to an untidy scrawl on f. 1v. Three of the ballet plots found in the notebook are also mentioned in this list; that is, L’enuie de l’honneur de l’Amour fidelle de passioné, L’esperance des malcontens and L’assaút fúrieux des dames contre les plús courageux des combas victorieux. The nineteen titles written on the left-hand side of the folio are short. Some refer to a nationalistic subject, such as the entries ‘ballet in the French style’ (ballet a la fransoiz), ‘Hungarian ballet’ (ballet hongrois) and ‘ballet of the Persians’ (ballet de perses). Others, such as the ‘satyr ballet’ (ballet de satir), apparently refer to the main character(s) of the ballet. The most obvious question that springs to mind regarding this list is what was the purpose of recording such a list of ballet subjects or titles? Were these more than twenty ballets all ballets that the dance master had created himself? Were some of the titles just referring to ballets in which he was not involved but had seen as a member of the audience? Or, was the list a record of both the ballets that the dance master had composed, along with a list of useful subjects for possible future ballets? Apart from the titles of the three ballet plots recorded in the notebook, there are connections between some of the ballet subjects and other dance-related material in the notebook. For example, the ballet de la sinne has the same name as two of the dance figures. Did this entry refer to a ballet which the dance master had composed in which the figure la sinne (f. 11r) and the figure sinne (f. 8r) featured prominently? Two more entries could possibly refer to dance music that is recorded in the notebook. The ballet a les pantolle might be related to the musical piece called panole/panoelle on f. 92r, while the ballet de boimme might refer to the music on f. 93r la boimiere. 9

Dance Figures

One of the unique features of the dance master’s notebook is that it records a canon of widely used dance figures or patterns which formed the basis of the choreographed danced spectacles performed at the French and English courts in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The folios on

88

chapter 3

which the drawings of figures for five to sixteen dancers appear are close to the beginning of the manuscript (ff. 2v–25r), and record just over 450 dance figures. Following the figures for sixteen dancers there are three pages (ff. 26r– 27r) on which the dance master has notated the letters of the alphabet as they are formed by groups of dancers, from as few as ten performers to as many as twenty-three dancers for some letters. The staggering variety in this collection of figures is a telling reminder of just what was meant when contemporary witnesses wrote of their amazement at the bewildering variety in the figures which unfurled before their eyes, and why it was so difficult for those watching the shifting panorama before them to be precise, clear and detailed in their accounts of what they saw. While it is easy to identify that one figure is related to another when sitting at a desk, and slowly, and repeatedly, looking at the pages of a manuscript, it is far more difficult to do this while watching a constantly changing parade of images and patterns that may, or may not, be repeated during the course of the dance. As well as recording more than 450 figures, the anonymous French dance master also provided names for some of the figures. There are thirty different names, some of which appear repeatedly, like piramie, and some of which only occur infrequently, like leunnes. The labelling of the figures appears to be haphazard, in that not all figures of a certain shape have a name attached to them. For example, among the unnamed figures lurk a number of ‘pyramids’, ‘pinecones’ and ‘lozenges’. The named figures can themselves be divided into several categories. The largest category comprises figures whose name is descriptive of their shape, and whose shape represents a physical object. These named figures which form the first category are listed in Table 3. The second category is composed of figures in the form of geometrical shapes, the prime example in this category being the pyramid figures, and the figures in the shape of a lozenge or diamond. The figures in this category are listed in Table 4. Less frequent are the semi-circular, or ‘U’ shapes labelled croisans (crescent). The shapes labelled carriaue (that is, carreau, a square) also belong in the category composed of geometrical shapes. The majority of the figures which have this name form the shape of a square, usually with one or more dancers inside the square. The figures labelled do contre do68 and do a do69 also outline geometric shapes. The figure on f. 14r is formed by eleven dancers, eight of which outline the shape of a square (two dancers at each corner), and the remaining three dancers form a triangle inside the square. The do a do figures depict a triangle, 68  The seventh figure on f. 14r. 69  The twelfth figure on f. 6r and the ninth figure on f. 7r.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

89

with two dancers at each corner. The third category comprises a few miscellaneous figures which do not fit within either of the other two categories, and a figure whose name I have not been able to translate. The figures in this cate­ gory are listed in Table 5. table 3

Named figures that represent a physical object

French name from S 253

English

batoir baton rompeu ceur coup[e] croi croi de lorin dare/dair estoille leunnes langue de sacpon martiaue monde palet pome de pin salleman solleille/soller tourteau

bat broken stick heart cup or goblet cross cross of Lorraine dart star moon serpent’s-tongue hammer world quoit pinecone salamander sun tortoise

table 4

Named geometric figures

French name from S 253

English

carriaue conne croisans do contre do/do a do loxan/loran piramie

a square a conical figure crescent back-to-back lozenge pyramid

90 table 5

chapter 3 Miscellaneous named figures

French name from S 253

English

entre angantre sebelie lasare sinne/ la sinne lourica/ leurica sandelei

entrée entrance wooden bowl used for the lading or turning of new wine ? signa possibly an old word for bagpipe perhaps ‘sangdedé’, a small pocket dagger

a The shape associated with ‘sinne’ is the same as that associated with ‘la sinne’. Elsewhere in the notebook the dance master has written ‘en fesant per trois fois le sinne de la crois’ (f. 69v). It is unclear whether ‘la sinne’ is a case of an incorrect article, or refers to something else.

The folios of figures drawn by the anonymous dance master also include figures which are not named. Many of these figures are further examples of already named shapes: a heart, pyramid, pinecone, tortoise, lozenge, et cetera. For example, while the dance master has labelled six figures as pyramids, another fourteen pyramids are left un-named. Similar ratios hold for the named and un-named pinecones, lozenges and darts. For the other figures, like heart, hammer, carriaue, there are equal numbers of named and un-named figures, while for other figures like tortoise, world, crescent, broken stick and star, the ratios are reversed, with more named than un-named examples. By far the largest category of un-named figures are those which form either a single geometric shape, or composite figures made up of two or more geometric shapes. Often these figures will be built around the lozenge shape, for example, comprising either a string of lozenges, lozenge and triangle shapes, or lozenge and pyramid shapes. Composite figures with squares are also found, even an example of the squared circle (see Illustration 2). There are also composite figures in which discreet geometric shapes are combined to form a larger shape; for example, a star formed by a circle and four triangles, a star with four triangles and a lozenge at its centre, or a lozenge created with four triangles, as in the eleventh figure on f. 16v. A further sub-set of the un-named figures I have called ‘line’ figures. This is because the figures do not, at first glance, fall into any regular geometric shapes, but appear to be made up of straight lines of dancers, either with an even or uneven number of dancers in each line. Many of the figures in this notebook, both named and unnamed, are recorded in two ways, with one

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

illustration 2

illustration 3

illustration 4

Example of a squared circle – the eleventh figure on f. 12v in S 253

A heart on top of a triangle – the fifth figure on f. 16v in S 253

An upside-down heart on top of a downwards pointing triangle – the first figure on f. 17r in S 253

91

92

chapter 3

being the reverse of the other; for example, pyramids whose apex is at the top of the page, and reverse pyramids whose apex points towards the bottom of the page. Composite figures are also treated in the same manner. For example, the fifth figure on f. 16v is a heart on top of a triangle (Illustration 3), while there are seven other figures which are the reverse of this image: an ­upside-down heart on top of a downwards-pointing triangle (Illustration 4). The presence of so many reverse images of individual figures in the notebook is significant for two reasons. First, it points to the fact that the notebook is a relatively systematic record and codification of a large number of different shapes which could be used by a dance master in the creation of a newly-composed choreography for a danced spectacle. The systematic recording of so many different figures by our anonymous dance master, both in their front-facing and their reverse images, parallels the listing and description of the different steps in the late-sixteenth-century Italian dance treatises, most of which were performed in both duple and triple metre. The shapes created by the dancers of the French fêtes and English masques were just as important to the choreographers of these spectacles as the varieties of capriola, zurlo and gagliarda mutanza were for Caroso and Negri. For the sixteenth-century Italian balletti, the step sequences were an important part of a dance’s structure. The dance figures or shapes as exemplified by this notebook, occupy a similar position for the structure of the French and English theatrical dances. Second, the presence in the notebook of reverse images of individual figures also implies that when performed these figures were meant to be viewed from a certain direction. If this were not the case, and the dance figures were conceived of as being viewed equally from all sides with no direction being privileged, then there would be no point in recording two views of essentially the same images, at least for the simple figures such as the pyramids or pinecones. The folios of dance figures reveal more than just the shape formed by the dancers: they also indicate the direction each dancer is facing. For the figures in which the dancers are arrayed in horizontal or vertical lines, the squiggles indicating the dancers are all drawn in the same orientation, indicating that the dancers are all facing in the same direction, that is, the top of the page. For the figures that involve diagonal or circular lines, the squiggles are drawn not perpendicular to the page, but aligned with the slope of the curve or diagonal. The difference in orientation of the squiggles can be clearly seen in the ten figures on f. 3r. In the second, third, fourth, seventh, eighth and tenth figures the squiggles are all in the same orientation: the dancers are facing ‘the front’, that is, the top of the page. In the first, fifth and ninth figures the squiggles are in different orientations, with some facing ‘the front’, while others are aligned along a diagonal indicating which dancers are facing in towards the centre of

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

93

illustration 5 The 5th, 7th and 9th figures from a 1616 balletto showing the dancers facing in various directions.

the circle (fifth and ninth figures), or which are facing towards the point of the arrow (first figure). The differing orientation of individual dancers when forming diagonal or circular patterns is confirmed by other contemporary sources. For example, one of the figures in the 1617 ballet La Délivrance de Renaud that is illustrated in the livret is a ‘V’.70 The picture of the fourteen dancers clearly shows some facing the apex of the ‘V’, while others face across the ‘V’ to the dancers on the other side. The different orientation of the dancers when forming their various figures is very clear in the thirteen figures for a balletto composed for the 1616 carnival celebrations at the d’Este court.71 In this document each dancer is represented by a circle, and the direction each dancer is facing is indicated by a short arrow. When the eight dancers form a circle or two squares, for example, they all face into the centre of the circle or the squares. Illustration 5 shows three of the figures from this balletto where the dancers face in different directions. A few of the figures are drawn with two differently shaped squiggles. These can be seen on f. 3r, f. 9v and the last two figures on f. 17r. The purpose of the change in shape must be to indicate which dancer is male (or a male character) and which is female (or a female character). Sometimes the dancers just alternate male/female, as in the sixth and last figures on f. 3r. For other figures the dance master wanted to represent a more complicated arrangement, as in the third figure on f. 3r when one gender is assigned to the positions on the outside of the figure, while the other gender occupies the five positions in the centre of the figure. The sole figure on f. 9v is for eight dancers, and is made up of four lines of dancers: one dancer in the first line, then two dancers in the next, three dancers in the third line and two dancers in the rear line. In this 70  Durand, Discours au vray, f. 25v. 71  These figures are reproduced on page 37 of Giovanni Maria Sperandini’s Feste, spettacoli e tornei cavallereschi nella Modena di Cesare d’Este (1598–1628) (Modena: Edizioni Artestampa, 2008).

94

chapter 3

instance the first and third lines have ‘S’-shaped squiggles, while the second and fourth lines have ‘O’-shaped squiggles. 10

Alchemy and Fireworks

From the mid-sixteenth century onwards the intellectual climate in both continental Europe and England fostered an interest in symbols, and in fact the ‘manipulation and interpretation of symbols became a popular intellectual sport in the sixteenth century’.72 Symbols were seen as having a great power both to draw heavenly power down to earth, and to help raise human understanding closer to a knowledge of the divine. Marsilio Ficino, in his treatise, De vita, (1489) is explicit on the power of ‘figures’ ( figurae) to influence human activity. And these ‘figures’ include music, people’s gestures, facial expressions, movements and dance. You are not unaware that harmonious music through its numbers and proportions has a wonderful power to calm, move, and influence our spirit, mind, and body. Well, proportions constituted out of numbers are almost figures of a sort, made, as it were, out of points and lines, but in motion. And similarly harmonious rays and motions penetrating everything, they daily influence our spirit secretly just as overpowering music generally does openly…. Therefore, you should not doubt, they say, that the material for making an image, if it is in other respects entirely consonant with the heavens, once it has received by art a figure similar to the heavens, both conceives in itself the celestial gift and gives it again to someone who is in the vicinity or wearing it.73

72  Nicholas H. Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy Between Science and Religion (London: Routledge, 1988), p. 77. 73  ‘Non ignoras concentus per numeros proportionesque suas vim habere mirabilem ad spiritum et animum et corpus sistendum, movendum, afficiendum. Proportiones autem ex numeris constitutae quasi figurae quaedam sunt, velut ex punctis lineisque factae, sed in motu. Similiter motu suo se habent ad agendum figurae coelestes. Hae namque harmonicis tum radiis, tum motibus suis omnia penetranibus spiritum indies ita clam afficiunt, ut musica praepotens palam afficere consuevit…. Ergo ne dubites, dicent, quin materia quaedam imaginis faciendae, alioquin valde congrua, coelo, per figuram coelo similem arte datam coeleste munus tum in se ipsa concipiat, tum reddat in proximum aliquem vel gestantem’. Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life, ed. and trans. Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1989), pp. 331 and 333 for the translation and pp. 330 and 332 for the Latin text.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

95

Later on Ficino states that ‘musical songs and sounds’ include ‘gestures of the body, dancing and ritual movements’.74 Therefore, as far as Ficino was concerned, the magical symbols that contain a hidden power included ‘figures’ of the dance. Ficino’s writings were very popular in France in the sixteenth century, not only De vita, but also his Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love, which influenced many poets including Ronsard and Baïf,75 both of whom were involved in the danced spectacles at the French court.76 Thus geometrically patterned choreographies were one way in which cosmic influences could be magically (that is, in a hidden or occult manner) transported to earth and, once there, could induce the same cosmic harmony to operate on earth. The aim of the dance master when choreographing dances for a danced spectacle was to communicate messages to their educated audiences through the presentation of symbols and images, be they geometric figures, alchemical images or mystical symbols. Alchemical images and language had ceased to be an esoteric or secret art by the end of the sixteenth century, and by the beginning of the seventeenth century alchemical books circulated widely among the literate members of the population, so much so that images and metaphors of alchemy became intrinsic to seventeenth-century thought.77 Furthermore, the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century was a time when emblem books were very popular. The ‘alchemists enthusiastically participated in this tradition, frequently choosing to represent the stages of the opus in a series of emblems which were intended both for meditation and for “decoding” like hieroglyphs’.78 What were the figures found in many of the Grand Ballets of the early seventeenth century if not a series of emblems? At this period, circa 1600, the language of alchemy was available to anyone who cared to pursue it, through the medium of printed books. For the professional wordsmiths of the time, the playwrights, poets, and pamphlet writers, alchemical imagery was a rich source of inspiration.79 If professional writers exploited alchemical 74  ‘per cantus musicos atque sonos, ad quorum ordinem vimque referri gestus corporis saltusque et tripudia volumus’. Ficino, Three Books on Life, p. 363 for the translation and p. 362 for the Latin text. 75  Sears Reynolds Jayne, Introduction to Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love, by Marsilio Ficino, trans. Sears Reynolds Jayne, 2nd rev. ed. (Dallas: Spring Publications, 1985), p. 21. 76  For the 1581 Balet comique de la royne both Ronsard and Baïf contributed ‘ideas, verses, time and money’. See Margaret M. McGowan, Introduction to Le Balet comique de la royne, by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx, facsimile ed., McGowan, ed., p. 13. 77  Lyndy Abraham, Marvell and Alchemy (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1990), p. 26. 78  Abraham, Marvell, p. 24. 79  Charles Nicholl, The Chemical Theatre (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 97.

96

chapter 3

imagery, then why did not professional pattern or figure makers (that is, choreographers) also use this imagery? Both the texts of the masques and the French fêtes were written by the leading poets of the time, none of whom would have been ignorant of alchemical ideas and images.80 The geometric figures recorded in the dance master’s notebook had close associations with the supposed nature of the cosmos and divine truth: for example, the figure of a cross could represent the Christian tradition and imagery. Other named figures found in the notebook, such as the ‘tortoise’ or ‘salamander’ figures, represented common alchemical images. Many alchemical images had different meanings often depending on the position in the opus in which they were used, but the common alchemical meanings of the named figures are given in Table 6. It is clear from the inclusion of named shapes that had alchemical meanings in his canon of dance figures that the anonymous dance master had an interest in alchemy. This interest may have been one factor for his decision to include instructions for fireworks in his notebook. By the end of the sixteenth century gunners, or artificers, who produced fireworks not only used the processes of alchemy to manufacture new fireworks, they also adopted the language of alchemy in their treatises where they recorded recipes for different sorts of fireworks and methods by which these fireworks were manufactured.81 These works were full of alchemical language; for example, ‘gunpowder was understood to operate by the mixing of contraries…. Saltpeter was a cold and dry principle, like mercury, and, once it was brought into contact and ignited with the hot and dry principle of sulphur, the antagonism of the two materials would lead to an explosion’.82 Just as a choreographer could use alchemical shapes in his choreography, so too did the artificers create the same images in their fireworks. For example, both ‘serpents’ and ‘stars’ were a type of firework that were packed ‘into the head of a rocket, and, when the rocket exploded, [the serpent] streamed into the air in erratic trajectories, reminiscent of the movements of a snake’.83 The salamander was another alchemical symbol that appeared in fireworks displays as an automaton that belched forth fire.84 In the Renaissance there were, of course, many different types of fireworks employed in spectacles, and it is worth noting exactly which type of fireworks were recorded in the dance master’s notebook. One of these is a recipe for ‘stars’ (f. 36r) that were packed into a rocket and then exploded from the 80  Abraham, Marvell, p. 27. 81  Simon Werrett, Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 27. 82  Werrett, Fireworks, pp. 27–8. 83  Werrett, Fireworks, p. 31. 84  Werrett, Fireworks, p. 31.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks table 6 Image

97

The alchemical meanings of the named figures Meaning

circle

The symbol of perfection, the perfect, eternal, spiritual realm. It is also a symbol for the completed alchemical opus. circle with a dot in At a macrocosmic level it symbolises the Creator, in the centre the centre and at the microcosmic level it symbolises gold. cross In alchemy a cross was used to symbolise the fixation of the volatile spirit. The physical characteristics of a cross; that is, four lines meeting at a central point meant that it was used to represent the four elements, which in the alchemical process form a union that produces the magical fifth element. dart The dart of Cupid represented the secret fire that destroys the old metal, or the old spiritual state. luna The moon symbolised silver, as well as representing the female principle of the opus. salamander A symbol of the masculine seed of the metals, the hot, dry, active principle of the alchemical opus. serpent The matter with which the alchemist begins his work. Mercury at the first stage of the opus. sol The sun was one of the major alchemical symbols. It represented gold, the masculine principle of the opus, and also philosophical gold, which is gold created by the art of alchemy. square A symbol of the earth, of the four elements, the four seasons. square and circle One of the key images in alchemy. An image which represents the alchemical opus itself. The transformation of the square into a circle symbolises the transformation of the four elements into the fifth element. six-pointed star The transforming medium, Mercury, that has the power to resolve and unite opposites, and to create harmony and balance. tortoise The alchemical basin, a perfectly proportioned house.

illustration 6 Drawing of a rocket on f. 36r (detail) in S 253

98

chapter 3

rocket, falling through the air like meteorites or falling stars. Such recipes were first recorded in the late sixteenth century, and soon were common in books on fireworks.85 Two recipes for rockets were also recorded in the notebook (ff. 35v–36r), along with a drawing of a rocket (see Illustration 6) that is very similar to those found in books on fireworks, such as the Traicté des feux artificielz de joye & de recreation.86 Rockets were used to launch stars, serpents, fountains and other sorts of fireworks, and thus were a very important component of a gunner’s repertoire. Gunners were very proud of their expertise in inventing and making rockets, and in being able to vary the trajectory and height of a rocket, and the timing of the explosions.87 Another major cate­ gory of fireworks were those designed for use in and on water. These fireworks moved along the surface of the water, as well as diving below the surface and moving through the water as if they were swimming, before they exploded or shot up into the air.88 A recipe for this type of firework appears on f. 34v of the dance master’s notebook under the rubric Pour faire grenades qui bruslent en lenu. Fireworks were also employed in mock battles and sieges, with a castle under attack emitting fireworks from its towers, and often with the attackers or defenders brandishing ‘fiery’ weapons, such as ‘lances of fire’ or ‘maces of fire’.89 This type of firework is represented in the dance master’s notebook by the instructions on how to make asperges that are used to attack one’s enemy or as a means of defence (ff. 35r–35v) and the instructions on how to make grenades that are coated so that one can throw them from one’s hand (ff. 37r–37v). The decision to include the instructions for these particular fireworks in his notebook may have been made by the dance master because he had seen examples of their use and their effects remained etched in his memory. On the other hand, he may have also wished to include examples of the common but important types of fireworks in his notebook for possible use, as by the early seventeenth century fireworks had become an essential part of court spectacles, including the ballets de cour. 85  Werrett, Fireworks, pp. 23–4. 86  The treatise is from Paris, c. 1649. For a reproduction of an illustration from this treatise of an artificer lighting a rocket, see Plate 4 in Werrett, Fireworks. 87  Werrett, Fireworks, pp. 31–2. 88  Werrett, Fireworks, p. 33. 89  For a description and contemporary account of one such complicated allegorical battle and firework display held in London in 1613 for the marriage of Elizabeth the daughter of James I and Frederick V, see Paulette Choné, ‘Firework Displays in Paris, London and Heidelberg (1612–1615)’, in Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615. A Celebration of the Habsburg and Bourbon Unions, ed. Margaret M. McGowan (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 204–8 and 212–4.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

11

99

Fireworks and the Art of Dance

Dance performances and firework displays were both a frequent part of court spectacles, yet the similarities between the two practices extend much further than this. Both were visual arts, and both practices were performed to the accompaniment of music, or to the sounds of musket fire and other exploding ordinance, along with trumpets and drums. Firework displays and theatrical dance performances also functioned not only as entertainment: the watching crowds responded with awe, amazement and delight to the effects of sound and light, and to the demonstration of control over the forces of fire that illuminated the night sky. There was also the ever-present frisson of fear at the potential of danger from the explosions. Such displays also formed a specific language in which messages of power, allegorical stories and imitations of nature and the heavens were represented. The same reaction of awe was also part of the experience of watching a dance performance. On many occasions the virtuosic performances of highly skilled dancers evoked a feeling of amazement in those watching, as in 1546 when Piero Strozzi (one of the best dancers of his age), and other French courtiers stunned those watching with their incredible performance of virtuosic steps and leaps.90 As discussed earlier, the manipulation of colour and light was a concern for choreographers and producers as well as for the costume designers and other technical staff of danced spectacles. In 1581 Beaujoyeulx comments on how the splendour of the hundred plus candles of white wax ‘converted the darkness of the night into a great joyous light’ (conuertissoit l’obscurité de la nuict en vne ioyeuse & grande clairté),91 while Samuel Daniel in 1610 laments the fact that even though he very much wanted to have the pages in Tethys Festival introduced with torches in order to create additional splendour, he felt that the smoke ‘would have pestered the room, which the season would not well permit’.92 Both dance masters and artificers were involved in creating a similar set of images, symbols and letters, one with the moving bodies of the dancers, the other with the different types of fireworks. In 1612 the twelve-year old Michel de Marolles witnessed the fireworks held at the Place Royale. He wrote 90  Margaret M. McGowan, La Danse à la Renaissance. Sources livresques et albums d’images (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2012), p. 61. 91  Beaujoyeulx, Le Balet comique, trans. Carol and Lander MacClintock, p. 49. Facsimile ed., McGowan, ed., p. 17r. 92  Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque, p. 164. Ravelhofer is quoting from Stephen Orgel and Roy Strong, eds., Inigo Jones: The Theatre of the Stuart Court, vol. 1. (London: Southeby Parke Bernet, 1973), p. 196.

100

chapter 3

an account of what he had seen over the three days of the festivities in his Memoirs published in Paris in 1656–57. I remember so well, that the impression is still fresh, and the images are present in my mind. Nothing more joyful or agreeable was ever seen … [There were] immense fireworks in the Palace of Felicity, where figured characters written in fire could be seen, the monograms of their Magesties [sic] and the Spanish Infanta blazed forth to the noise of rockets, drums, trumpets and musket fire.93 Having the dancers spell out the names or initials of the newly married couple occurred frequently in theatrical spectacles celebrating a noble marriage. The final masque dance in Ben Jonson’s Hymenaei (1606), to give just one example, is described as ‘a most neat and curious measure, full of subtlety and device … The strains were all notably different, some of them formed into letters very signifying to the name of the bridegroom’.94 From the fifteenth century onwards dance masters were concerned to raise the status of the dance practice they taught from a craft to that of a liberal art through its connection with music. In his ode in praise of the quattrocento Italian dance master Guglielmo Ebreo, Mario Filelfo favorably compares Guglielmo with heroes like Hector, and asserts that Guglielmo is so gifted in the art of dance that his skills are divinely inspired.95 Filelfo claimed that Guglielmo’s dancing skill came from a source other than that of human talent, which could be learnt through the passing on of skills from a master to an apprentice. Guglielmo possessed ingenio, a creative power that was inborn (given by God) and through which the artist had the vision and intellectual capacity to conceive of the work, as opposed to just carrying it out. Ingenio was closely associated with the inventiveness, as opposed to the skill or workmanship (ars), of an artist or work of art. By crediting Guglielmo with the gift of ingenio, Filelfo was admitting him into an intellectual circle, and claiming that the practice of the art of dance was a way of expressing one’s intellectual qualities. The social standing of gunners followed a similar path to that of the dance master in early modern Europe. Around 1400 gunners were seen as ‘lowly, 93  Choné, ‘Firework Displays’, p. 202. 94  Stephen Orgel, ed., Ben Jonson: The Complete Masques (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), p. 86, ll. 279–85. 95  Filelfo’s poem appears at the end of Guglielmo’s treatise on dance, written in 1463 as a presentation copy for Galeazzo Maria Sforza.

Ballet Plots, Dance Figures and Fireworks

101

anonymous craftsmen’, yet by the early seventeenth century their reputation had risen dramatically.96 They created a body of literature to document their techniques, and dedicated such books and manuscripts to noble patrons. Like the dance masters’ choreographies, the creations of the gunners were seen as ingenious and full of art. Likewise from 1400 to 1600 these artificers ‘exploited the credit of the liberal arts, using the idioms of mathematics, Aristotelian physics, and courtly rhetoric to articulate their skills’.97

96  Werrett, Fireworks, p. 13. 97  Werrett, Fireworks, p. 8.

chapter 4

Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils 1

Dance Teaching in Renaissance Europe

Until the fifteenth century dance instruction had presumably been an oral and embodied practice, with courtiers learning new dances directly from those most skilled in the art. Certainly before the fifteenth century teachers of dance seem to have been uninterested in committing their choreographies to paper, whether to produce instruction manuals outlining the basic steps and principles of the dance style or to produce treatises on dance as a gift to their patrons. However, it was in the 1440s in Italy that the literature of dance began to emerge with the appearance first of Domenico da Piacenza’s treatise De arte saltandj & choreas ducendj De la arte di ballare et danzare: this was followed within the next two decades by the appearance of treatises by Antonio Cornazano and Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro.1 These men were responsible for teaching the children of the leading families of Italy, and performing alongside them in state spectacles. Dance teaching in Italy during the fifteenth century was not confined solely to the authors of the dance treatises, as evidence has survived of other dance teachers, who worked both at the courts and in the cities, teaching the children of the middle-ranking merchant classes. Lorenzo Lavagnolo was one maestro di ballo who taught the children of the Gonzaga, Sforza and d’Este families,2 while Giuseppe Ebreo, the brother of Guglielmo, not only ran a dancing school in Florence but also was associated with Lorenzo de’ Medici.3 Children of the elite and the wealthy middle class usually were taught to dance in their own homes, but dance teachers also rented space in 1  One version of Guglielmo’s treatise De pratica seu arte tripudii is dated 1463, while the first version of Cornazano’s treatise Il libro dell’arte del danzare (now lost) was written in 1455, and the second version was written in 1465. In other parts of Europe – Spain, France, England, Germany and Burgundy – we have to wait until the sixteenth century before the names of men who taught, choreographed and performed dances are known. 2  For more details on Lavagnolo’s career, see Katherine Tucker McGinnis, ‘Moving in High Circles: Courts, Dance, and Dancing Masters in Italy in the Long Fifteenth Century’. Ph.D. dissertation, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2001), pp. 250–2. 3  For more details on Guiseppe’s activities, see Timothy J. McGee, ‘Dancing Masters and the Medici Court in the 15th Century’, Studi musicali 17, no. 2 (1988): 201–24, and Alessandra Veronese, ‘Una societas ebraico-cristiano in docendo tripudiare sonare ac cantare nella Firenze del quattrocento’, in Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del xv secolo, ed. Maurizio Padovan (Pisa: Pacini, 1990), pp. 51–7.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_006

Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils

103

which to run dance classes, as did Mariotto di Bastiano di Francesco in 1446 in Florence.4 In the sixteenth century the number of dance masters increased, both those who produced treatises and those who just taught and performed.5 Unlike their fifteenth-century colleagues, these Italian dance masters travelled and worked outside of Italy at the courts of France, Spain, Germany and England. In addition to the dance teachers who worked at the courts teaching the children of the leading families, and in major cities teaching the offspring of the merchants in the latter’s own houses, dance was also taught at schools which frequently taught both dance and music. From fifteenth-century Italy there are surviving legal documents regarding dance schools in Florence in 1467 run by Giuseppe the brother of Guglielmo Ebreo, and Francesco, a Christian musician and dancer, and in Siena from the 1470s onwards. In the school run by Giuseppe and Francesco instruction was given in dancing, singing and playing a musical instrument. These documents are mostly concerned with regulating the duties and payments between the teachers. In Giuseppe and Francesco’s case, for example, they had agreed to divide equally their expenses and earnings, and that this agreement would last for one year. Their expenses were the cost of renting a house at which they would teach music and dance; while the contract stipulated that both male and female students would be taught at their school, it does not give any indication as to who these students might have been.6 The fact that Guglielmo’s brother was also a dancer and, for some years at least, ran a dance school in Florence, raises the question of whether Guglielmo’s treatise was used in the dance lessons he gave at his school, or even in the promotion of his school to potential pupils. Unfortunately, the legal documents do not give any clue as to how the lessons were conducted, or what else was taught, apart from a general insistence on good behaviour from the students. For example, at the school in Siena in the 1490s blasphemy was forbidden and pupils were fined if they committed this offence.7 One reason for this insistence on orderly behaviour was that dancing had always had its critics, and dance masters, therefore, were always concerned to defend their art and the schools in which they taught from accusations of disorderly or immoral behaviour. When the Spaniard Juan de Esquivel Navarro wrote about the .

4  Frank A. D’Accone, ‘Lorenzo the Magnificent and Music’, in Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo, ed. Gian Carlo Garfagnini (Florence: Olschki, 1994), p. 263 n. 8. 5  McGinnis has identified 134 dance masters who worked c. 1500 to 1600. See McGinnis, ‘Moving in High Circles’, pp. 400–8. 6  Veronese, ‘Una societas ebraico-cristiano’, pp. 52–3. 7  Frank A. D’Accone, The Civic Muse. Music and Musicians in Siena during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 653.

104

chapter 4

dance schools and teaching in Madrid in the 1630s, he stressed the appropriate behaviour expected of both students and dance masters.8 Esquivel Navarro praises his dance teacher Antonio de Almenda, who was dance master to the king Philip IV from 1639 until 1654, as a man who is ‘wise, gentle, strict, clean, neat, elegant, well mannered, and above all, very courteous’.9 The contracts for the establishment of dance schools in Siena in the sixteenth century reveal that dance masters who set up such schools also taught in private homes. The contract of 1 January 1537, for example, between Maestro Lorenzo and Maestro Marcantonio di Maestro Francesco Fineschi, which sets out the framework for a dance school that the two men were to jointly operate for four years, includes the provision that since ‘both agreed to teach in the school and outside it, as might be necessary and “as was the custom of diligent masters” ’.10 A further clause in the contract also referred to the practice of teaching women in the students’ own home, where it states that all students would be considered as pupils of both men, including any women they taught in private homes.11 Thus it appears that in sixteenth-century Siena at least, women were taught privately in their own homes, rather than attending lessons at a school. The practice of teaching women privately rather than in a school was also followed in Spain. The public dancing schools in Madrid in the first half of the seventeenth century taught only men, with ladies being given instruction in their own homes by dance masters whose reputation, behaviour and manners were of a high enough standard that no fears would be held for the safety and reputation of their female students.12 Dance masters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were often engaged to teach a specific dance for a particular occasion, or a few dances that were 8  See, in particular chapters 3, 5 and 6 of his 1642 treatise Discursos sobre el arte del danzado in Lynn Matluck Brooks, The Art of Dancing in Seventeenth-Century Spain: Juan de Esquivel Navarro and His World. Including a Translation of the Discursos sobre el arte del danzado by Juan de Esquivel Navarro (Seville, 1642) and Commentary on the Text. (Lewisburg/ London: Bucknell University Press/Associated University Presses, 2003), pp. 233–6 and 238–44 for the Spanish text, and pp. 285–8 and 291–7 for Brooks’ translation into English. 9  ‘Es pues mi Maestro Antonio de Almenda, entendido, apacible, severo, limpio, aseado, galán, de buenos respetos, y sobre todo muy cortés’. See Brooks, The Art of Dancing in Seventeenth-Century Spain, p. 242 for the Spanish text, and pp. 295–6 for her translation. 10  D’Accone, The Civic Muse, p. 654. The original text of the contract is given on p. 663: ‘In prima, che ciascuno deli sopradetti maestri debbi, in scuola et fuor di scuola, dove sarà necessario, essercitare et durar la debita fadiga in lo insegnare, come ali diligenti maestri si costuma’. 11  D’Accone, The Civic Muse, p. 655. The original text of the contract is given on p. 663: ‘Item, che tutti li scolari dell’uno et del’altro, cominciati o non cominciati, habino a esser comuni, et il medesino le spose et le case dove qualsivogli di loro insegnassero’. 12  Brooks, The Art of Dancing in Seventeenth-Century Spain, p. 159.

Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils

105

currently in fashion. For example, in February 1533 in Siena a Maestro Lorenzo di Fuccio (whom one assumes is the same person who set up a dance school in 1537) was employed by four members of the Congrega dei Rozzi, Siena’s leading theatrical academy, to teach them un assato di moresca co’ le spade (a moresca battle with swords)13 presumably for an upcoming theatrical performance by the academy. In 1473 a young middle-class Englishman George Cely recorded his personal expenses during a business trip to Calais. These expenses included payments for music and dance lessons given to him by Thomas Rede, a harpist who resided in Calais. Cely was not only taught how to play twenty-six dances on the harp and fourteen on the lute, he also received dance tuition: ‘Item the xiiij day of Jovne yt cost meto the sayd Thomas ffor to lerne to davnsse … vj s. viij d’.14 The next item in Cley’s list of expenses was four pennies for his ‘byll of fotyng’, while some months later Cely again recorded a payment to Thomas Rede for ‘my byll of ffottyng off baç davnssys’.15 In other words, Cely was paying not only for practical lessons in dancing but also for a list or lists of the steps of the basse danses he had learnt from Thomas Rede as a memory aid.16 Just as George Cley returned for lessons from Thomas Rede over a period of some months, so too did Eleanor Slingsby take dancing lessons at York from Mr Hearne for four months in 1613. Eleanor’s two brothers Henry and Thomas also received private dance tuition, as well as attending a dance school.17 When Thomas was at Cambridge he had the opportunity to exhibit his dancing skills as one of the performers in a production put on at the university. When Margaret Spencer was in London on one of her periodic trips to the capital (circa 1610–1613) she paid for dance lessons for a period of six weeks from Thomas Adson.18 In early modern Europe dance lessons as part of travel 13  D’Accone, The Civic Muse, p. 644. 14  Alison Hanham, ‘The Musical Studies of a Fifteenth-Century Wool Merchant’, The Review of English Studies n. s. 8, no. 31 (1957): 271. 15  Hanham, ‘The Musical Studies’, p. 272. 16  The French basse danse was a genre of dances that had a limited number of steps: four (or five if you count the reverence which began each dance as a step). Each dance was a different arrangement of these steps to form a new choreographic sequence that had to agree with the number of breves in the music for each dance. Therefore, the difficulty in dancing a basse danse lay in remembering which particular sequence of steps one had to be dancing, rather than in how to perform a large number of different steps. For a discussion of the basse danse and a transcription and translation of all seventeen sources for this genre, see David Wilson, The Basse Dance Handbook: Text and Context (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2012). 17  Barbara D. Palmer, ‘Court and Country: The Masque as Sociopolitical Subtext’, Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 7 (1995): 341. 18  Linda Levy Peck, Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 69–70.

106

chapter 4

(both domestic and international) were taken by members of ruling families, as well as the middle classes. In 1623, for example, the heir to the English throne Prince Charles visited Spain in a mission to persuade the Infanta to agree to marry him. While he was in Madrid he took lessons from the Queen and the Infanta’s dance master Manuel de Frías, as did his fellow member of the English delegation, the Marquess of Buckingham.19 The practice of undertaking dance instruction while on an international journey was even remarked upon in contemporary travel literature, as in Robert Dallington’s A Method for Travell, published in London in 1605. ‘There is another exercise to be learned in France, because there are better teachers, and the French fashion is in most request with us, that is, of dancing’.20 In the early seventeenth century France was regarded by the English as the place to learn to dance well, but a generation before, Italy had held this position. In 1584, for example, Nicolas de Villeroy, Secretary of State to the French king, sent his son to Italy in order to both learn to dance and to handle weapons. His son, Charles de Neufville, recorded that he started his dance lessons on ‘le premier jour de l’an’ when he was in Padua. He also recorded that the re-commenced dance instruction later that year on 3 June 1584.21 Thus here we see exactly the same pattern of pupils re-starting dance lessons as we do in the records from the dance master’s notebook.22 Thus from the documentary evidence for dance teaching in schools and in private homes in early modern Europe, we can see that the process of tuition was usually not a one-off, short event, but that lessons usually continued for a period of weeks or months, or even years in the case of dance masters employed to teach the children of a ruling family. For example, Jasper Gaffoyne, an Italian was appointed dance master to Henry VIII’s court from 1542 onwards and continued in the position well into Elizabeth’s reign.23 When children were taught to dance at home as part of their formal education their lessons were a significant part of the curriculum. In the educational programme set out by Lord Burghley in 1562 for the twelve year old Edward, Earl of Oxford, dance practise and lessons occurred every day between 7 and 7.30am before 19  Barbara Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 33 and ftn. 25. 20  Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque, p. 35 and ftn. 33. Ravelhofer is quoting from the original publication on sig. [B4]v. 21  Margaret M. McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 13. McGowan is quoting from the manuscript held in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Fr. 14660. 22  See below for discussion on these records from the dance master’s notebook. 23  Andrew Ashbee and David Lasocki, A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians 1485–1714, 2 vols. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), I: 452.

Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils

107

breakfast.24 Fifty years later in 1610 the son of Sir John Puckering was studying in Paris. There his studies included daily lessons in dancing from 2 to 3pm every afternoon.25 There were exceptions, however, as some pupils did not last long. This is illustrated by Albrecht Dürer’s visit to Venice in 1506, where, wishing to improve his social standing, Dürer enrolled in a dance class. Two lessons were all he could cope with as his letter reveals. I set to work to learn dancing and twice went to the school. There I had to pay the master a ducat. Nobody could make me go there again. I would have to pay out all that I have earned, and at the end I still wouldn’t know how to dance!26 For many men and women dance lessons were a long-term commitment, one to which they returned throughout their life. Ingrid Brainard has observed that in sixteenth-century England ‘the literature, official documents and private correspondences are full of references to long daytime hours spent under the tutelage of professional dancing masters’.27 From ordinances passed to regulate dance schools, we know that they existed in London prior to 1533,28 and the attempts to regulate them continued throughout the sixteenth century. In the 1570s the number of dance schools in London increased, some of which were set up ‘in undesirable neighbourhoods and manned by equally undesirable people’.29 This proliferation may have been the reason that in 1574 three dance masters, Richard Frythe and Robert and William Warren, were given a monopoly for twenty-one years to be ‘the only teachers of dancing within the City of London and suburbs; the teaching to be conducted within their dwelling houses; other persons forbidden to teach under pain, for every day’s teaching of 10 days of imprisonment and forfeiture of 40s’.30 Exactly how many dance 24  Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558–1641 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), pp. 679–80. 25  Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, p. 695. 26  Francis Ames-Lewis, The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 74. 27  Ingrid Brainard, ‘Sir John Davies’ Orchestra as a Dance Historical Source’, in Songs of the Dove and the Nightingale: Sacred and Secular Music c. 900–c.1600, ed. Greta Mary Hair and Robyn E. Smith (Sydney: Currency Press, 1994), p. 177. 28  Brainard, ‘Sir John Davies’ Orchestra’, p. 199 n. 2. 29   Mary Pennino-Baskerville, ‘Terpsichore Reviled: Antidance Tracts in Elizabethan England’, Sixteenth Century Journal 22, no. 3 (1991): 479. 30  Skiles Howard, The Politics of Courtly Dancing in Early Modern England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998), p. 5 and n. 18. Howard is quoting from Calendar

108

chapter 4

schools existed in London at any one time is not known,31 but a figure is available for Paris in the early seventeenth century, courtesy of Michael Praetorius’s introduction to his collection of French dance music entitled Terpsichore and published in 1612, where he states that there are three hundred dance masters working in Paris.32 So far we have seen that dance instruction was a one-to-one process in the private homes of the students, as well as in the room(s) or house hired by the dance teacher. In the latter case the instruction was either closer to the individual tuition in private homes, or was part of an institution that offered both dance and music lessons. There was also another way in which young boys and adolescents could learn to dance; that is, as part of the curriculum in schools and colleges. In early fifteenth-century Italy one of the most renowned humanist schools was that of Vittorino da Feltre at Mantua where the pupils received instruction from dancing masters (saltatores), as well as music teachers.33 At Guarino Guarini’s school at Ferrara dancing was also considered one of the acceptable forms of physical activity, along with ball games, hunting, walking and riding.34 The influence of the educational writings of the fifteenth-century Italian humanists spread outside of Italy, including their belief that dancing was an integral part of the educational process. In Thomas Elyot’s treatise The Boke Named the Governour, which he wrote for the education of young boys destined for careers in English administrative positions, Elyot argued that through the study and practice of the basse danse children could learn the important moral truths that were essential for those engaged in public affairs and in the government of the country.35 Similarly, in sixteenth-century France a number of colleges were set up in Paris and other major centres such as Bordeaux and Toulouse, all of which taught the educational programme first advocated in the humanist schools of quattrocento Italy.36 In 1594 Antoine of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth I Vol. 6, 1572–75 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1973), p. 258. 31  Barbara Ravelhofer in her very detailed and thorough study of the early Stuart masques concludes that ‘early modern London boasted a respectable range’ of dancing schools. Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque, p. 21. 32  Bruce R. Carvell, ‘A Translation of the Preface to Terpsichore of Michael Praetorius’, Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America 20 (1983): 51. 33  Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350–1450 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 129. 34  Barbara Sparti, Introduction to Guglielmo Ebreo of Pesaro, p. 57. 35  See the section ‘Dance, virtue and ethical behaviour’ in chapter 2 for further details on Elyot’s views on dance as part of a humanist education. 36  Kate van Orden, Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 37.

Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils

109

de Pluvinel’s academy for noblemen’s sons opened in Paris, under the auspices of the king, Henri IV. While riding, horsemanship and dressage lay at the heart of his academy, much more was taught, including dancing. A contemporary, Alexandre de Pontaymery described Pluvinel’s academy as a place that not only instruct[s] the Gentlemen in the profession of riding, but in the practice of good morals – without which all sciences are only vanity…. If one has exerted himself at riding you have gymnastics, fencing, and dance, all under people who the aforesaid Monsieur happily knew to choose, and who are without argument the foremost in their art. You also have Mathematics, painting, and the lute under the most excellent masters one could desire.37 In England the sons of the landed gentry and the younger sons of the nobility increasingly turned to the education, both legal and social, provided by the Inns of Court in London. Just as in Pluvinel’s academy in Paris, dance classes formed part of the educational curriculum at the Inns of Court, though these classes were delivered by the dancing schools in the capital rather than by the Inns of Court themselves.38 Dance lessons at the London dancing schools were not cheap, and the fees charged ‘could equal those paid for belonging to an academic institution’.39 For example, in 1594 a student at Gray’s Inn paid 20s a month for his dance lessons, but only half that amount to learn singing.40 The fact that the families of the young men enrolled at the Inns of Court were prepared to pay well for their sons’ dance lessons, indicates the importance they attached to the ability to dance, and to dance well. They knew that acquiring expertise in dancing meant acquiring a bodily agility, elegance in posture 37  Quoted in Van Orden, Music, Discipline, and Arms, p. 43 from f. 3r of Pontaymery’s L’academie ou Institution de la Noblesse Françoise (Paris: Jean Richer, 1599). For further discussion of Pluvinel’s academy see Van Orden, pages 40–5, and for information on Pluvinel himself and his importance to three French kings, see Patrice Franchet d’Espèrey, ‘The Ballet d’Antoine de Pluvinel and the Maneige Royal’, in Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615. A Celebration of the Habsburg and Bourbon Unions, ed. Margaret M. McGowan (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 115–9. 38  Barbara Ravelhofer, ‘Choreography as Commonplace’, in Commonplace Culture in Western Europe in the Early Modern Period: Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Revolt, ed. David J. Cowling and Mette B. Bruun (Leuven: Peters, 2011), I: 214. 39  Barbara Ravelhofer, ‘Dancing at the Court of Queen Elizabeth I’, in Queen Elizabeth I: Past and Present, ed. Christa Jansohn (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004), p. 102. 40  Barbara Ravelhofer, ‘Middleton and Dance’, in The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton, ed. Gary Taylor and Trish Thomas Henley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 132 n. 3.

110

chapter 4

and manners, and the correct presence and address, all of which would facilitate their sons’ careers. For example, Christopher Hatton (c. 1540–1591) was one gentleman who was seen by contemporaries as having advanced at court through his skill in dancing. Sir Robert Naunton commented that Hatton ‘came to the court … by the galliard, for he came thither as a private gentleman of the Inns of Court in a masque, and for his activity and person (which was tall and proportional) taken into the Queen’s favour’.41 2

Nicolas Vallet’s Dance School in Amsterdam

Perhaps the most closely related body of evidence for the activities of our anonymous dance master in Brussels is provided by the activities of Nicolas Vallet: musician, composer, teacher and musical entrepreneur. Vallet was a Frenchman, born into a family of musicians at Corbény on the Ile-de-France, sometime after 1580 when his father was married.42 Until 1614 his activities are unknown,43 but from 1615 to 1620 a number of his musical compositions were published, mostly for lute and voice. By this time Vallet was living and working in Amsterdam, where he had a reputation as a composer, instrumental performer and master musician who was able to take apprentices. In 1616, for example, the ten year old Jérémias Gibbsons was apprenticed to Vallet for six years in order to learn to play the lute and other instruments.44 Vallet also attracted other musicians to work with him. In 1621 an English lutenist Richard Swift is recorded as being in the service of Vallet, while a contract dated 10 January 1626 was for the employment of Anthony Grelle for two years. The contract stated that Grelle had to assist Vallet on every occasion that his master required, and meanwhile to work diligently in Vallet’s dance school.45 Grelle was to be paid four guineas every time he played at a banquet or at a ball, but only three guineas when the performance was not to accompany 41  Bella Mirabella, ‘ “In the sight of all”: Queen Elizabeth and the Dance of Diplomacy’, Early Theatre 15, no. 1 (2012): 65. Mirabella is quoting from Robert Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia or Observations on Queen Elizabeth: Her Times and Her Favourites (1630), ed. John S. Cerovski (Washington D.C./London: Folger Shakespeare Library/Associated University Presses, 1985), p. 67. Hatton’s masque performance at the Inner Temple was in 1561. 42  The details of Vallet’s career are given in the introductory essay by Monique Rollin to a modern edition and transcription of Le Secret des Muses. See Rollin, ‘Etude biographique’, in Oeuvres de Nicolas Vallet pour luth seul: Le Secret des Muses, ed. and transcription André Souris (Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1970), pp. xi–xiv. 43  Rollin, ‘Etude biographique’, p. xi. 44  Rollin, ‘Etude biographique’, p. xiii. 45  Rollin, ‘Etude biographique’, p. xiii.

Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils

111

dancing, with a minimum of four guineas a week. It is interesting to note that musicians were paid more when required to accompany dancers than when no dancing was involved. It is not ever stated why playing at balls was more remunerative for musicians. Perhaps the number of hours they were required to play was longer, or the number of musical pieces they had to commit to memory was more than for a purely instrumental concert; or perhaps it was an indication of the large demand for instrumentalists to play for balls and dances combined with the number of wealthy merchants in Amsterdam who could afford to pay such fees.46 Certainly the fact that Vallet was able to employ another musician to help him provide music for such events is an indication of how often balls were held in Amsterdam. Unfortunately there is no further information on Vallet’s dance school when he employed Grelle in January 1626. Just less than a year later, however, on 12 November 1626 Vallet and the English musician Edward Hancock entered into a contract to set up and operate a dance school for six years.47 This agreement reveals a little more about how the school operated. The school was to be established in Vallet’s home, and he would receive two-thirds of the income from the students’ fees, with Hancock one-third. The hours that the two men were to teach at the school was also set out in the contract: one hour in the mornings from 10.30 to 11.30 and three hours in the afternoons from 4 to 7pm. On Sunday afternoons it appears that perhaps a dance was held at the school, as the contract stipulates that Vallet, Hancock and the two other musicians who were also contractually bound to play together with Vallet and Hancock in all engagements such as weddings or banquets, had to be present at the school on Sunday afternoons. These two musicians were Robert Tindel and Richard Swift, both of whom were English.48 For these Sunday afternoon engagements Vallet was to have received one-third of the fees paid by the students who attended, while the other three men shared equally in the remaining two-thirds. The fact that extra musical resources were required for Sunday afternoons points to the conclusion that even if a formal ball was not held at the school, then at least it was an opportunity for the students to perform group dances 46  This practice was not unique to early seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Larger fees for playing at dances can also be found in the contracts for musicians’ guilds from the thirteenth century onwards, and where only the most skilled musicians were permitted to play for dances. See Kay Brainerd Slocum, ‘Confrérie, Bruderschaft and Guild: The Formation of Musicians’ Fraternal Organisations in Thirteenth-and Fourteenth-Century Europe’, Early Music History 14 (1995): 257–74. 47  Rollin, ‘Etude biographique’, p. xiv. 48  Swift was the same person whom Vallet had engaged previously for two years in 1621. Rollin, ‘Etude biographique’, pp. xiii–xiv.

112

chapter 4

to the appropriate musical accompaniment. At the teaching times during the rest of the week when Vallet and Hancock had to be present one might reasonably conclude that these sessions were devoted to the teaching and practice of individual steps, the mastery of passages from a choreography, and instruction in bodily comportment. The first thing that strikes one about the operation of the dance school run by Vallet and Hancock is that the mandated hours of teaching were not extensive; that is, only four hours a day. This suggests that during these teaching hours Vallet and Hancock were teaching groups of students rather than only teaching one pupil at a time, otherwise their income would not be sufficient. It also raises the question of what else Vallet and Hancock were doing with their time in the hours that they were not teaching at the school. Four hours a day does not seem like full-time employment. One has to assume that Vallet and Hancock did not fill their mornings and early afternoons with private dance lessons in the student’s own home, because there is no mention of private pupils in the contract, and no stated mechanism for sharing any income from such pupils. The second important point to note about the school in Amsterdam is that Vallet was the entrepreneur and that the association of musicians he had assembled in Amsterdam was an international one. The dancing school operated from Vallet’s house, and Vallet received a greater share of the income from it than did any of the others. The fact that this school in Amsterdam in the 1620s was a group activity, might provide a reason for the number of different hands in our anonymous dance master’s notebook. If this notebook was kept at the premises of a dance school in Brussels which was run along the lines of Vallet and Hancock’s dance school in Amsterdam, then there would have been a number of dance masters and musicians involved in teaching and performing at the school, all with access to the notebook. 3

Teaching Records in the Dance Master’s Notebook

The type of information provided in the notebook concerning dance teaching is invaluable and quite rare, since, as we have seen, most of the surviving documents from dance schools across Western Europe in the early modern period are legal contracts which detail how the lesson fees are to shared among the partners in the school, and the other contractual obligations of the partners towards each other. While the information recorded in the dance master’s notebook is not contractual – it is obviously not a legal document – it does provide a wider social context for the practice of dance teaching at this time.

Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils

113

What is found in the notebook are the signatures as well as general descriptions of his dance pupils. The starting date of the lessons is recorded alongside each signature or general description, and this information is contained in adjacent folios, rather than being scattered throughout the manuscript. These folios provide us with information on the gender of the pupils taught by the anonymous dance master, their social level, and their country or region of origin. The dates also provide us with evidence as to the times of the year when teaching occurred. One obvious lacuna in the dance master’s notebook is any information concerning payment for dance lessons: we do not know what he charged for his teaching. Most of the signatures of his dance pupils are on separate pages that were pasted into the notebook from another source. I hypothesize that these pages could have come from a separate account book in which all the payments he received from teaching were recorded. The only entry that mentions a payment is on f. 71v, and there is no indication in this entry of the reason for the payment. It could have been for dance lessons, but it could just have easily been for some other non-dance activity. We do know that Esquivel Navarro in his discussion of how a dance school should operate recommended that a separate book be used to record the name of each dance student, along with the date. The manner that one must have in order to teach students is that when anyone comes to be a student, you agree as far as possible on terms. This done, register his name in a book which the Master has for this purpose, putting down the day, month, and year. One asks for a month’s payment in advance, and if it is not brought by the third or fourth lesson, do not continue with him until he brings it in, unless he is such a good friend that one ought not to behave in this way with him.49 Later on Esquivel Navarro states that the students should pay the required fee to the dance master at the end of every lesson.50 The general descriptions of about seventy dance pupils reads like a list that a teacher might make in order to remember the students in his or her class. 49  ‘El estilo que se ha de tener para enseñar a los discípulo[s], es, que en viniendo cualquiera a serlo, concertarse en lo que se pudiere; y estándolo, asentarle en un libro, que para esto tiene el Maestro, poniendo el día, mes, y año. Pídese el mes adelantado, y no trayéndole a la tercera o cuarta lección, no proseguir con él hasta que le traiga, salvo si es tan amigo, que no se deba tener con él este estilo’. See Brooks, The Art of Dancing in SeventeenthCentury Spain, p. 234 for the Spanish text, and p. 286 for her translation. 50  Brooks, The Art of Dancing in Seventeenth-Century Spain, p. 290.

114

chapter 4

Sometimes a student is identified by size, as in le petie getiliome (f. 65v ‘the small gentleman’) or le grand bourgoie (f. 65v ‘the large bourgoise’), often by rank, as in monsieur le barront (f. 66r ‘Monsieur the baron’) or le uiconte aucq sont companons (f. 66r ‘the vicomte with his companions’), and sometimes by the country or town from which they came, as in les quatre iiii barront allemant (f. 65v ‘the four German barons’), lenglois (f. 65v ‘the Englishman’), les deus gentiliome dennemart (f. 76r ‘the two Danish gentlemen’) or la velle de sinct catrine ie ientilome (f. 74v ‘the gentleman from the town of Saint Catherine’). While the majority of the dance students described in this manner are male, female students are mentioned, for example, la demoiselle (ff. 74v, 76r ‘the young lady’) or les damme (f. 76r ‘the ladies’). From these general descriptions it is clear that our anonymous dance master taught both men and women. The next piece of information we can glean from these general descriptions is that often pupils began their studies in a small group, presumably either with friends or with other family members. On f. 70v, for example, five gentlemen start together (les cincq gentiliome), while at other times it was four ladies (f. 76r les quatre damme) or the two cousins (f. 76r les deu cousint), or a gentleman with his sister (f. 74v la velle de sinct catrine ie ientilome a commancer aucq sa seurre). Not all entries, however, are clear about the relationship, if any, between the pupils referred to. For example, after the gentleman with his sister from Saint Catherine, there is an entry that just states ‘the gentleman with the young lady’ (le gentiliome aucq la demioselle), so it is impossible to know if the gentleman was escorting a female relative to the dance school so they could both have lessons, or if the two persons listed just happened to start dance classes on the same day. Sometimes the small groups of pupils who started lessons together were related socially rather than familiarly, for example ‘the baron with his two gentlemen’ (f. 66r monsieur le barront aucq ces deu gentiliome), or ‘the viscount with his companions’ (f. 66r le uiconte aucq sont companons). There are two other interesting entries in this category; that is, when the gentleman in charge of a nobleman’s household is recorded as starting dance lessons. On one occasion it is the maître d’hotel of the baron (f. 66r le mestre dotelle du barront), while on the second occasion it is the maître d’hotel of the prince of Lorraine (Monsieur le mestre dotelle de monsigneur e prince de lorrins).51 Just as the musicians employed by Vallet at his school in Amsterdam were international, so too were the pupils who attended the dance school in Brussels, with German, French, English and Danish pupils being recorded. The signatures appear to be mostly German or Flemish, with a few French names, 51  This entry is on the original f. 71r that has a smaller sheet pasted on top of it.

Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils

115

and three that could well be Swedish.52 Some pupils when signing recorded the city in which they lived, such as Mattheú Boÿd from Cologne (f. 71r), or the two men from Louvain who started on the 23 January 1617 (f. 68r). The general descriptions also mention smaller towns from regional areas of France, such as Coulon in Poitou (f. 75r le coulonois a commacer). There are also what appear to be references to other regional areas of France; that is, Le Saint in Brittany (which is spelt Ar Sent in Breton), Le Galon d’Or in Poitou and Bélon in northwestern France.53 There is also a much less specific reference to the origin of a pupil on f. 74v where the entry records two Frenchmen from the countryside as starting on January 21 (des ⌈deu⌉ francois ⌈du pas⌉ hont commanceir le + + i nieme de iehanuier). Given the wide geographic area from which his students came, it is worth noting that none of the signatures found in the notebook are Spanish names. The lack of any Spanish gentlemen or ladies among his pupils appears to indicate that the anonymous dance master was not closely tied to the court of Albert and Isabella, and that members of their court who wished to take dance lessons did so under the tutelage of another dance master who was employed by the court. One cannot state conclusively, however, that the anonymous dance master had no Spanish students, as it is possible that such pupils were among the gentlemen or ladies listed in the general descriptions of his students.54 The practice of recording the names of one’s dance students was not confined to the anonymous owner of the notebook. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the dance master Adam-Pierre de La Grené, who also lived and worked in Brussels, wrote down the appointments and names of his high-ranking pupils, among whom were courtiers from the Low Countries, English and Irish gentlemen, Palatine princesses, and members of the Brussels’ bourgeois. The manuscript is believed to have been written between 1642 and 1687, and is now held in the Archives générales du Royaume, MD 2663.55 Adam-Pierre de La Grené belonged to a family of musicians and dance teachers who were active in Brussels from the 1630s onwards. The question of whether Adam-Pierre or other members of his family were aware of the activities of our anonymous 52  The three names that could be Swedish are Petrus Muller Livo (f. 70v), Georg Friedrich Thott (f. 76r) and Christian Sigmundt von Schask (f. 76r). 53  See the entries on f. 74v, ‘a commenset le bretant en la ville de sent’ and f. 75r, ‘les deu ⌈le galon dor⌉ gentiliome hont commacer’ and ‘le gentiliome belon a commancer’. 54  There is, however, a reference to a Spanish noblewoman in the notebook. On f. 29v, under the music for a ballet entrée, is the text ‘ballet de madame la marquis le baez’. 55  Jean-Philippe van Aelbroeck, Dictionnaire des danseurs à Bruxelles de 1600 à 1830 (Liège: Mardaga, 1994), p. 45. According to Van Aelbroeck the manuscript does not contain any choreographic material.

116

chapter 4

dance master, or if they knew of his personal notebook with its listing of dance students, cannot be answered at present. 4

Social Level of Pupils and Teaching Dates

From his general descriptions of the dance pupils it is possible to obtain a good picture of the social level of those who were taught by our anonymous dance master. The majority of these pupils were from the middle to upper levels of society. ‘Gentlemen’, ‘ladies’, and ‘young ladies’ were common, as were the lowest levels of nobility: knights and barons. Occasionally the dance master had pupils from the highest social level, as on the 28 February 1617 when the princes de la sau started lessons (f. 68r). Another entry extends the social level of the dance students in the opposite direction, when the dance master describes a student as le grand bourgoie (f. 65v). On other occasions the dance master describes the student by his occupation, as, for example, where a student who started on 23 January is described as le tresorie, that is, a person in the ­bureaucracy with the position of chancellor or treasurer (f. 74v ‘le ++ iii siemes de iehanuier le tresorie a commanceir’). From these general descriptions of the dance pupils it is also clear that the men and women who came to the school for lessons were not just adolescents. There were young ladies among the pupils, but the men who held responsible administrative positions in the bureaucracy, or who were in charge of a nobleman’s household, would have been much older. A further piece of information revealed by the general descriptions of the dance pupils and by their signatures, is that students sometimes returned for additional lessons some months after they were first recorded as starting classes. For example, on ff. 65v–66r the English gentleman who started on 15 February is then recorded as resuming on 15 April, the same day as the baron and two of his gentlemen recommenced dance classes (the baron first started on 23 February). The signature of Otto à Langen appears on f. 72r next to the date 21 January, probably in 1615. Then ten months later (at least, since the year is not given in the second appearance) he signs again on 23 October (f. 73r). The records of about 120 dance pupils recorded either by a general description or by their signature, give us a good indication of the rhythm of our anonymous dance master’s year. He teaches throughout the year, and even though some months are busier than others, there is no month in which he does not have at least one pupil. January and May are the busiest months, followed by February and July. August, the height of summer, and the winter months of November and December were the least popular times to take dance classes.

Dance Teaching, Schools and Pupils

117

The popularity of January is most likely accounted for by the lead-up to the annual Carnival festivities, which always included balls, masquerades, and other dramatic productions with dancing. From the signatures and general descriptions of his dance students that are recorded in the notebook, it is clear that the anonymous dance master was operating a school, a serious teaching establishment. He was not just employed to teach dancing to the children from a small number of middle-class or elite households. The notebook reveals that he had a large number of students from a range of social backgrounds, both male and female, and of varying ages. His school had an international cohort of students, with pupils from adjacent countries, as well as those from more distant states, such as Denmark and England. The presence of students from such a wide geographic area reinforces dance teaching records from other places in England and the Continent which demonstrate that people often took dance lessons as part of their travel activities.

chapter 5

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition Towards the end of the dance master’s notebook (ff. 94r–99v), hidden behind a hand unique to this manuscript and of almost impenetrable illegibility, is a sequence of instructions for manoeuvres with a pike.1 At first glance one might assume these instructions constitute a dance since they begin and end with a reverence. After having read a little further, one finds the phrases ‘pike on the shoulder’ and ‘pike pointing to the ground’, commands that appear in the pike drill section of the military training manual first published in 1607 by Jacob de Gheyn.2 This could lead one to assume that these folios perhaps record a pike drill. In fact, what is recorded in the dance master’s notebook lies somewhere between these two extremes: the sequence of movements is not a choreographed dance, nor is it a drill for a squadron of pikemen. The movements record a virtuoso exhibition for one man of manoeuvres with a pike that exhibit some characteristics of a choreographed dance, as well as sharing common elements with the military pike drill. As far as I am aware these instructions are unique. If any similar documents did exist among the primary sources for the dance practices of the period, or in the records associated with the practice of combat and handling of staff weapons (the category in which the pike belongs), then they have not survived, or have not yet been unearthed. In fact the virtuosity of the pike exhibition recorded in the dance master’s notebook is closer to the almost balletic display documented in Antonio Vezzani’s L’esercizio accademico di picca published in Parma in 1688, about seventy years after the compilation of the notebook, than to any contemporary document.3 Renaissance martial arts treatises were uneven in their treatment of the combat techniques with staff weapons, and these weapons were almost ignored in French treatises until the early seventeenth century when the first 1  See Appendix 2 for a transcription and English translation of these folios, whose facsimile images are also provided. 2  The manual was originally published in several languages. I have used the 1608 French and English publications; that is, Jacob de Gheyn, Maniement d’armes, d’arquebuses, mousquetz, et piques en conformité de l’ordre de Monseigneur le Prince Maurice, 2nd ed. (The Hague, 1608), and The Exercise of Armes for Calivres, Muskettes, and Pikes after the Ordre of his Excellence Maurits Prince of Orange (The Hague, 1608). 3  See Sydney Anglo, The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 169–70, and figure 21 on page 170 for an illustration from Vezzani of a few of his pike manoeuvres.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_007

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

119

military pike-drill manuals were published.4 Even when the masters-of-arms did discuss the use of staff weapons they did so in the context of one-to-one combat: ‘it was left to the military specialists of the early seventeenth century to evolve the rigorous systematization of handling pikes en masse and synchronously which is recorded and illustrated in their manuals’.5 In his treatise published in 1570 Giacomo di Grassi does discuss the pike.6 He notes that the pike is the ‘most honourable and most noble’ of the staff weapons, and that it is held in great regard by ‘renowned knights and great lords’.7 The fact that the pike was used both by men from the upper levels of society in personal combat, as well as by foot-soldiers who were from a lower level of society than di Grassi’s knights and great lords, could be one reason why the weapon was suitable for a virtuosic demonstration at a state celebration or spectacle. Many men watching such an exhibition would have been familiar with the techniques of handling a pike, and so would have been able to appreciate the skill they saw displayed before them, just as they were also able to do with a dance performance. Members of the elite were accustomed to both watching and participating in tournaments as part of a series of festivities held to celebrate an important state event, and personal combat with a pike did form part of such tournaments. For example, the eight days of festivities at Binche in August 1549 included a challenge by Philip (heir to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) to those knights present to personal combat with a pike and sword. The marquis de Berghes accepted the prince’s challenge, and, after a bout at which Philip acquitted himself ‘with “great effort and dexterity” ’, he joined Charles V and the royal women on the stage to watch further combats and dances which continued until midnight. At this hour prizes were awarded to those participants who had excelled in ‘valour, dexterity and deportment’.8 A further reason a dance master who lived and worked in Brussels might wish to include a pike exhibition in a spectacle is the presence of the militia guilds in that city, the membership of which was drawn from the middle to upper

4  See Anglo, Martial Arts, pp. 149–50 for a concise summary of which treatises discussed these weapons and when they were published. 5  Anglo, Martial Arts, p. 150. 6  Giacomo di Grassi, Ragione di adoprar sicuramente l’arme (Venice: G. Ziletti, 1570). Di Grassi’s treatise was translated into English and published in 1594 under the title Giacomo di Grassi, his true Arte of defence (Anglo, Martial Arts, p. 165). 7  Anglo, Martial Arts, p. 164. 8  The information on this tournament is from Teofilo F. Ruiz, A King Travels. Festive Traditions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. 235–6.

120

chapter 5

levels of Brussels’ society.9 They were elite units and they played an important role in the Joyous Entry processions and the ommegang processions, where they represented the ‘ancient bonds between citizens and princes’.10 The pike was among the weapons carried by these militia guilds, as illustrated in the series of paintings by Denis van Alsloot made for the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia that depicted the 1615 ommegang procession. Four of the original eight paintings have survived, one of which depicts the militia guilds of Brussels, with the lines of pikemen clearly visible carrying their pikes balanced on their right shoulders.11 Thus a pike exhibition would appeal to both courtly and civic audiences. As mentioned above the pike exhibition is not written in the hand of the anonymous dance master, and the hand does not appear anywhere else in the notebook. My hypothesis is that the owner of the notebook requested that an expert in staff weapons, perhaps a master-of-arms whom he knew, write out the sequence of instructions for a virtuosic pike display into his notebook. There is no direct evidence for this hypothesis apart from the language that points to an expert in handling a pike as the author of these instructions; that is, the specialized nature of the vocabulary used in the record of the pike exhibition, and also (because of the physical constraints of moving with a pike) the amount of specialized knowledge that would be required to write such a sequence of instructions.12 The series of instructions is long and complicated, and contains more detail than the ballet plots that were also copied into the notebook. From the detailed written description of the pike exhibition it would be possible for a third person to re-create the ‘choreography’, something that would not be possible from the limited information recorded for each of the ballet plots. These instructions may have been a record of what had been performed; or, on the other hand, they may have been prepared for a future performance. In any case they were obviously of interest to the dance master in order for him to ask someone to copy it into his notebook. By the early seventeenth century various forms of danced combat had been choreographed by dance masters for almost two hundred years as part of the theatrical spectacles organized to celebrate important state events. These same spectacles also included tournaments, jousting, or personal combat by male courtiers 9  Margit Thøfner, A Common Art: Urban Ceremonial in Antwerp and Brussels during and after the Dutch Revolt (Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2007), p. 47. 10  Thøfner, A Common Art, p. 54. 11  See Margit Thøfner, ‘The Court in the City, the City in the Court: Denis van Alsloot’s Depictions of the 1615 Brussels’ “ommegang” ’, Netherlands Yearbook for the History of Art 49, no. 1 (1998): 185–207. 12  I will discuss these points in more detail later.

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

121

both on foot and on horseback. Often the dancing and displays of combat were closely associated both thematically and temporally, with the dancing occurring either just before or just after a joust or tournament, as happened in Florence in 1419 and 1421, where the dancing immediately preceded the displays of combat.13 Thus, just as fireworks were a common part of spectacles and fêtes, so too were militaristic displays. As I have argued throughout this book, the dance master’s notebook contains a collection of material which would be of interest, and indeed of direct use, to a dance master when he had to organize (or collaborate in organizing) a theatrical spectacle. It would be an advantage to a dance master when putting forward ideas for a spectacle to be able to have examples of the different components of such displays that he could show to potential patrons, including examples of different types of ballet plots, and martial arts exhibitions. 1

The Pike Exhibition and the Military Drill Manuals

Even though the pike exhibition from the dance master’s notebook goes far beyond the manoeuvres recorded in the early seventeenth-century military manuals for a squadron of men, there are enough elements in common to suggest that these military manuals are of great use in interpreting what was recorded in the solo exhibition from the notebook. Jacob de Gheyn’s manual, for example, has thirty-two illustrations that accompany the text, which represent both the standard positions of the pike, and the intermediate positions through which a pikeman must move in order to change from one standard position to the next. From this manual one can clearly see many details of the position of the body: the feet, legs, arms and hands. For each position one can see the placement of the feet, whether the knees are bent or straight, which leg is stationary and which leg or foot moves forwards and backwards. One can see where the pikeman’s weight is centred, and the weight changes that are required in moving from one position to the next. One can also see the exact position of the hands and fingers around the pike when grasping it, both in the standard and intermediate positions. All of this information can be used in decoding the written instructions in the dance master’s notebook. One of the standard positions in de Gheyn’s drill manual, for example, is ‘pike on the shoulder’, a position that also occurs regularly throughout the pike 13  Bartolommeo di Michele del Corazza, ‘Diario Fiorentino anni di Bartolommeo di Michele del Corazza, 1405–1438’, Archivio Storico Italiano, ed. Giuseppe Odoardo Corazzino, 5th ser., 14 (1894): 254–6, 276–7.

122

chapter 5

exhibition. From the military manual it is clear that ‘pike on the shoulder’ is short-hand for the pike resting on the right shoulder, held by the pikeman’s right hand just in front of his chin, with the tip of the pike facing to the rear. This is shown in engraving 10 (see Illustration 7). When the single line ‘pike on the shoulder’ occurs in the pike exhibition it represents a series of movements with changes of handholds, changes of weight, as well as changes in the angle and positioning of the pike itself, that are required to achieve ‘pike on the shoulder’. For example, de Gheyn’s manual shows how to move the pike from the ‘Advance’ position (engraving 7) by way of two more intermediate positions as shown in engravings 8 and 9 to return to ‘pike on the shoulder’ as shown in engraving 10 (see Illustration 7). A similar procedure must be carried out to move the pike from resting on the right shoulder with the tip facing the rear, to being held level with the right shoulder with the tip facing forwards, and the right hand supporting the end of the pike and the left hand holding it in front of the body so that the weapon is ready for a forwards thrust or ‘charge’. This sequence of movements is shown in engravings 12 to 14 (see Illustration 8). Thus when one reads a series of instructions in the pike exhibition from the dance master’s notebook such as lines 6 to 9 on f. 94v ‘Pike on the shoulder. Again two thrusts. The Great Assault. Pike on the shoulder’, de Gheyn’s manual makes it clear that these short instructions involve a series of standard movements and pike positions. The pike exhibition also contains half turns, a movement which it is possible to perform in a small number of different ways. Insight into how such a turn is performed is provided by de Gheyn’s military drill manual, where the pikeman makes a 180 degree turn in the process of moving from ‘pike on the shoulder’ (engraving 26) to ‘charge your pike to the rear’ (engravings 27 to 29). These four engravings are shown in Illustration 9. In this instance the pikeman turns to the left-hand side, and in order to do so he first moves his left foot from out to the side to a pace behind his right foot. He then passes the pike over his head so that it is held above his left shoulder with his left hand and with his weight on his left foot (engraving 28). He then turns to the left by pivoting on the balls of both feet. This method of turning 180 degrees not only ensures that the pike does not have to move, but is also a very fast method turning one’s own body. Once the half turn has been completed the pike ends up over his right shoulder again. The clarification provided by the military drill manuals as to the method of performing turns with a pike is important, because of the limitations on the pikeman’s movements when holding and manipulating a very long and heavy pike. Pikes were frequently eighteen feet long, and their length could vary

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

illustration 7 Engravings 7–10 showing how to move the pike from the ‘advance’ position to ‘pike on the shoulder’. In Jacob de Gheyn, Maniement d’armes (1608).

123

124

chapter 5

illustration 8 Engravings 11–14 showing how to ‘charge’ the pike ready for a forwards thrust. In Jacob de Gheyn, Maniement d’armes (1608).

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

125

illustration 9 Engravings 26–29 showing how to turn 180 degrees when holding a pike. In Jacob de Gheyn, Maniement d’armes (1608).

126

chapter 5

from between sixteen to twenty-two feet (4.88m–6.70m).14 Thus when held at one end a very small movement at that end would cause a large movement at the other end. Furthermore, the balance of the pike itself affects the balance of the person holding it, so that when held in a stationary position the pike would have to be centred over the pikeman’s own centre of gravity. It is one thing to turn 180 degrees in the course of a series of movements when the furthest extension from one’s body is no more than the length of an outstretched arm or leg. It is quite another matter to try to turn 180 degrees while at the same time swinging around a pole that extends out eight to ten feet on either side of one’s body. The trajectory that the tip of such a pole would have to travel is so much longer than the movement travelled at the centre, that it severely limits the speed at which such a turn could be made. Hence the adoption of the method of turning as described in the military training manuals. 2

Structure of the Pike Exhibition

The series of pike manoeuvres recorded in the dance master’s notebook is a mixture of standard pike positions, manoeuvres not found in the drill manuals and therefore described in more detail in the notebook, and sequences of movements which are also not found in the military manuals, but still only appear in the notebook as a short-hand title. The latter category of movements appear under titles like ‘The Great Assault’, and ‘Play from Above’, then ‘Display of Boasting’ (La Rodomontade). From the surrounding text on f. 98r it appears that these titles do not refer to what follows. One can only speculate as to the reason these sequences of movements were not described in detail, but only recorded as a brief title. Are these short-hand titles an indication that exhibitions with a pike were more common than the single piece of evidence we possess would indicate? One must assume that the person responsible for creating the pike exhibition knew perfectly well what was required when he used such titles, and it appears that he was using each title in a similar manner to the way a dance master would use the names of each step when providing a written description of a newly-created choreography. One wonders, therefore, if these titles point to an organized, non-military categorization of pike movements that was widely known in the Low Countries in the early seventeenth century, or, if they were merely a one-off, idiosyncratic method of reducing the amount of description required when recording a sequence of pike manoeuvres for a performance. 14  Anglo, Martial Arts, p. 166.

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

3

127

Similarities with Choreographed Dances

The fact that the pike exhibition begins and ends with a reverence is only the first and most obvious similarity with contemporary choreographed dances: there are also a number of other common characteristics. For example, both practices (that is, dances and the pike exhibition) follow the same pattern of starting slowly and gradually increasing the tempo and technical virtuosity required. The pike exhibition starts with less complicated movements, and has more resting places; that is, positions where the performer can pause for a moment or two, as in ‘pike on the shoulder’, and ‘pike on the ground’. There is also a second reverence soon after the one at the beginning which also provides another opportunity for a pause in the sequence of movements. By the end of the exhibition the pikeman is required to perform technically demanding and virtuosic actions such as numerous turns in the air, and throwing the pike into the air. The dances recorded in the treatises of Fabritio Caroso and Cesare Negri often begin with a reverence, followed by a sequence of slower and simpler steps, such as two continenze, passi gravi, or seguiti ordinari. Then the steps become faster and/or each step contains more individual movements. This applies particularly to dances like the Passo e mezzo, the Pavaniglia or the Tordiglione, which are all built around sequences of mutanze, or variations, often performed first by the man and then by the woman. For example, in the man’s third mutanza in Tordiglione nuovo Negri has choreographed twentynine different steps to perform in eight semibreves of music. By comparison, the opening section of this dance has only three steps (a riverenza grave and two continenze) in eight semibreves, then seven steps in eight semibreves (four seguiti finti, two trabuchetti presti and a riverenza), then two more repetitions of eight semibreves during which time only five steps are performed in each of the eight semibreves.15 In a similar manner Caroso has choreographed three capriole for the man’s sixth mutanza near the end of the Passo e mezzo.16 A capriola was a technically demanding step that involved a leap into the air while at the same time the dancer moved his feet rapidly backwards and forwards. There were a number of different variants of the capriola that involved turning in the air while leaping, jumping off both feet or off one foot, and moving the legs and feet sideways in a scissor-like motion while in the air.17 15  Cesare Negri, Le gratie d’amore (1602; facsimile ed., New York: Broude Brothers, 1969), pp. 193–6. 16  Fabritio Caroso, Il ballarino (1581; facsimile ed., New York: Broude Brothers, 1967), pp. 46r–49r. 17  See Negri’s description of all of these movements in Le gratie, pp. 81–9.

128

chapter 5

A second common characteristic is the repetition of the same sequence of movements but starting on the other foot in the dances, or with the other hand in the case of the pike exhibition. On lines 11 and 17 of f. 97r, for example, there is the instruction ‘repeat the movement from the other side’. I have taken this to indicate a repetition of the sequence of movements from ‘a half turn to the left’ (line 4) to ‘move forward and slide’ (line 10), then a repetition of the movements described in lines 12 to 16. The repetition of a sequence of steps starting first with one foot and then with the other was a very common feature of Renaissance dances throughout Europe. Part of Caroso’s alterations in Nobiltà di dame (1600) to choreographies that he had previously published nineteen years earlier in Il ballarino, was to introduce more repeated step sequences into his dances, and to make these step sequences longer. These changes are very clear in dances such as the Gagliarda di Spagna and the Passo e mezzo where the step sequences in the mutanze are substantially altered from their earlier, idiosyncratic forms.18 Alta Regina is another dance found in both of Caroso’s treatises. In the later publication Caroso has substantially altered the step sequences in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth tempi, with new sequences repeated first on the left and then on the right.19 Repetitions of step sequences are also found in the later sixteenth-century French dance practice, as exemplified by dances in Arbeau’s treatise, such as the almain and the pavane. It is also found in the late sixteenth to early seventeenth-century manuscript compilation, Instruction pour dancer, near the beginning of the bourrée: ‘et vous ferez encores le mesme passage du coste droict comme auez faict du commencement du coste gauche’.20 Ever since the first dance treatises appeared in the fifteenth century, the pause, or a short cessation of movement, had been part of the recorded choreographies and, somewhat paradoxically, part of the dance masters’ concern with eloquent movements of the human body. The fifteenth-century Italian dance masters Domenico da Piacenza and Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro developed a specialized technical vocabulary in order to be able to describe these 18  Caroso, Il ballarino, pp. 22v–24r and 46r–49r: Nobiltà di dame (1600; facsimile ed., Bologna: Forni, 1980), pp. 156–9 and 130–6. 19  Caroso, Il ballarino, pp. 8r–9r: Nobiltà di dame, 98–100. For further discussion on repeated step sequences in Caroso’s dances, see Jennifer Nevile, ‘“Rules for Design”: Beauty and Grace in Caroso’s Choreographies’, Dance Research 25, no. 2 (2007): 107–18. 20  See page 53 lines 14–6 of the facsimile edition and transcription of this manuscript, Instruction pour dancer. An Anonymous Manuscript, ed. Angene Feves, Ann Lizbeth Langston, Uwe W. Schlottermüller and Eugenia Roucher (Freiburg: fa-gisis Musik- und Tanzedition, 2000). This manuscript contains sixteen dances and was probably compiled in France.

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

129

elegant movements, one term of which – fantasmata – referred specifically to a cessation of movement. Fantasmata was one of the essential qualities of their dance style, and was concerned with the way in which each step was phrased, especially when these steps were danced in bassadanza misura. At the end of every step the dancer must freeze briefly for a fraction of a second, just as if he or she had seen the head of the Medusa, before moving on to the next step with so little effort it is like a falcon taking wing.21 Given that the fifteenth-century dance masters were not as verbose in their treatises as their sixteenth-century counterparts, the inclusion of fantasmata among the essential qualities of the dance practice indicated how important the cessation of movement was to the dance masters. The pause continued to be part of western European dance practices in the ensuing centuries, as illustrated by its appearance in a gavotte from Instruction pour dancer ‘et apres retour du pied droict en arriere faisant une pose’.22 The same principle of a cessation of movement is also found in the pike exhibition and is another of its shared characteristics with contemporary dances. Every now and then throughout the sequence of manoeuvres is an instruction for a pause in the continuous patterned movements of the pike and the pikeman’s body. For example, on f. 96v lines 3 to 6 one finds the words ‘take it up again in the same hand bringing it back and letting it rest above the elbow, under the arm. Keep it there and stay awhile’ (my emphasis), while on f. 99v lines 3 to 9 the instructions read ‘Take the pike by the point and throw it into the air in front of you to catch it again by the end, wait a little while’ (my emphasis). The final similarity between the pike manoeuvres and Renaissance dance practices is the use in the former of named steps that are part of the step vocabulary; that is, half turns, full turns, and glissades, as well as the opening and closing reverence. Glissades (as well as glisses) occur in the branles, the gavotte and the bourrée of the manuscript collection Instruction pour dancer, where the step(s) are made to the left or to the right. Exactly what these steps involved, apart from a sliding or gliding motion of the foot, has not yet been resolved by modern dance historians due to the small number of French dance sources from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the lack of any systematic and meticulous step descriptions in the French primary sources

21  ‘facendo requia a cadauno tempo che pari haver veduto lo capo di meduxa como dice el poeta cioè che facto el motto sij tutto di piedra in quello instante et in instante mitti ale como falcone’. Domenio da Piacenza. De arte saltandj & choreas ducendj De la arte di ballare et danzare. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds it. 972, f. 2r. 22  Feves et al., Instruction pour dancer, p. 53 lines 2–3.

130

chapter 5

that have survived.23 In the pike exhibition glissades occur several times, with the instructions ‘perform a glissade’ or ‘advance and perform a glissade’. Thus it is clear from the text that glissades were always performed moving forwards, rather than sideways as in the branles found in Instruction pour dancer.24 On two other occasions the instructions read ‘move forward and slide’ (f. 97r line 10) and ‘Advance a pace and glide forward’ (f. 97r line 16). Both of these instructions indicate a forwards sliding movement, but it is not clear if these two occasions represent a different movement from a glissade, or the same movement.25 Whatever the exact forward movements were in the performance of a glissade, it had to be able to be performed with the pike resting on the shoulder, with the pike extended in front of the pikeman, just after the pike had been passed above the head of the pikeman, and when the pikeman held the pike by its point with his right hand after having slipped the pike above his shoulder. In other words, a glissade was performed with the pike in a number of different positions which implies that the forward movement or step would have to have been relatively simple. One similarity which one would expect to see between choreographed dances and a martial arts display is the presence of music. Danced battles were always performed to music, and observers frequently commented upon the precision and order of the performers’ movements, and how these movements were always performed in time to the music. For example, in 1502 the marriage celebrations of Lucrezia Borgia included two danced battles where the contestants always fought ‘in time to the music’ and skillfully coordinated their ‘blows to the rhythm of the music’.26 Even theatrical displays of combat such as the barriers27 were always performed in time with the accompanying 23  For further discussion of what is and is not known about French dance style of this period, see pages 25–42 of Barbara Ravelhofer’s introduction to her edition of B. de Montagut’s Louange de la Dance (Cambridge: RTM Publications, 2000). For a detailed discussion of the steps and choreographies in Instruction pour dancer and various possibilities for reconstructing these dances, see the essays in Hubert Hazebroucq and Jean-Noël Laurenti, eds. La danse française entre Renaissance et baroque. Le manuscript Instruction pour dancer (vers 1610) (Tours: Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, 2017) http:// umr6576.cesr.univ-tours.fr/publications/instruction (accessed 31/1/2018). 24  The one exception to this statement is the occurrence on f. 97v line 7 where the instructions do not mention moving forward, stating only that the pikeman must ‘perform a glissade’. 25  This is analogous to the situation in the contemporary choreographies where both glissades and glisses appear. 26  Margaret M. McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 125. 27  The barriers was one specific form of mock combat in which knights on foot fought each other with swords or staff weapons while separated by a wooden barrier such as a bar or

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

131

music, as is made clear in a contemporary treatise on the duties of organizing a spectacle: ‘the barriers, because they are performed in time to the music and with measured blows, must be very well studied and rehearsed beforehand’.28 Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that the pike exhibition would also be performed in a measured way, with some form of musical accompaniment, even if only drum beats, to regulate the rhythm and the tempo. But there is no mention of any sort of musical accompaniment to the pike exhibition in the dance master’s notebook, nor any reference to the timing of the movements. One possible explanation for this omission is that it was the dance master (as opposed to the master-of-arms who wrote down the pike manoeuvres) who was responsible for providing any musical accompaniment to such an exhibition when it was performed. Since providing a musical accompaniment was within the competency of a dance master, perhaps the owner of the notebook did not feel any urgent necessity to record such an accompaniment in his notebook next to the description of movements for the pike. 4

Danced Combat

The presence of an exhibition of expertise in the handling of a staff weapon in a notebook mostly devoted to dance-related matters may at first seem a little incongruous. But in the Renaissance dancing and combat were much more closely connected than is the case today.29 Throughout the period and across all of the countries from which dance records have survived, combat and battles were constant and frequent themes in the choreographic record, occurring in both theatrical spectacles and in social dances created for the ballroom. In the sixteenth century dance masters and those in charge of organizing state festivities were interested in re-creating the ancient pyrrhic dances in their choreographed dance combats.30 Dance masters themselves drew attention to the link between dancing and warfare in the titles that they gave to their a wall. For a summary of the evolution of the barriers and its relationship to early modern court dance, see Sydney Anglo, ‘The Barriers: From Combat to Dance (Almost)’, Dance Research 25, no. 2 (2007): 91–106. 28  ‘Le barriere, perché si fanno con tempi e colpi misurati, dovranno essere molto bene studiate e provate innanzi’. Il corago, o vero alcune osservazioni per metter bene in scena le composizioni drammatiche, ed. Paolo Fabbri and Angelo Pompilio (Florence: Olschki, 1983), p. 104. 29  For an extensive discussion of these connections, see Kate van Orden, Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 30  See Van Orden, Music, Discipline, and Arms, pp. 186–234, and Margaret M. McGowan, ‘A Renaissance War Dance: The Pyrrhic’, Dance Research 3, no. 1 (1984): 29–38.

132

chapter 5

choreographies (for example, Torneo Amoroso or La Battaglia), and in their descriptions of the choreography. For example, in Le Balet comique de la royne, when describing the Grand Ballet, Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx likens the dancing of the court ladies to a battle. At the middle of the Ballet a chain was formed, composed of four interlacings, each different from the others, so that to watch them one would say that it was in battle array, so well was order kept, and so cleverly did everybody keep his place and his cadence.31 In this case the performers of the Grand Ballet were all women, but their ordered, controlled and disciplined dancing, and the geometrical figures of the ballet meant that the ballet was seen as akin to warfare. This viewpoint is made very clear in the humanist Jean Dorat’s poem Chorea Nympharum, where he describes the dancing of the sixteen ladies who represent the sixteen provinces of France in the 1573 Ballet des Polonais. In this poem Dorat continually emphasizes the military nature of their performance. They repeat a thousand short advances and a thousand returns; they combine a thousand flights, a thousand pauses of the feet. […] Now some cleave to others in oblique knots, like a hedge made of artfully entangled brambles. Now they form variously this figure, now that, on the dance floor; […] You would have thought this to be the game in which Trojan Julus delighted, as he imitated real battles with pretended manoeuvrers. In such a way they form their lines head on, now to the side; now they rush forward, now they flee back lightly. But already they are approaching with their formation restored like troops after combat as they pass before the faces of kings.32

31  Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx, Le Balet comique de la royne, 1581, trans. Carol and Lander MacClintock (np: American Institute of Musicology, 1971), p. 91. ‘A la moitié de ce Balet se feit vne chaine, composee de quatre entrelacemens differents l’vn de l’autre, tellement qu’à les voir on eust dit que c’estoit vne bataille rangee, si bien l’ordre y estoit gardé, & si dextreme[n]t chacun s’estudioit à obseruer son rang & cadence’. Facsimile ed., Margaret M. McGowan, ed. (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), p. 56r. 32  Ewa Kociszewska, ‘War and Seduction in Cybele’s Garden: Contextualizing the Ballet des Polonais’, Renaissance Quarterly 65, no. 3 (2012): 818–20. Kociszewska is using the translation by Thomas M. Greene, ‘Labyrinth Dances in the French and English Renaissance’, Renaissance Quarterly 54, no. 4.2 (2001), pp. 1405–6.

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

133

In the social dances choreographed for men and women the combat is usually between the two sexes. For example, the fifteenth-century Italian ballo Verçeppe is described by Antonio Cornazano in his dance treatise as ‘like a skirmish’ (Verçeppe e ballo quasi simile ad una scaramuccia),33 and many of the floor patterns of this dance constitute a choreographed engagement between the two opposing camps: two women on one side and three men on the other. Verçeppe is danced in single file, with the men and women alternating one behind the other. Often two of the men circle the two women who are standing in front of them (an exercise in harrying the enemy troops), with the women repeating the exercise.34 The idea of danced combat was even more popular in sixteenth-century Italy, with half a dozen or so dances bearing titles such as Barriera or La Battaglia, all of which were choreographed for men and women on opposing sides. Their music was often full of battle calls, and their choreo­ graphy full of martial patterns: advances and retreats, dancers moving past one another like two knights in a joust, and confrontations with symbolic handslapping in place of swords or lances striking shields.35 For the 1572 carnival season the French court was entertained by the performance of a danced joust. In this case Marguerite de Valois and ten of her ladies-in-waiting were costumed as men, while male courtiers dressed as women were their opponents.36 Danced combat was just as popular in theatrical spectacles. Here the protagonists varied: sometimes between an animal and a wild man, sometimes between mythological figures, sometimes between two groups of knights, or knights and wild men, sometimes between Christians and Moors, and sometimes between the forces of Cupid and the nymphs of Diana. In 1475, for example, the wedding in Pesaro of Costanzo Sforza and Camilla d’Aragona was celebrated with three days of festivities. The second day of spectacles opened with a series of pantomimic dances and moresche. To begin these dances a mountain entered the hall from which ‘a proud and nimble imitation lion jumped out and leapt over every large table in no way different from a real 33  Antonio Cornazano, Libro dell’arte del danzare. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Codex Capponiano, 203, f. 17r. 34  For a reconstruction of the choreography, floor patterns and music of Verçeppe, see Jennifer Nevile, The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 182–8. 35  See Barriera (pp. 77v–79v), Barriera Nuova (pp. 171v–172v) and Torneo Amoroso (pp. 159v– 161r) in Caroso’s Il ballarino: Barriera (pp. 139–48), and Barriera Nuova (pp. 190–3) in Caroso’s Nobiltà di dame: La Barriera (pp. 122–4), La Battaglia (pp. 257–63) and Il Torneo Amoroso (pp. 140–3) in Negri’s Le gratie d’amore, and the manuscript dance, La Battaglia, from Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Magl. XIX 31 ff. 1r–7r. 36  Margaret M. McGowan, ‘Marguerite de Valois, Reine de Navarre (1553–1615): Patroness and Performer’, Early Music History 34 (2015): 196.

134

chapter 5

lion. To the amazement of everyone, it performed incredible feats that seemed impossible for a man dressed in a lion’s skin. And behind him came forth a horrible and hairy wild man carrying a club encircled by a serpent, who tried to capture the lion’.37 Two years earlier in Rome at a banquet in honour of Eleonora d’Aragona a danced combat occurred between sixteen mythological characters led by Hercules and a group of dancing centaurs, the latter of whom were eventually defeated after una bella scaramuzza.38 In both these cases where one–half of the combatants were men disguised as real or mythological animals, it is a moot point as to how closely the choreographed movements of the performers corresponded to actual combat manoeuvres. At Pesaro the wild man was armed with a club, while in Rome the centaurs each held a small shield (una targhetta) and a mace or club (una mazza). At the fêtes held in Binche in 1549 the danced combat was between two groups of knights and then between the eight knights and eight wild men. In this case the roles of the knights and wild men were all danced by courtiers, all of whom would have had training in the use of weapons. For this danced battle their combat was carefully organized as revealed by an illustration of the dance which shows the combatants carefully arranged in two lines facing each other, and armed with swords.39 On other occasions the danced battles were fought with each participant carrying a number of weapons. In 1502 the wedding festivities of Lucrezia Borgia and Alfonso d’Este held in Ferrara included a danced battle between ten men each of whom was armed with a dagger, a knife, a mace and a two-handed sword.40 In his entry into Lyon in 1548 Henri II was entertained by a danced combat between twelve men, this time armed with two-handed swords, spears, daggers and long, oval shields.41 At the end of the sixteenth century the Italian dance master Cesare Negri participated in a danced combat with eight of his students. These nine men made ‘one thousand

37  Jane Bridgeman, ed. and trans., A Renaissance Wedding. The Celebrations at Pesaro for the Marriage of Costanzo Sforza & Camilla Marzano d’Aragona 26–30 May 1475 (London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2013), p. 97. 38  ‘quivi si fece una bella scaramuzza fra Erole e i detti centauri. Finalmente Ercole gli superò e caccioli dal tribunale’. Bernardino Corio’s account is published in Fabrizio Cruciani, Teatro nel Rinascimento Roma 1450–1550 (Rome: Bulzoni, 1983), p. 164. 39  Daniel Heartz, ‘Un divertissement de palais pour Charles Quint à Binche’, Les fêtes de la Renaissance, 3 vols., ed. Jean Jacquot (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1960), II: 331–3. 40  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 125. 41  McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 125, and McGowan, ‘A Renaissance War Dance’, p. 30.

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

135

beautiful fantastical representations, and among these a combat with long rapiers and daggers, and another [combat] with lances’.42 Unfortunately, Negri did not provide any more information in his treatise on these danced combats: he does not elaborate on which dance steps were employed by the nine performers, nor does he give any description of the combat itself, or how the combat manoeuvres were integrated into the dance. Negri’s reticence in this regard is the norm for Renaissance dance treatises. In spite of the popularity and frequent performance of danced combats, we do not have much detailed and specific evidence of what actually happened.43 The notable exception is Thoinot Arbeau, who describes a choreographed dance for four men each armed with a sword and a shield called the Buffons.44 The step vocabulary for this dance is limited to only grèves and pieds en l’air 45 alternating left then right in the rhythm 𝄀  𝅗𝅥𝅙 𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥  𝄀  𝅗𝅥𝅙 𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥  𝄀  𝅗𝅥𝅙 with the grèves occurring on the minims and with each pied en l’air taking only one crotchet to perform. Thus the longer grèves punctuate the succession of small leaps from the left to the right foot and back again, and the repetition of these very simple steps allows the dancer both to move rapidly around the square formed by the four men when required, and to concentrate on the passages of sword blows. In the Buffons Arbeau uses standard fencing positions: feincte, taille haulte, revers hault, taille 42  ‘i quali fecero mille belle bizzarrie, e frà l’altre un combattimento con le spade lunghe, & pugnali, & un’altro con le haste’. Negri, Le gratie, p. 13. 43  Sydney Anglo makes a similar point with regard to narrative accounts of physical combat, and how it is not possible to reconstruct combat techniques from such accounts (see Anglo, Martial Arts, pp. 18–21). As Anglo concludes ‘most narratives are not by eyewitnesses or experts, and that they are frequently not even by contemporaries of the events described…. They are often informative about attitudes towards personal violence. They may say something about the conditions within which such violence occurred; and they are frequently evocative of mood. What they rarely provide is a reliable account of what actually happened. And they never explain how’. Anglo, Martial Arts, p. 21. 44  For a discussion on Arbeau’s links with militant Catholicism in Dijon, his position as captain of his parish militia, and his association with the establishment of a Jesuit college in Dijon, ‘where dancing was sanctioned and where [his treatise’s] all-male pyrrhic would have been particularly appreciated’, see Van Orden, Music, Discipline, and Arms, pages 222–4. (The quotation is from p. 224). 45  Arbeau describes these two steps as follows. ‘[The] grève [is] when the dancer throws his weight upon one foot to support his body and raises the other into the air in front of him as if he were about to kick someone…. Sometimes the foot is only raised slightly off the ground and moved little, if at all, forward, and this is called pied en l’air droit if the right foot is lifted or pied en l’air gauche if it be the left.’ He emphasizes that the pieds en l’air are to be performed very close to the ground, while for a grève the ‘foot must be raised very high and the movement made with vigour’. Thoinot Arbeau, Orchesography (1589), trans. Mary Steward Evans, 1948. Reprint with an introduction and notes by Julia Sutton (New York: Dover Publications, 1967), p. 86.

136

chapter 5

basse, revers bas and estocade.46 For the passages of sword play, the four combatants are arranged in a square with each dancer engaging with the man directly opposite him and also with the man to his right. The passages of sword play are interleaved with a procession of the four dancers circling around the hall while still dancing the grèves and pieds en l’air, and ‘brandishing his sword in time to the music’.47 The dance contains six different passages of sword cuts that increase in number and speed of the sword blows as the dance progresses, culminating with the furious pace of the sixth passage where a sword cut (taille haulte) lasting one minim alternates with the dancers changing places around the square in a hay,48 also in the time of only one minim. Once facing a new opponent the four perform a revers bas, and then change positions again. And so the passage continues. Thus Arbeau provides one example of how an early modern dance master could integrate dance practice and martial arts techniques to produce a danced combat. Even if the danced combats that featured so frequently in court spectacles were not between two groups of armed men, the dancing was still described in military terms, even when the combatants were not carrying real weapons such as swords, daggers, pikes or shields et cetera, and when the contest was allegorical in character. The masquerade written and organized by Pierre de Brach in 1575 and performed in honour of Diane de Foix at the house of a wealthy Bordeaux lawyer is a very good example of the martial character of much of Renaissance dance. De Brach’s masquerade is centred around the struggle between Love and Chastity – Cupid and Diana – and their followers. Diana’s nymphs are each armed with a dart, while the other side is only armed with Cupid’s bow and arrows. Yet the danced battle is still described by de Brach in militaristic language. For example, Diana is likened to ‘a brave captain’ (vn braue capitaine), while the four pilgrims are described as a ‘squadron’

46  It is worth noting that in his 1642 treatise Juan de Esquivel Navarro uses terms from a 1625 Spanish treatise on fencing to describe the five basic movements in dancing that are combined to form more complicated steps. See Lynn Matluck Brooks, The Art of Dancing in Seventeenth-Century Spain (Lewisburg/London: Bucknell University Press/Associated University Presses, 2003), p. 271 and Maurice Esses, Dance and Instrumental Diferencias in Spain during the 17th and early 18th Centuries (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1992), I, pp. 523–4. 47  Arbeau, Orchesography, trans. Evans, p. 185. 48  A hay was an extremely common pattern in Renaissance dance practices, and it involved dancers changing positions with the person facing them while passing right shoulders, then left shoulders with the next change. A hay could be performed in a straight line, a circle, or a square.

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

137

(escadron);49 one of the love-sick pilgrims is sent to ‘reconnoitre the enemy troop’ (reconnoistre la trouppe ennemie);50 at one stage the nymphs surround Cupid and his four pilgrim followers ‘as if to besiege them’,51 while an earlier stage of the struggle is described as ‘a mêlée’.52 The battle is carefully orchestrated with successive waves of attacks by the nymphs that build in intensity and ferocity,53 as would occur in an actual battle, so that eventually the nymphs are forced to retire and call a truce in order to regroup. These eight contestants fought for a long time, striking here then there, right and left, without it being possible to discover who would win, the struggle was so evenly poised, shifting this way and that, to the extent that – completely out of breath – they were obliged to seek a truce and retire from the fray.54 Of the six ballet plots found in the dance master’s notebook, two of them include danced battles: the Ballet des mineúrs des Paÿs and L’assaút furieux des dames contre les plús courageux des combas victorieux. In the latter ballet plot a danced battle between the ladies and the courageous warriors forms the concluding Grand Ballet, and no more information is given other than the sentence that states that the assault occurs in the Grand Ballet. So we do not know what weapons the combatants used – if any. We are told that each lady carried a pennant in the shape of a heart, and each of the warriors held a small lance with taffeta pennants in the colour of his lady on which is the image of a sun weeping tears, but we are given no information as to how the assault was carried out. The Ballet des mineúrs des Paÿs contains two danced battles, 49  Both these examples occur on page 192v of Pierre de Brach, Les Poèmes (Bordeaux: Simon Millanges, 1576). 50  de Brach, Les Poèmes, p. 192r. 51  ‘Aussi Diane … tenant son dard furieusement eslevé en l’ær, vint attaquer les Pelerins amoureux, & auec ses Nymphes les entourna, com[m]e pour les assieger’, de Brach, Les Poèmes, p. 192r. 52  ‘Lors les vns & les autres se trouuans au milieu de la salle, it fut aisé a juger qu’il y auroit de la meslée’, de Brach, Les Poèmes, p. 192r. 53  ‘La premiere attaque des Nymphes sur les Pelerins, fut seuleme[n]t d’vne menace de la pointe de leur dard … Mais la quatriesme charge fut de sept ou huit coups de dard, donnés si rudement & si furieusement’, de Brach, Les Poèmes, p. 192r. 54  ‘ces huit combatans se maintindrent longuement, frapans qui çà, qui là, a dextre & a senextre, sans qu’on eust peu juger a qui demeureroit l’honneur de la victoire, tant elle balançoit douteusement, ores d’un costé, ores de l’autre, de façon qu’estans hors d’alaine il furent contraints se retirer vn peu arriere, & prendre comme vne petite tréue’, de Brach, Les Poèmes, pp. 192r–v. Translation by Margaret M. McGowan, ‘Recollections of Dancing Forms from Sixteenth-Century France,’ Dance Research 21, no. 1 (2003): 20.

138

chapter 5

the first a rout of the miners by the dwarfs who each carry a cutlass, and who chase the miners from the hall, and later on a danced combat between the six dwarfs and a group of storks. Once again the information about the two danced battles is minimal, but for each dance the ballet plot emphasizes that the charging, fighting and chasing is to be all carried out in time with the music and in danced figures. At the end of the ballet, as they [the dwarfs] turn their backs to the door, a ballet of storks will make its entrance, and, as the dwarfs turn around, they suddenly see the storks coming to attack and to make war upon them. They will come together and charge one another dancing the figures of the Ballet of the Dwarfs and Storks, at the end of which the dwarfs will chase the storks from the hall, continuing to fight in figures.55 While it is difficult to make definite statements as to the choreography of these danced battles given the lack of detail in the ballet plots, the battles with the dwarfs, in my opinion, were probably closer to the fight between the nymphs and the love-sick pilgrims in de Brach’s masquerade, than any of the danced combats with swords, daggers, et cetera such as at Binche in 1549. The epic battle in de Brach’s masquerade is pantomimic, and so too are the dwarfs’ combats. In fact, the Ballet des mineúrs des Paÿs contains a great deal of pantomimic dancing in addition to the emphasis on dancing in figures. It is clear that the dance master only gives the general idea of danced combat in his ballet plots. Yet if they were to be performed, much more concrete detail would have needed to be added. One wonders whether our dance master ever discussed combat possibilities with the master-of-arms who wrote down the pike exhibition for him. The series of instructions for a pike exhibition is a precious document that is not found elsewhere in the historical record. Because of the level of detail recorded in the dance master’s notebook, and because of the pike exhibition’s overlap with the military pike-drill manuals, there is far more concrete information on how one might actually perform the movements than is normally available for the contemporary French dance practice. In this regard the pike exhibition is much closer to the written choreographic descriptions of the mid to late sixteenth-century Italian dance practice, choreographic descriptions 55  S 253, f. 4v. ‘Et comme les neins se retourneront al’ Improuiste voyant ces cygoignes les venir attacquer et faire la gúerre viendront a se Ioindre et ses cherger l’un l’aultre en dansant les figures dú ballet des Neins et des cÿgoignes et a la fin les neins chasseront les cygoignes hors dela salle e toutioúrs en se battant en figúres’.

Danced Combat and the Pike Exhibition

139

that are supported by detailed explanations of how to perform the large number of steps recorded in the treatises of the Italian dance masters such as Caroso, Negri, Lutio Compasso,56 Prospero Lutij,57 Livio Lupi58 and Ercole Santucci.59 The pike exhibition enhances our understanding of the relationship between the art of dance and the martial arts during the Renaissance, and increases our knowledge of how aspects of one art could be used in the practice of the other.

56  Lutio Compasso, Ballo della Gagliarda (Florence, 1560; facsimile ed., Freiburg: fa-gisis Musik- und Tanzedition, 1995). 57  Prospero Lutij, Opera bellissima nella quale si contengono molte partite, et passeggi de gagliarda (Perugia: Pietropaolo Orlando, 1587). 58  Livio Lupi, Mutanze di gagliarda, tordiglione, passo e mezzo, canari, e passeggi (Palermo: Carrara, 1600), ed. Dario De Cicco, Modelli educativi dell’esperienza coreutica: Livio Lupi da Caravaggio (Padua: Armelin Musica, 2010). 59  Ercole Santucci, Mastro da Ballo (1614). Facsimile ed. with introduction by Barbara Sparti (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2004).

chapter 6

Dance Music, Dance Songs and Airs de Cour The music that is recorded in the dance master’s notebook is an intriguing mixture of formats, genres, modes of notation and attribution. The musical pieces occur throughout the manuscript, but they occur in rough sections depending on the genre and method of notation. The largest category of music recorded is pieces associated in some way with dancing. There are dance pieces such as courantes, voltes, allemandes, which are all representative of the dances that were fashionable in the early seventeenth century. There are entrées for ballets, both titled and unnamed, as well as airs de cour from the ballets de cour performed at the French court in 1613 and 1615, and composed by Pierre Guédron, one of the leading composers of the day who worked at the French court. The second largest category of music recorded in the notebook is airs de cour by composers associated with the French court, as well as anonymous airs that were published in Paris by Pierre Ballard but without any attribution. The musical pieces are recorded in mensural notation, lute tablature, mandore tablature and two pages of violin tablature. Sometimes only one part was recorded, for other pieces two, three or four parts were copied into the notebook. The purpose of this chapter is first to identify the musical material where possible and to discuss the relationship between pieces recorded in the notebook. The second aim of the chapter is to examine what the music can tell us about the compilation of the manuscript and the choreographic and teaching activities of its anonymous owner. The dance music recorded in the notebook is typical of collections published during the same period, in that it contains examples of the current, fashionable dances: courantes, voltes, allemandes, ballets, a passamezzo and a sarabande. The majority of these dances are courantes, twenty-one in all; there are only three allemandes, five voltes and four ballets. Courantes, and to a lesser extent voltes, also feature strongly in contemporary collections of dance music, such as those by Robert Ballard whose two books were published in 1611 and 1614, Nicolas Vallet’s two volume collection Le Secret des Muses published in 1615 and 1616, and Michael Praetorius’s Terpsichore, published in 1612.1 What is also found in these collections, but is missing from the dance master’s 1  Robert Ballard, Premier livre de luth (Paris: P. Ballard, 1611) and Diverses pièces mises sur le luth (Paris: P. Ballard, 1614); Nicolas Vallet, Le Secret des Muses, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1615 and 1616); Michael Praetorius, Terpsichore (Wolfenbüttel, 1612).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_008

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

141

notebook, are examples of galliards and branles, the latter of which are especially prominent in Terpsichore. In other collections branles form the overwhelming majority of recorded pieces, as is illustrated by the 1615 publication for solo voice Le Recueil des plus belles chansons de danse de ce temps, where forty-two of the fifty-seven pieces are branles.2 Looking at the dance master’s notebook from another perspective, the collection of dance music is atypical in that some pieces are recorded in mensural notation, while others are in lute tablature. Contemporary collections did not usually mix different formats in the same publication, preferring to direct their effort towards either lutenists, or small instrumental ensembles, or to a solo voice and lute.3 In fact the publications printed by Pierre Ballard in the first two decades of the seventeenth century are a good example of this separation of formats. Pieces were often published twice, once for a solo voice with lute accompaniment, and again in a separate publication arranged for four or five parts.4 Airs from the ballets performed at the French court, along with airs de cour is another substantial section of the music in the notebook. The final category of music found in the notebook is ballet entrées. It is not surprising that music in lute tablature was recorded in the dance master’s notebook, as some skill on the lute was considered part of a gentleman’s or noble’s education at this time. In the academies that taught such students the music teachers were most likely to be professional lutenists.5 Lute playing was then seen as an ideal vehicle for display by gentlemen, and the fact that the instrument was also very popular with ladies did not detract from this ideal.6 Thus dances in lute tablature would have been ideal material for a 2  Le Recueil des plus belles chansons de danse de ce temps (Caen: Jacques Mangeant, 1615). 3  Multi-format volumes were published, as illustrated by the three books published between 1582 and 1600 by the celebrated lutenist and teacher Emanuel Adriaenssen who ran a music school for lutenists in Antwerp. Adriaenssen’s collections include arrangements of dances and vocal music for the lute and his own fantasias, as well as two or more vocal parts in mensural notation for each chanson or madrigal in lute tablature so that the vocal music could be performed as an instrumental piece, as a vocal piece or as a combination of voices and lute. See Kristine K. Forney, ‘The Netherlands, 1520–1640’, in European Music 1520–1640, ed. James Haar (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2006), p. 270, and Godelieve Spiessens, ‘Adriaenssen, Emanuel’, in Grove Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com (accessed 1/10/2016). 4  See Table 7 for examples of such pieces and the publications in which they appeared. 5  Kate van Orden, Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 45. 6  Van Orden, Music, Discipline, and Arms, p. 46. As Van Orden points out the lute was an easier instrument for beginners to learn than many others, and lute tablature, a graphic representation of where a player had to place his or her fingers on the neck of the instrument, also facilitated the process of learning to read the music. ‘[B]eginners could produce an acceptable tone on it in just a few weeks without a developed touch, and if the frets were correctly

142

chapter 6

teacher running a dance and music school. Given the popularity of arrangements of airs de cour for solo voice and lute, it is slightly surprising that the airs de cour in the dance master’s notebook are all for one, two or four parts: there is none for a solo voice and lute accompaniment. 1

Airs de Cour

The first decade of the seventeenth century saw a rapid increase in the popularity and publication of various arrangements of airs de cour.7 Airs from the latest ballets de cour helped to fuel this popularity, as those outside French court circles were always very eager to know what was going on at court, and the ballets de cour performed there were regarded as the most important cultural events of the year.8 Thus airs de cour and dance music featured heavily in publications for solo lute, for lute and voice, and in four and five part arrangements. For example, Robert Ballard’s 1611 and 1614 publications for solo lute contain more than sixty airs and dances from over twenty different ballets.9 Airs from the ballets often appeared in printed collections not long after they were first heard in a court ballet performance. The speed at which these airs were published is illustrated by the extremely popular song Est-ce Mars le grand dieu by Guédron from the 1613 Ballet pour Madame, which was subsequently arranged into two different versions, both published in 1613. One of these versions was in the composer’s own collection of airs de cour in four and five parts, while the other arrangement was for voice and lute by Gabriel Bataille.10 The number of airs de cour that the dance master recorded in his placed (and the strings properly tuned) they allowed the student a good deal of latitude with finger placement on the left hand without marring the harmonies’. Van Orden, Music, Discipline, and Arms, p. 45. 7   Van Orden, Music, Discipline, p. 46. 8   Van Orden, Music, Discipline, p. 48. 9   Ballard’s first book from 1611 included music from sixteen ballets, including the Ballet des Dieux Marins (1608), the Ballet de M. le Daufin (1610), the Ballet des Contre-Faits d’Amour (1610), the Ballet des Esclaves (c. 1611) and the Ballet des Insencez (c. 1611). Ballard’s second book from 1614 included ballets performed in 1607, 1610 and 1613. See Ballard, Premier livre du luth, ed. and transcription André Souris and Sylvie Spycket (Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1963) and Diverses pièces mises sur le luth, ed. and transcription André Souris, Sylvie Spycket and Jacques Veyrier (Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1964). 10  Pierre Guédron, Second livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1613), pp. 8v–9r; Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, quatrièsme livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1613), pp. 6v–7r.

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

143

table 7 Identified airs from S 253 and their printed concordances Title of Air de Cour

Composer

Printed editions

Adieu volage empire

Gabriel Bataille

Adorable Princesse, il est temps

Pierre Guédron

Ces Nimfes dont les regards

Pierre Guédron

C’est trop courir les eaux

Pierre Guédron

(1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, cinquième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1614) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (3) Pierre Guédron, Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (3) Pierre Guédron, Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (3) Pierre Guédron, Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice

Cette Anne si belle Pierre Guédron

144

chapter 6

table 7 Identified airs from S 253 and their printed concordances (cont.) Title of Air de Cour

Composer

Printed editions

(3) Pierre Guédron, Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) (1) Pierre Guédron, Second livre d’airs de Donc pour aymer Pierre Guédron cour, à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1612) d’un amour trop (2) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autfidelle heurs, mis en tablature de luth, quatrième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1613) Enchanté de vos Signac Signac, Airs à 4 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, doux appas 1618) Fuyés, Amants, Pierre Guédron (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autloin de ces lieux heurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (3) Pierre Guédron, Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) Je ne veux plus Pierre Guédron (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autaller de jour/nuit heurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice Je pensois qu’ Anon (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autAmour fut malade heurs, mis en tablature de luth, cinquième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1614) Je voudrois bien, Antoine de Boësset (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autô Cloris que j’adore heurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (3) Antoine de Boësset, Airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617)

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

145

table 7 Identified airs from S 253 and their printed concordances (cont.) Title of Air de Cour

Composer

Lab fuiza tu tousion Pierre Guédron (is most likely the air Las! fuiras-tu toujours) Lors que je suis aupres de vous

Ne dois-je donc plus esperer

O! grands dieux que de charmes

Que de douleurs pour une absence

Printed editions

(1) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (2) Pierre Guédron, Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) Antoine de Boësset (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (3) Antoine de Boësset, Airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) Antoine de Boësset (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth [premiere livre] (Paris: P. Ballard, 1608) (2) Pierre Ballard, Second livre d’airs à quatre de différents auteurs, recueillis et mis ensemble par Pierre Ballard (Paris: P. Ballard, 1610) (3) Antoine de Boësset, Airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) Pierre Guédron (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, cinquième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1614) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (3) Pierre Guédron, Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) Anon (1) Pierre Ballard, Second livre d’airs à quatre de différents auteurs, recueillis et mis ensemble par Pierre Ballard (Paris: P. Ballard, 1610)

146

chapter 6

table 7 Identified airs from S 253 and their printed concordances (cont.) Title of Air de Cour

Qu’ont servi tant de pleurs

Sous la fraicheur d’un verd boccage

Voicy mes cheres sœurs

Composer

Printed editions

(2) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, troisième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1611) (3) Le Recueil des plus belles chansons de danse de ce temps (Caen: Jacques Mangeant, 1615) Antoine de Boësset (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (3) Antoine de Boësset, Airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617) Gabriel Bataille (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice Pierre Guédron (1) Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) (2) Airs de cour et de différents autheurs (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615) Book 1 for solo voice (3) Pierre Guédron, Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617)

notebook reflects this popularity, as just under a third are from French court ballets. The presence of these pieces in the dance master’s notebook showed his students that their teacher was fully abreast of what was fashionable in Paris and able to pass onto them the latest ‘hit tunes’ from the cultural and social centre of the French court. The enthusiasm in Brussels for such pieces can also be seen in the music played on the city’s carillon, which in 1616 had twenty

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

147

bells.11 A manuscript by the Brussels’ clockmaker Hendrick Claes from around 1616 records pieces that could ‘be set on the automatic playing mechanism’ of the carillon.12 Two-thirds of the pieces recorded by Claes in his manuscript were dance music and French airs de cour. There are thirty-four airs de cour in the dance master’s notebook of which I have been able to identify twenty. Of these twenty all except one appear in publications from the French royal publisher Pierre Ballard. Table 7 lists the names of each of these twenty airs, their composer, and the printed editions in which they also appear. As can be seen from Table 7, three out of the four composers of the identified airs de cour were associated with the French court and involved in the court ballets. Half are by Pierre Guédron, a composer, lutenist and singer who enjoyed a spectacular ascent through French court musical circles from 1590 until his death c. 1619–1620. In 1613 Guédron was appointed to the position of surintendant des musiques de la chambre du roi, the highest honour possible in the court musical establishment. Guédron’s participation as a composer of vocal music for twelve ballets de cour started earlier in his career under Henri IV,13 and from 1612 onwards, his airs increasingly appeared in print. Even after his death Guédron’s airs continued to be popular, especially in musical collections published outside of France. Given the prominent place Guédron enjoyed in French musical circles, it is perhaps not surprising that he is so well represented in the dance master’s notebook, both in the number of airs, and by the fact that all six of the airs from court ballets that are found in the notebook are by Guédron.14 Guédron’s son-in-law Antoine de Boësset is the next most popular composer in this genre, with the dance master recording five of his airs de cour. De Boësset attained the position of surintendant des musiques de la chambre du roi in 1623, ten years after his father-in-law was appointed to the position, and likewise he composed music for around twentytwo ballets de cour from 1615 to 1642, the year before his death.15 Gabriel 11  The information on the carillon in the church of Saint Nicolas in Brussels is taken from Piet Stryckers, ‘Music and Music Production in Seventeenth-Century Brussels’, in Embracing Brussels. Art and Culture in the Court City, 1600–1800, ed. Katlijne van der Stighelen, Leen Kelchtermans and Koenraad Brosens (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), p. 74. 12  Stryckers, ‘Music and Music Production’, p. 74. 13  Georgie Durosoir, Les Ballets de la cour de France au xviie siècle ou Les fantaisies et les splendeurs du Baroque (Geneva: Editions Papillon, 2004), p. 35. 14  For a discussion of Guédron’s airs that he wrote for the ballets de cour, see Georgie Durosoir, L’air de cour en France 1571–1655 (Liège: Mardaga, 1991), pp. 83–101, and Durosoir, Les ballets de la cour de France, pp. 35–42. 15  Georgie Durosoir, ‘Les compositeurs du ballet de La Délivrance de Renaud: L’art musical confronté aux exigences du ballet de cour’, in La Délivrance de Renaud: Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617, ed. Greer Garden (Turnhout: Brepols,

148

chapter 6

Bataille, two of whose airs are found in the notebook, was also a member of the French court musical establishment, attaining the position of maître de la musique de la reine in 1617: like Guédron and de Boësset, he also composed music for court ballets. The twenty identified airs are all from collections published in the ten years from 1608 to 1618, with the majority of the songs from collections published from 1615 to 1617.16 This narrow timeframe gives additional support to the dating of the compilation of the notebook to c. 1614–1619. Apart from Bataille’s Adieu volage empire, the first few words of which were copied into the notebook, most of the other airs de cour in the dance master’s notebook were recorded with both words and music.17 The music of the airs is recorded in mensural notation, either in a single part, or in four parts, with two airs having two parts. Apart from the idiosyncratic and highly variable spelling that is found throughout the manuscript, the texts of the poems are almost the same as that found in their printed editions. Sometimes not all verses were copied into the notebook, as is the case for Ne dois-je donc (ff. 48v–49r) which has one verse only in the manuscript, but five verses in Bataille’s 1608 collection,18 and C’est trop courir les eaux and Fuyés amants (ff. 50v–51r), two airs from the Ballet de Madame, where the final verse in the printed edition is missing from the notebook.19 In O! grands dieux (ff. 61v–62r) from the 1613 Ballet de la Sérénade, the last two verses were also not copied into the notebook.20 Conversely, in de Boësset’s air Je voudrois bien (ff. 64v–65r) the version in the dance master’s notebook has an extra verse that is not found in the 1615 publication.21 Furthermore, verses for airs in the notebook are not always copied in the order as given in the printed editions, as, for example, in Je ne veux (ff. 60v–61r) where the verses were copied in the order 1, 2, 4, then 3.22 2010), p. 59, and Durosoir, ‘Boësset, Antoine’, Grove Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com (accessed 9/3/2015). 16  These three publications are Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615), facsimile ed. (Geneva: Minkoff, 1980); Airs de cour et de différents autheurs, vol. 1 for solo voice (Paris: P. Ballard, 1615), and Antoine de Boësset, Airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties, premier livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617). 17  One exception is the poem Voici des homme saüuages on f. 48r of the manuscript, which, despite the instructions that it is to be sung by an amour in the ballet of eight savages, does not have any music recorded for it. 18  Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth (Paris: P. Ballard, 1608), pp. 38v–39r, facsimile ed. (Geneva: Minkoff, 1980). 19  Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, sixième livre, p. 4v. 20  Gabriel Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, cinquième livre (Paris: P. Ballard, 1614), pp. 7v–8r, facsimile ed. (Geneva: Minkoff, 1980), and Pierre Guédron, Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties (Paris: P. Ballard, 1617), pp. 15v–16r. 21  Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, sixième livre, pp. 12v–13r. 22  Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, sixième livre, pp. 16v–17r.

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

149

Occasionally textual variants point to a copying error. This is the case in verse 1 of Ne dois-je donc where lines 3 and 4 are missing from dance master’s notebook. But these two lines are sung to the same music as the first two lines, and in Ballard all four lines are written underneath the vocal line, with lines 3 and 4 underneath lines 1 and 2. It seem reasonable to assume that inattention by a copyist caused him to overlook the third and fourth lines. Another explanation for the missing lines is that as only verse 1 is written transcribed underneath the top part in the notebook, after having written lines 1 and 2 whoever was copying the air found that there was no more room between the top two staves for him to write any more text, and so lines 3 and 4 were left out. On other occasions, however, variations between the dance master’s notebook and the printed version of an air could only be the result of deliberate action on the part of a copyist, when he has altered the text as he copied it into the notebook. For example, the end of the first line of Je ne veux has been changed in the notebook from ‘jour’ to ‘nuict’. Such an obvious and radical change from ‘day’ to ‘night’ could only be deliberate. Similarly, in Qu’ont servi the first line of verse 4 has been altered in the notebook (f. 56r–v) by the addition of the interjection ‘holas’ and the alteration of ‘vous’ to ‘me’.23 Then there is the spontaneous human touch that appears in the dance master’s notebook where, in the last verse of Donc pour aymer, the copyist has drawn a heart to replace the word ‘coeur’ (f. 33r). These deliberate changes are interesting as they appear to indicate that at least some of the pieces copied into the notebook were a record of a specific performance. For example, the substitution of ‘night’ for ‘day’ could have been made because the air was performed in the evening, and the change from ‘you’ to ‘me’ could have been made to personalize the song. The music for these airs also exhibit minor differences between their published versions and how they appear in the dance master’s notebook. Small rhythmic changes are common, as are differences in ornaments, especially at cadences, and often passing notes and divisions are missing from the music recorded in the notebook. On the whole the music in the dance master’s notebook is simpler than in the published arrangements. The most notable example is Je voudrois bien where all the numerous passing notes and ornamental notes found in the 1615 Ballard publication are absent from the piece as recorded in the notebook. The rhythm has also been simplified, with the anonymous dance master using only minims, crotchets and occasionally quavers, as well as omitting the changes in metre, and the initial time signature. These differences can clearly be seen in musical examples 1a and 1b. The simplification 23  Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, sixième livre, pp. 13v–14r.

150

chapter 6

Musical Example 1a Melody of Je voudrois bien by Antoine de Boësset from Bataille, Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre (1615), pp. 12v–13r

Musical Example 1b Je voudrois bien from S 253 f. 64v

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

151

of the music for these airs seems to indicate that they were copied into the notebook for the students to sing, rather than being just as an archival copy of the currently fashionable songs. If the latter reason was the primary objective for their inclusion in the notebook, then one would also reasonably expect that the same order would be maintained from the printed edition to the notebook, but this is not the case. Bataille’s sixth book of airs for voice and lute contains eleven of the airs de cour found in the dance master’s notebook, including airs numbers 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 18. In the notebook, however, these six airs were copied in a different sequence; that is, numbers 14, 13, 11, 16, 18 and 12. One has to conclude that the airs were copied as required by the demands of the students. 2

Dance Music

Charles de Lespine (?1580s–after 1627), a French lutenist and composer, and author of written works including verses for ballets, is named as the composer of sixteen pieces copied into the dance master’s notebook.24 All but one of these pieces are in French lute tablature,25 the remaining piece, a courante, appears at the end of the manuscript in mensural notation.26 The lute pieces are mostly dances: six courantes, four ballets, two voltes, as well as two preludes and a bergamasque.27 Six of the pieces are found elsewhere, mostly in manuscript collections, but the piece entitled L’Espagnole (f. 114v) also appears in Nicolas Vallet’s 1615 publication for solo lute,28 and in the second book of 24  As is usually the case in this manuscript the spelling Lespine’s name is variable, even though the attributions are all in the same hand. His name appears as ‘Lespine’ with an upper and lower case ‘L’, ‘Lespin’ with both upper and lower case, ‘Lespins’, ‘Lepine’ and ‘Monsieur lepine’. It is assumed that Lespine was born in Paris in the 1580s, as he identifies himself as a Parisian. See Frederick Lachèvre, Charles de Lespine, Parisien, et sa breve description de plusieurs royaumes … suivie de ses vers de ballet, … (Paris: L. Giraud-Badin, 1935), p. 2. 25  The fifteen pieces in lute tablature are found on ff. 103r–105r, 106v–116r. 26  Only one part is recorded for this piece on f. 119r of S 253. This courante is not the same piece as any other of Lespine’s courantes that are notated in lute tablature. I would like to thank Tommie Andersson for confirming this for me. 27  A modern edition of Lespine’s lute pieces which includes the pieces in the dance master’s notebook can be found online, edited by John H. Robinson in 2013 (http://www.tabula tura.com/LespineV4jhr.pdf, accessed 1/10/2016). 28  Nicolas Vallet, Oeuvres de Nicolas Vallet pour luth seul: Le Secret des Muses, ed. and transcription André Souris (Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1970), p. 172.

152

chapter 6

Robert Ballard’s 1614 publication.29 One ballet (f. 110v–111v) has eleven concordances, the courante on ff. 112v–113r has six,30 L’Espagnole has five, the volte on ff. 115v–116r has three, while the volte nouvelle on ff. 111v–112r and the courante on f. 112v have only one concordance each. These concordances are mostly found in sources dating from the 1620s to the 1640s, but some of the concordances are from the first two decades of the seventeenth century, that is, either before or during the same decade as the dance master’s notebook is believed to have been compiled. The remaining ten pieces are unique to the dance master’s notebook. Among these pieces are three of the four ballets recorded in the notebook.31 Given that music from ballets de cour appeared in contemporary collections like Praetorius’s Terpsichore under the rubric of ‘Ballets’, one can only speculate as to whether these three musical ‘ballets’ from the dance master’s notebook were ever written by Lespine for a danced theatrical spectacle. A question remains, therefore: how did our anonymous dance master obtain copies of Lespine’s music to reproduce in his notebook, especially the ten pieces that are not found elsewhere? One possible answer is through personal contact. In 1610 Lespine left his employment with the court of Lorraine to travel to England via the Southern and Northern Low Countries, and one of the cities he visited was Brussels, which at that time had a thriving musical culture. Was it possible that while in Brussels Lespine met with our dance master and left some of his music with the latter, who then a few years later copied it into his notebook? Certainly the hand of the words on all of Lespine’s music is H1 – the hand I maintain is that of the owner of the notebook, the dance master himself. Furthermore, the pieces are copied together in a single section, rather than scattered throughout the entire 122 folios, and with a new piece starting immediately after the end of the previous piece. Their close physical location points to the likelihood that the dance master had already had these pieces in his possession before he started copying them into the notebook. Two further considerations favour the hypothesis of a personal meeting between the two musicians while Lespine was in Brussels: first, the number of pieces by Lespine copied into the notebook – that is, sixteen – is more than those by any other composer. Second, Lespine’s pieces all carry his name, whereas many of the other musical pieces remain without attribution. The lack of identification in 29  Ballard, Diverses pièces, ed. and transcription Souris et al., p. 28, ‘L’Espagnolle Huitiesme (courante)’. 30  In his edition of Lespine’s lute pieces Robinson notes that when this courante appears in the dance master’s notebook it has a ‘different second strain to all other versions’ (http://www.tabulatura.com/LespineV4jhr.pdf, page 3). 31  The others are two preludes, a bergamasque, and three courantes.

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

153

the dance master’s notebook of the composers of dance music and airs de cour even applies to well-known pieces by leading composers of the French court, which had been recently published by Pierre Ballard. If our dance master did not bother to include the names of such celebrated composers, why did he do so with Lespine? Was it a personal meeting between these two men that caused him to include Lespine’s name? While lute playing seems to have been one common interest between Lespine and our dance master, dance and ballets appear to have been a second. Lespine published verses for three ballets in his Les Oeuvres de Lespine that was published in Turin in 1627: the Ballet des Moscovites, the Ballet des Fous, and the Ballet des Mores.32 In this work Lespine did not state when these ballets were performed,33 but whatever the date – either before his 1610 visit to Brussels, or later in the early 1620s after his return to France and the court of Lorraine34 – their presence in his published works indicate an interest in ballet de cour that is also shared by the owner of the notebook. A second possibility is that Lespine’s music was passed onto our dance master through a fellow musician who knew Lespine, or at least had access to his compositions. At least one piece by Lespine that appears in the dance master’s notebook was circulating in manuscript from before 1610, as evidenced by one of its concordances that is dated to 1603.35 On ff. 100v–101r of the notebook there are two anonymous pieces Robinette and Vive louis recorded in mandore tablature in the hand of the copyist H1. The former piece has the same name as the music from the Ballet de Robinette found in the Philidor Collection.36 When the music in the notebook is compared with

32  Lachèvre, Charles de Lespine, Parisien, pp. 125–8. 33  Margaret M. McGowan in her list of ballets from 1581 to 1643 gives c. 1623 as the date for all three of Lespine’s ballets. See McGowan, L’art du ballet de cour en France, 1581–1643 (Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1963), p. 288. David Ledbetter in his short article on Lespine in Grove Music Online says that the Ballet des Mores was performed in 1609 (Ledbetter, ‘Lespine, Charles de’, Grove Music Online, http://www.oxford musiconline.com (accessed 23/10/2013), while Frederick Lachèvre dates all three ballets before 1610 (Lachèvre, Charles de Lespine, Parisien, p. 125). Certainly there was a ballet entitled Boutades des Mores esclaves d’amour délivrés par Bacchus performed in 1609, and in the same year a Ballet des Fous armés was ‘dansé par 12 galants de la cour pour etrenner la salle nevue de l’Arsenal’ (McGowan, L’art du ballet de cour en France, pp. 269–70). But it is not clear whether these two ballets are the same as those for which Lespine wrote some verses, or if they just share a similarity in titles. 34  Ledbetter states that Lespine returned to France in 1621. Ledbetter, ‘Lespine, Charles de’, Grove Music Online. 35  See Robinson’s edition, page 2 no. 7a–k. 36  Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Res. F. 496 ff. 107–108. I am indebted to Tommie Andersson for providing me with a transcription in staff notation of Robinette from S 253.

154

chapter 6

that in Philidor, however, it is clear that there is no similarity between the two sources. Unlike Lespine, Nicolas Vallet’s name appears on only three pieces in the dance master’s notebook: ‘la vallets courant nouuelle’ on f. 91v; a few bars entitled ‘courant la vallette’ on f. 77r; and four bars of violin tablature (f. 76v) which has beneath it the text ‘la vallet lon conmanes au premeir er deu fois’. The first of these pieces – ‘la vallets courant nouuelle’ – is not among the courantes published in Vallet’s Le Secret des Muses, but the second of these is the same piece as ‘La Vallette’ published in Vallet’s second book of solo lute pieces.37 However, a few more pieces published by Vallet in Le Secret des Muses also appear in the notebook, but without any attribution or indication of their source. For example, the piece La dauphine from Book I appears in the notebook on f. 92v in staff notation with the title la dofine, and a few bars at the bottom of f. 77r with the title courant la daufine. The latter title is the same wording as another version of this piece that this found in the Philidor Collection of ballet music: the Courante la Daufinne.38 Four bars of violin tablature on f. 76v of the notebook also carry a similar title given in the text underneath the tablature: ‘la dofeine lon conmens au de du premeir er ang fois’. The same page of tablature also has the opening bars of another piece with a similar title to that found in Vallet’s publication; that is, ‘la morresse ce commansse au premeir du cecont er deu fois’, while on f. 77r there is an entire piece in violin tablature with the title ‘la picarde courant hont connenes au premeir er ang fois’.39 The final piece that appears in both Vallet’s publication and in the dance master’s notebook is the courante La vignonne.40 As Alis Dickinson has established, this tune first appeared in the opening decade of the seventeenth century.41 In 1614 Robert Ballard published the piece in his Diverses pieces mises sur le luth, while Vallet’s version was published a year later. Whereas Ballard’s elegant version reflects the style favoured at the French court where he worked as a lutenist, Vallet’s version is more straightforward: Dickinson see this version 37  Vallet, Le Secret des Muses, ed. and transcription Souris, p. 226. The piece is also found among other concordances in Ballard’s second book from 1614 where it is called ‘La Valette cinquiesme (courante)’. Ballard, Diverses pièces, ed. and transcription Souris et al., p. 22. 38  Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Res. F. 494, f. xi. 39  Vallet, Le Secret des Muses, ed. and transcription Souris, p. 230 for La Piccarde, pp. 178–9 for La Moresque and p. 179 for La Dauphine. 40  Vallet, Le Secret des Muses, ed. and transcription Souris, pp. 171–2 and S 253 f. 89r then f. 90r. 41  Alis Dickinson, ‘The Courante “La Vignonne”: In the Steps of a Popular dance’, Early Music 10, no. 1 (1982): 56.

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

155

as an example of what Vallet taught to his pupils in Amsterdam.42 When the dance master recorded this piece in his notebook on f. 98r and f. 90r, he did so not as a solo lute piece but as a two-part (cantus and bassus) courante.43 The piece recorded in his notebook is a simple piece much closer to that which appears in Vallet’s publication than in Ballard’s collection. But it is not a direct copy of what Vallet published either. In the notebook the key is different, and in the second section of the piece the melody in the notebook diverges from that in Vallet until the last ten notes, where the two sources again agree. A Courante D’avignone also appears in the Philidor collection.44 When one compares this arrangement of the popular tune with what is recorded in the dance master’s notebook the top parts from both sources are almost identical,45 so much so that one can only conclude that our dance master must have had a copy of the music that later came to be copied into what is now known as the Philidor collection.46 The only major difference is that the first eighteen notes of the piece are a third higher in the notebook than in Philidor. But from this point onwards the pitches of the melody in the notebook are identical to those in Philidor, as after eighteen notes the cantus part in the notebook goes down a tone from A to G, rather than up a semitone from F# to G as in Philidor. In fact, the difference in the pitch of the first eighteen notes of this piece may well be the result of a mistake on the part of the dance master. The presence of the accidentals in the first eighteen notes of the courante la vignonne seems to suggest that the dance master started writing this piece as if it was in the treble clef (G on the second line of the stave) rather than in the French violin clef (G on the first line of the stave) that appears at the start of the cantus part, and is the clef used for this piece in Philidor. After eighteen notes the dance master realized his mistake and continued writing the melody in the French violin clef. This popular tune is not the only piece found in both the dance master’s notebook and the Philidor collection. On f. 77r of the notebook there are five short courantes: la prinssese, la daufine, la vallette, la baumieme and la 42  Dickinson, ‘The Courante “La Vignonne”’, p. 56. 43  The music is in H1, the hand I have hypothesized as the hand of the anonymous dance master. 44  Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Res. F. 494, f. viii. 45  The two bass parts are nowhere near as similar. 46  At the end of the seventeenth century Louis XIV’s music librarian André Danican Philidor directed a group of copyists to compile this substantial anthology of music from court spectacles, which was subsequently dispersed and partly destroyed. See Iain Fenlon, ‘Competition and Emulation: Music and Dance for the Celebrations in Paris, 1612–1615’, in Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615. A Celebration of the Habsburgs and Bourbon Unions, ed. Margaret M. McGowan (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), p. 145.

156

chapter 6

moullinette. The first piece does not appear to be the same piece as one with the same name in Philidor, but la moullinette and la daufine are the same as the first sections of the two pieces with the same name in Philidor.47 The eleven notes of la baumieme are similar to the opening of Courante la Boesmienne from Philidor,48 while the second section of this piece appears on f. 93r of the notebook under the title la boimiere, albeit with a different key and time signature. One wonders how these tunes arrived in Brussels. Did the dance master have contacts within the musical circles of Paris who sent him copies of these tunes? Or, is their presence in the dance master’s notebook an indication that before moving to Brussels the dance master lived and worked in Paris, and so acquired copies of these dance tunes himself while he was there? Another possible piece of supporting evidence for the hypothesis that the dance master had worked in Paris, or had strong connections to the French court musical establishment, is the appearance of the name ‘Belleville’ in the middle of one of the two pages of violin tablature. Jacques de Montmorency, or Belleville as he was more commonly known, was a dancer, choreographer, and composer of music for French court ballets. He was also a violinist and leader of the violons du cabinet, a position that meant he was responsible for composing the string parts of the dance music for the ballets de cour.49 The seven pieces of music on f. 76r only notate the beginning of each piece, and underneath each piece there are a few words about starting the first entrée and how many times the entrée is to be repeated, all of which implies music for ballet performances. Did the dance master know Belleville, and did the latter give the dance master a copy of some of the dance tunes he had composed? Or was our dance master acquainted with a violinist in the violons du cabinet, who had played these dance pieces under the direction of Belleville, and who passed the music onto his colleague in Brussels? From the comments Praetorius made in the dedicatory letter to Terpsichore, we know that dance melodies from the ballets de cour did circulate in manuscripts among dance masters and musicians at this time. Praetorius states that at the Duke of Braunschweig and Lüneberg’s command, his dance master Antoine Emeraud supplied Praetorius with dance melodies from France,50 which he then arranged in four or five

47  Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Res. F. 494, ff. ix and xi. 48  Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Res. F. 494, f. xi. 49  Georgie Durosoir, ‘Les compositeurs du ballet’, p. 60. 50  As Peter Holman has observed, court dance music commonly circulated in only two parts (cantus and bass) not only in France but also in England. Peter Holman, ‘Terpsichore at 400: Michael Praetorius as a Collector of Dance Music’, Viola da Gamba Society Journal 6 (2012): 43–4.

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

157

parts for their inclusion in Terpsichore.51 Praetorius also states that the dance melodies he received were ‘composed by French dancers who were at the same time for the most part good violinists … or lutenists, and arranged according to their steps in dances, courants, ballets, and processions’.52 He mentions the names of six dance masters and violinists who were responsible for composing a number of the dances that he received. Four of these men held royal appointments: ‘Pierre La Grénée (d. 1610), Jean Delamotte (d. 1631), Claude Nyon alias De Lafont (d. 1614), and Pierre Beauchamp ( fl 1597–1626)’.53 The other two dance masters – Richehomme and Le Bret – although they worked in Paris were not in royal employment. 3

Music for Ballet Entrées

The final category of music found in the dance master’s notebook is music for ballet entrées. Some entrées have titles, others just the appellation entre de ballet, but all of these pieces appear in only one part – the melody – and most have no composer named. The exceptions to this anonymity are the entrées for two ballets by Destourmelle. The melodies are almost all notated in the soprano clef 54 and are unbarred, with the only lines those that indicate the end of a section. The melodies also mostly lack time signatures. The tunes are very similar to the ballet entrées found in the Philidor collection: they are quite short and have either one, two or three sections. For some ballets only one entrée has been recorded, while others have two, three or four entrées and two ballets have music for five entrées. The titles of the ballet entrées are given in Table 8. From Table 8 one can see that two of the named entrées have titles that are similar to ballets performed at the French court: the entrée on f. 29r could be referring to the 1608 Ballet de Trois Âges, and the five entrées on f. 31v–32r called ballet de griemas could be referring to the 1598 Ballet des Grimasseurs. But when the melodies from the dance master’s notebook are 51  ‘At your gracious command, Your Grace’s humbly obedient dancing-master Antoine Emeraud has brought these assorted melodies from France, as well as some descant parts for the same, all of which had been given over to me to be arranged for four or five parts, as I see fit’. Bruce R. Carvell, ‘A Translation of the Preface to Terpsichore of Michael Praetorius’, Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America 20 (1983): 42. 52  Carvell, ‘A Translation of the Preface to Terpsichore’, p. 51. 53  Holman, ‘Terpsichore at 400’, p. 41. 54  The second entrée on f. 82v has a treble clef, as do the ballet entrées on ff. 90v–91r. In the case of the latter the position of the B flat in the key signature indicates that the G clef was a mistake, and should have been the soprano clef.

158

chapter 6

table 8 Ballet entrées with a title in S 253 Folio number

Title of the ballet entrées

f. 29r f. 29v f. 30r f. 30v–31r

l’entres du ballet de tri ages le merquere ballet de madame la marquis de baez de lentre du balle de venus et cupitet ballet du justisa / fortitutoç / prudenssia / tenperrancia /fides / es jes / charitas / pacienscia ballet de griemas/grimas entre de ballet des le faus

f. 31v–32r f. 90v–91r

compared to the music of these two ballets found in the Philidor collection we find no similarity.55 It is possible that these entrées, or some of these entrées, were from productions in which the anonymous dance master was involved. The ballet de griemas/grimas, for example, has the same name as one of the dance students, a demoiselle grimas, who started lessons on the 23 October (f. 75v).56 Did the dance master choreograph dances for a ballet or masquerade and also provide the music for these dances at which his pupil, the demoiselle grimas, was the main performer, and which also involved sticks or bats at some point (possibly another danced combat), as indicated by three entrées from the ballet de griemas that have the words aucq le batoie added under the music? Another link between the entrées and other non-musical materials in the notebook is the music for four ballet entrées on ff. 30v–31r that has the title of the seven virtues: justice, fortitude, prudence, temperance, faith, charity and patience.57 On f. 45r of the notebook is a plot for the Ballet de sept Vertus – the Ballet of Seven Virtues. In the plot dancers representing the Seven Virtues enter seated in a triumphal chariot, but the virtues are not listed or named individually, only as a group. Once the triumphal chariot drawn along by seven unicorns with its retinue of torch-bearers, singers and instrumentalists, makes its circuit of the hall and withdraws, the Seven Virtues re-enter the hall in order to dance their entrée. There are two more entrées mentioned in the plot: the ballet of the seven unicorns and then the ballet of the seven Persian slaves. The ballet ends with a Grand Ballet, making a total of four danced set pieces. It is impossible 55  Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Res. F. 496 ff. 74–75 and 76. 56  On ff. 31v–32r the name of the ballet is first spelt ‘griemas’ then ‘grimas’. 57  In this instance ‘patience’ has replaced ‘hope’.

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

159

to say definitely that these four entrées are the music for the ballet plot, just as it is also impossible to state categorically that they are not. But on the balance of probability, I think that for this ballet – the Ballet de sept Vertus – the dance master has recorded in his notebook both the outline of the ballet’s subject, and the music for its dance numbers. On f. 30r there is music that appears to be an entrée for a ballet of Venus and Cupid. As these two characters do appear in the ballet plots, it is tempting to think that this music is also for one of the ballet plots in the notebook. While the goddess Venus appears in two of the ballet plots, and Cupid appears in a third, the two do not appear together. Nor do any of the ballet plots bear the title ‘Venus and Cupid’. As mentioned above, the otherwise unknown name Destourmelle58 appears as the composer of two entrées and a new courante. The name also appears on three more pages as part of the text of these pages (f. 69v, f. 74r and f. 93r). Destourmelle was obviously a composer of dance music at least, and the adjective ‘new’ next to his courante and one of his entrées implies that he had composed a number of other ballet entrées and courantes. But his name is also associated with a brief defence of social dancing which implies Destourmelle was also a dancer and/or a dance teacher. The text on f. 93r is directly below the music ‘la boimiere’, and reads: ‘Dansse nouuelle exellents pour dansser en bonne et honneste compainie et aussj pour y bien se comportir’.59 Underneath this sentence is the name ‘destournel’ also surrounded by the characteristic decorative motif of H3. The sentence says that the splendid new dance is excellent for dancing in an elevated and virtuous milieu, and that the dance allows the performer to display himself or herself to advantage in terms of courtesy and good behaviour. Was this sentiment a favourite saying of Destourmelle? And was Destourmelle associated with the dance school in Brussels and did he teach students there? One wonders if the new dance referred to is ‘la boimiere’ that appears above the text, given that the hand is the same for the text under the music and the text about the benefits of dancing. Is it possible to go one step further and to speculate that H3 is the hand of Destourmelle himself? The text on f. 74r associated with his name is also in the same hand H3 with the same decorative markings. It reads: ‘destourmelle le tresseuble seruiteur

58  The name is spelt as ‘destourmelle’, ‘destournielle’, ‘destournel’ and ‘destourmele’. 59  ‘[An] excellent new dance for dancing in good and honest company, and also for conducting oneself well there.’

160

chapter 6

de tout les baus etspris et braere caualeire de lonneur etc amateur des noble etceceis donneur Vostre’.60 Destourmelle, then, seems to have also been a dancer as well as a musician. The question remains, who was he? I have not been able to find mention of a musician or dancer by this name. However, the name with its variant spellings in the dance master’s notebook is eerily similar to an old French family d’Estourmel from Picardy, and one wonders whether the ‘destourmelle’ of the dance master’s notebook was a member of this family? (One has to keep in mind the extremely variable and erratic spelling in this manuscript, even by the same hand). The d’Estourmel family divided into three branches in the sixteenth century, with Jean continuing the oldest branch as Seigneur d’Estourmel, his brother Antoine founding the branch of the Seigneurs of Fouilloy and a third brother Louis founding the branch of the Seigneurs of Frétoy. In between serving the French state in a military capacity, the oldest brother Jean d’Estourmel was maître d’hotel to the duc de Vendôme, and in 1541 he was appointed maître d’hotel to the French king, François I, and in 1546 he accompanied the Cardinal Du Bellay to England on a diplomatic mission. Jean died in 1557.61 Michel, Jean’s son, married into the de Créquy family, who were also courtiers, and by the mid seventeenth century were active participants in court ballets.62 Louis d’Estourmel, Baron de Surville (Jean’s grandson) is known to have died in Paris in 1631. The other two branches also had sons.63 One wonders, therefore, if one of Jean, Antoine or Louis’s grandsons was the person named in the notebook, and that by the early seventeenth century the military valour and expertise of Jean had transformed itself into an interest and skill in the arts of music and dance. Such a progression from a belief that noble virtue was primarily displayed in a military encounter on a battlefield, to a view of noble virtue as primarily a mixture of civility, grace, ‘education, 60  ‘Destourmelle the very humble servant of all the men of wit and brave knights of honour, and the admirer of the noble et cetera of honour Yours’. This text is more difficult to interpret. The sentence is most likely to be the closing phrase to a letter. Another possibility is that it could be a template for an introduction of Destourmelle at an event, where the names or positions of those of rank who were present could be inserted in the space indicated by ‘et cetera’. 61   Dictionnaire de Biographie Française (Paris: Libraire Letouzey et Ané, 1975), XIII: 118–9. 62  I would like to thank Jennifer Thorp for bringing the matter of the de Créquy family’s dance expertise to my attention. For example, Charles de Créquy (1624–1687) was one of the Gentlemen of the Chambre du Roi from 1644 and he danced in ballets from 1651 to 1655. See Jennifer Thorp, ‘Dances and dancers in the Ballet de la Nuit’, in Ballet de la Nuit Rothschild B1/16/6, ed. Michael Burden and Jennifer Thorp (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2009), p. 25. 63   Dictionnaire de la Noblesse, 3rd ed. (Paris: Schlesinger, 1865), VII: 555.

Dance Music, Dance Songs and airs de cour

161

connoisseurship, sensibility and sophistication’ was common to many French noble families in the second half of the sixteenth century and early seventeenth century.64 In the early seventeenth century members of aristocratic families did compose dance music for the ballet de cour,65 and certainly all would have leant to dance from an early age as part of their education. In my opinion, however, if the Destourmelle named in the notebook was a member of the aristocratic d’Estourmel family, it was unlikely that he was the owner of the notebook. Composing dance music for theatrical spectacles was one thing, but earning one’s living by teaching dance was an entirely different state-ofaffairs, one that would not have been pursued by a member of an ancient family closely associated with the French court. An alternative explanation is that the person in the notebook was a valued servant of the d’Estourmel family who had taken the family name, and who was also a musician and dancer. In summary, the notebook contains a fairly typical collection of current, fashionable dances and airs de cour by leading French composers. The music reveals the dance master’s knowledge of the work of other musicians and lutenists: those who worked at the French court musical establishment, as well as those such as such as Vallet, who lived and worked outside of France. Not all the ballet entrées in the notebook have known concordances, which suggests that the dance master was someone who was actively involved in creating new danced spectacles, not just recording past performances at other courts or cities. That the music in the notebook is found in mensural notation, as well as in lute, violin and mandore tablature, suggests that the anonymous dance master was competent on at least these three instruments. The changes that were made to many of the airs de cour and pieces of dance music when they were copied into the notebook indicate that these pieces were recorded in a simplified form more suitable for teaching to his students, rather than just as a collection of pieces the dance master enjoyed playing.

64  For a discussion of this shift in France see Jeanice Brooks, Courtly Song in Late SixteenthCentury France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 117–67. The quotation is from p. 167. 65  Private communication from Margaret M. McGowan.

Conclusion Early seventeenth-century Brussels was a city that presented a variety of employment opportunities for a musician and dance master. The Jesuit college required the services of a dance teacher and choreographer for their six annual plays and occasional dramatic productions, as did the Chambers of Rhetoric. Brussels had a long established and vibrant tradition of urban ceremonial practices, which included dance. The city was a major commercial centre, wealthy and well-populated, where there would have been a strong demand for the services of a dance teacher, the means to pay for the dance lessons he provided, and leisure time to attend his classes. The presence in Brussels of Albert and Isabella and their court also added a further potential source of employment for a dance master. The dance master who owned the notebook was an entrepreneur who ran a school in Brussels at which dance and music was taught to both ladies and gentlemen from a wide geographic area and from a range of social backgrounds. The notebook was used for his teaching activities, as a repository of vocal and instrumental music that his students could learn. In the notebook the music often appears in a simplified form, more suited to the needs of beginners than to experienced musicians. The pieces in the notebook were selected by the dance master from current printed collections to cater for the demands of his students, to whom he taught the latest fashionable dances and airs from the French court. That the musical pieces were deliberately selected by the dance master for different occasions, or for a specific purpose, is clear from the fact that the airs de cour were copied into the notebook in a different order from which they appeared in the printed collections. The presence in the notebook of the current ‘hit tunes’ from the French court ballets and court composers not only indicates the strong ties the dance master had to Paris and the French court musical establishment, but also that the dance master was well aware of what he needed to teach to keep attracting students. The dance master, and possibly his students, were actively involved in performances. The inference that his students were involved in performing in danced theatrical spectacles is not an unreasonable one, as many of his students were from the upper levels of society whose members danced in such spectacles on a regular basis. The presence of plots for six different ballets, a list of ballet titles, music for ballet entrées (one of which is specifically connected to a dance pupil) and the comprehensive canon of dance figures, all point to an active choreographer and performer as the owner of the notebook. The deliberate alteration in the texts of some of the airs in the notebook to

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_009

Conclusion

163

reflect their performance context also supports the picture of a school that was actively involved in performance. The dance master used his notebook as a repository of material that he would, or might, need when organizing a danced theatrical spectacle, including instructions for making fireworks and instructions for a virtuoso exhibition with a pike. The six ballet plots also demonstrate the dance master’s knowledge of the contemporary dance culture as practised at the French court, and at other courts with close ties to Paris, such as the court of Lorraine at Nancy. These ballet plots are similar to ballets de cour of the time, both in their structure, their staging, in the characters who danced, and in the choreographic resources that were employed, such as geometric shapes and figures formed by the dancers, the use of pantomimic dancing and gestures, and the inclusion of danced battles. The long sequence of instructions for a virtuoso pike exhibition recorded near the end of the notebook can also be seen as a product of its time and place. The early seventeenth century saw, for the first time, the publication of military-drill manuals, as well as increased attention to the use of the pike in treatises written by masters-of-arms. Brussels itself had militia guilds drawn from the middle and upper levels of society, and the pike was among the weapons carried by these guilds. The pike exhibition is a unique example of how the martial arts and the art of dance could be combined to produce a spectacular demonstration of rhythm, balance, and dance-like control over one’s bodily movements, combined with the strength and dexterity required to manoeuvre a large, heavy staff weapon. The large number of figures recorded in the dance master’s notebook is another indication that he was regularly involved in creating choreographies for dance performances, since for the dance master to bother writing down over 450 figures means that he must have used the canon on many occasions each year. If he had only one or two choreographies to compose every year then it would have been far more likely that he would just have invented the figures he wanted to use at the time he was creating a choreography. The Jesuit college in Brussels had a demanding schedule with plays scheduled every one to two months over the first two-thirds of the year. If the owner of the notebook was involved with these productions, then he would have had to work to a tight timetable. Having a document on hand in which many possible figures for five to sixteen dancers were recorded would have helped him to meet deadlines, and to complete the composition phase of the production schedule in a shorter time period, thereby allowing more time for teaching his choreographies to the students and rehearsing them. The notebook also provides evidence that the school in Brussels employed more than one teacher, and that it taught both music and dance, as indeed had

164

Conclusion

often been the case since the fifteenth century. The number of different hands in the notebook, indicates that more than one person had access to it, and had the responsibility of recording the songs and dance tunes that were taught to the students. The notebook must have been kept at the school (which may have been in the dance master’s house, as was the case for Vallet’s school in Amsterdam), in order to allow all the teachers to have access to it. The fact that more than one person had access to the notebook and that the responsibility for recording material in it was shared, led to a second copying of the same air on one occasion. The four verses of de Boësset’s Lors que je suis aupres de vous was copied onto f. 58v, with the music for this air arranged in four parts and notated on the subsequent folio 59r. This air, however, appears again in the notebook on f. 78r. This time only the melody is given and no text, only the first line is written under the music, with widely variable spelling (that is, Lozb que ie suib auprer de voub), and in a different textual and musical hand to that on ff. 58v–59r. Obviously, the copyist of f. 78r was not aware that the song had already been entered into the notebook in a far more complete format when he started writing down the melody again in a slightly simplified form. The number of different hands in the notebook, and the details of what each hand copied into it, reveals the owner as a busy entrepreneur, who delegated work to his colleagues. For example, even when the music for the airs de cour was written by the dance master the text was written by a different person. The dance master obviously wanted to devote his time and attention to musical matters, such as providing arrangements of the airs, rather than non-musical recording of the song texts, which is what he did for the airs Sous la fraicheur and Adieu volage empire. Here the dance master not only wrote out a slightly varied version of the melody from that found in the printed editions, but he also had to compose three lower parts since these two airs were only published in an arrangement for voice and lute and one for solo voice only (see Table 7). The picture of the anonymous dance master that emerges from the pages of his notebook is an appealing one. The range of subject matter of the resets – medical, cosmetic and agricultural – reveals a man of wide interests, while the systematic canon of dance figures suggests someone with a logical mind, who appreciated order and design in his art, and his ironic comment on the character of the lovers in the title of one of his ballet plots reveals his sense of humour. He had connections with other musicians and dancers, like Lespine, Belleville and Destourmelle, as well as with other professionals such as the expert in the handling of staff weapons and an artificer, men whose expertise differed from his. Even though we do not know his name, nor his date or place of birth, the footprints of his activities that do remain add immeasurably to our knowledge and understanding of the life of a dance master in a large urban centre in the early seventeenth century.

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material from S 253 List of Ballet Subjects and Six Ballet Plots – Pages 166 to 177 Canon of Dance Figures and Letters – Pages 178 to 214 Pike Exhibition – Pages 215 to 226 Description of Dance Pupils and Signatures – Pages 227 to 243

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_010

166

FACSIMILE F. 1R

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 1v

167

168

FACSIMILE f. 2r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 2v

169

170

FACSIMILE f. 4r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 4v

171

172

FACSIMILE f. 45r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 105r

173

174

FACSIMILE f. 105v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 106r

175

176

FACSIMILE f. 117r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 117v

177

178

FACSIMILE f. 3r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 5r

179

180

FACSIMILE f. 6r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 6v

181

182

FACSIMILE f. 7r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 7v

183

184

FACSIMILE f. 8r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 8v

185

186

FACSIMILE f. 9r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 9v

187

188

FACSIMILE f. 10r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 10v

189

190

FACSIMILE f. 11r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 12r

191

192

FACSIMILE f. 12v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 13r

193

194

FACSIMILE f. 13v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 14r

195

196

FACSIMILE f. 14v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 15r

197

198

FACSIMILE f. 15v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 16r

199

200

FACSIMILE f. 16v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 17r

201

202

FACSIMILE f. 17v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 18r

203

204

FACSIMILE f. 18v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 20r

205

206

FACSIMILE f. 20v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 22r

207

208

FACSIMILE f. 22v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 24r

209

210

FACSIMILE f. 24v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 25r

211

212

FACSIMILE f. 26r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 26v

213

214

FACSIMILE f. 27r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 94r

215

216

FACSIMILE f. 94v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 95r

217

218

FACSIMILE f. 95v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 96r

219

220

FACSIMILE f. 96v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 97r

221

222

FACSIMILE f. 97v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 98r

223

224

FACSIMILE f. 98v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 99r

225

226

FACSIMILE f. 99v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 65v

227

228

FACSIMILE f. 66r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 68r

229

230

FACSIMILE f. 70r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 70v

231

232

FACSIMILE f. 71r original

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 71r flap

233

234

FACSIMILE f. 71r back of flap

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 71v

235

236

FACSIMILE f. 72r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 72v

237

238

FACSIMILE f. 73r

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 74r

239

240

FACSIMILE f. 74v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 75r

241

242

FACSIMILE f. 75v

Facsimile

Facsimile of Dance-Related Material

FACSIMILE f. 76r

243

Appendix 1

Transcription and Translation of the Six Ballet Plots Transcription of Ballet f. 2r–v: Ballet L’enuie de l’honneur de l’Amour fidelle de passioné Primier entreront les pages auecq les flambeáuz qui danceront leur ballet. Puis entrerat vne musicque pour chantér et annoncer le subiect du ballet. Puis entrerat vn chareau triomphal auecq Orphee dedans qui Iouerat du luth auecq la Deesse Cÿpris et vne fortune au periot du chariaú Puis pour la condúicte du chareaú il y aurat vn lion et vne lionne e qui tireront le chareau et alentour du chareaú seront esclaues de toutes nations qui Io veront des Instrúments et deuant la teste de chareau seront trois enfans de Cÿpris del’Amour fidelle des passioné et celluy de mitan tiendrat vne courone auecq vn laurier a la main et serat abillé en Deesse auecq les cheúeux y endants auecq vne courone sur la teste puis les deux aultres acosté tiendront chascun une espee a la main auecq une corone sur la teste [f. 2v] puis touts ensenble feront trois tour de sale en se retirant puis les trois enfans del’Amour fidelle des passioné r’entreront poúr danser leur ballet puis se retireront. Puis entrerat les passionez amoureux qui danceront leur ballet auecq chascun leur Nimphe et ala fin se dancerat ce qui serat de plus beaú. X puis entreront deuant les trois enfans del’Amour fidelle de passioné les esclaues de toutes sortes de nations qui danceront leur balet. puis les trois enfans regardes la q[u] aut [H1] pour le grand balle entera cing pasionzne amourrs puis cing esclaues de nations et tous de mem̃ e pour le mestre en liberte de leur bailleir leur quon et les damme leur etserpe1 qui les notecie Translation of Ballet f. 2r–v: The envy of the honour of faithful, passionate Love First the pages will enter carrying torches and dance their ballet. Then a band of musicians will enter to sing and to announce the subject of the ballet. Next a triumphal chariot will enter carrying Orpheus, who will play his lute, accompanied by the Goddess

1  I have interpreted ‘etserpe’ as an idiomatic spelling of ‘écharpe’.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_011

Transcription and Translation of the Six Ballet Plots

245

Cypris, and a figure of Fortune au periot2 of the chariot. Next, to pull the chariot there shall be a lion and a lioness. And all around the chariot will be slaves from every nation who will play instruments, and in front of the chariot will be three children of Cypris [the goddess] of faithful and passionate Love. And the one in the centre will carry in her hand a crown [girt] with laurel leaves and shall be dressed as a Goddess, with her hair loose and wearing a crown on her head. Then the two other [children] to her side will each carry a sword in their hand and wear a crown. [f. 2v] Then everyone will together make three circuits of the hall and retire. Then the three children of faithful and passionate Love will re-enter in order to dance their ballet, after which they will leave. Next, the passionate lovers will enter and dance their ballet, each one with their nymph. At the end the finest [of them] will dance again. X Next, ahead of the three children of faithful and passionate Love, will enter slaves of every nation, who will dance their ballet. Then the three children look about [the text just breaks off here and the hand changes] [H1] For the grand ballet five passionate lovers will enter, then five slaves of every nation, and for all of the same the master gave them their freedom and that [of] their ladies [and] their scarf that identifies them Transcription of Ballet f. 4r–v: Ballet des mineúrs des Paÿs Premierement entrerat les mineurs dansant leur ballet et ala fin de leúr ballet tournant le dos ala porte entrerat vne montaigne faicte en grotte qui se nomine machine et comme les mineurs se retourneront feront les estonnez en dansant toutioúrs leurs figúres, et puis se viendront mettre alentoúr de la machine pour trauailler de leurs armes et decouurir ce quil y at dedans aussy tot il y sortirat plusieúrs oyseaux et petites bestes sauúages et puis en sortirat deux satires et deux sauúages ⌈mores⌉ lequelz espouuenteront les mineurs. ⌈et sortiront de la sale⌉ puis il y sortirat six petits nains sauuages auecq grandes barbes blanches auecq chascún leur petit courtelas ala main 2  While chariots were a common occurrence in ballets throughout Europe, and the presence of Fortune on such chariots was also reasonably common, I have not been able to find another occurrence of the phrase ‘vne fortune au periot’. At this stage I cannot give a definite translation of this phrase. Given the idiosyncratic spelling in the manuscript, my suggestion is that ‘periot’ is a mis-spelling for the word ‘perron’. One of the meanings for this word given in Randle Cotgrave’s 1611 dictionary is ‘a square base of stone, or mettall, some five or six foot high, whereon, in old time, Knights errant placed some discourse, challenge, or proofe, of an adventure’. (A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues [London: Adam Islip, 1611], p. 710). My feeling, therefore, is that the phrase in the ballet plot is referring to a plinth of some sort on which the figure of Fortune was standing in the chariot.

246

Appendix 1

qui chergeront d’appointement les mineurs et les chasseron ⌈t⌉ touts dehors de la salle toút cela se ferat auecq cadence, mesúre et figúres en dansant. Puis r’entrerat les deux sauuages mores et les deux satÿres auecq chascun vn flambeaú et danceront vn ballet. Puis r’entreront les nains en Ioye pour leur victoire [f. 4v] dansant vn ballet victorieúx auecq le coutelas ala main et ala fin de leúr ballet tournant le dos a la porte entrerat vu ballet des cÿgoignes et comme les neins se retourneront al’Improuiste voyant ces cygoignes les venir attacquer et faire la gúerre viendront a se Ioindre et ses cherger l’un l’aultre en dansant les figures dú ballet des Neins et des cÿgoignes et a la fin les neins chasseront les cygoignes hors dela salle toutioúrs en se battant en figúres puis les neins retourneront victorieux dansante de Ioÿe tout six de front auancant Iusqu’ au boút dela salle Puis se retournant il auiseront six mineúrs Arabes abillez a leur façon auecq chascun un miróir deuant leur poictrine qui esbluirat les neins et tomberont sur un genoux tout esperdú remettant leur coutelas puis les arabes mineurs auanceront sur eux et les feront passer se ⌈re⌉ tournant touts face a face et commenceront a dancer vn grand ballet touts ensemble et ala fin de leur ballet prendront chascun leur nein sur leurs espaules et en faisant la reuerence pour se retirer. et puis danceront ce qu’on voudrat. Translation of Ballet f. 4r–v: Ballet of the miners from the countryside First, the miners will enter and dance their ballet, at the end of which they will turn their backs to the doors as the mechanical device representing a mountain in the shape of a grotto will enter. And as the miners turn around they will act astonished, still dancing their figures, and will then come and surround the mountain in order to work with their tools and to discover what is inside [it]. At once a number of birds and small wild animals will emerge, followed by two satyrs and two wild moors. These will join together with the miners and leave the hall. Then six small, fierce dwarfs will emerge, with long white beards and each one carrying a cutlass in their hand. They will charge at the miners with their cutlasses drawn and pointing forwards, and chase them out of the hall. All this is to be done in good rhythm [cadence], measure and in danced figures. Next, the two wild moors and the two satyrs, each carrying a torch, will re-enter and dance a ballet. Next, the dwarfs will return, overjoyed at their victory, [f. 4v] and dance a ballet of victory, each carrying a cutlass in their hand. At the end of the ballet, as they turn their backs to the door, a ballet of storks will make its entrance, and, as the dwarfs turn around, they suddenly see the storks coming to attack and to make war upon them. They will come together and charge one another dancing the figures of the Ballet of the Dwarfs and Storks, at the end of which the dwarfs will chase the storks from the hall, continuing to fight in figures. Then the dwarfs will return victorious,

Transcription and Translation of the Six Ballet Plots

247

dancing with joy, all six of them abreast, advancing to the end of the hall. Then, as the [dwarfs] return, they will notice six miners dressed in Arab fashion, each one with a mirror in front of their chests that will dazzle the dwarfs, and [the dwarfs] will fall on one knee all overcome and handing back their cutlasses. Then the Arab miners will advance towards [the dwarfs] and make them pass, all turning to face one another, and will begin to dance a great ballet all together, at the end of which each miner will take a dwarf onto his shoulders, bow and retire. Then they will dance whatever they like. Transcription of Ballet f. 45r: Subiect du Ballet de sept Vertus Premier Il y entrera vne musicque qui chantera le subiect du balet quon representera puis entrerat vn chariot de triúmphe auecq vne fortune au periot quel tiendrat les guidons de sept Vertús et dans le chariot seront les sept Vertús accompaignees de sept nÿmphes persiennes esclaúes qui seront liez au tour du chariot et serat tiré par sept lÿcornes accompaignees des deux nymphes qui chanteront le subiect du balet plusieurs flambeaux et musicques et Instruments puis ayant faict leur tour de sale se retireront Puis entreront les sept vertús ⌈cauailliers⌉ dansant leur ballet et a la fin se retireront dehors la sale. Puis entrerat sept licornes dansant leur ballet et a la fin se retireront hors dela sale. Puis entrerat les sept persiennes esclaúes qui danceront leúr balet et ala fin presque de leúr balet tournant le dos ala porte et eux s’àduancant entrerat les sept Vertúeux caualiers et les persiennes se retournant et auisant les caualiers se prosternent tout sur un genoux les caualiers s’aduancent sur eux et les releuent pour les mettre en liberté puis commencent a dancer touts ensemble le grand balet Iusqu’ a la fin. Puis danceront ce qui voudront. Translation of Ballet f. 45r: Subject of the Ballet of Seven Virtues First singers will enter and sing the subject of the ballet to be performed. Then a triumphal chariot will enter, bearing a figure of Fortune au periot, which will hold the pennants of the seven virtues. In the chariot will be the seven virtues accompanied by seven Persian slave nymphs, who shall be tied all around the chariot and pulled along by seven unicorns accompanied by two nymphs who will sing the subject of the ballet, several torch-bearers, singers and musicians. Then, after making a circuit of the hall, they will withdraw. Then the seven virtuous knights will enter and dance their ballet, following which they will leave the hall. Then the seven unicorns will enter and dance their ballet, and at its conclusion they will retire from the hall. Then the seven Persian slaves will enter and dance their ballet, towards the end of which, they turn their backs to the door. Advancing towards them [the slaves], the seven virtuous knights will enter, and, turning around to see them, the Persian slaves will all prostrate themselves on one

248

Appendix 1

knee. The knights advance towards them, raise them up and grant them their liberty. Then everyone will begin to dance the grand ballet until the end, after which they will dance what they like. Transcription of Ballet f. 105r–v: l’assaút fúrieux des dames contre les plús courageux des combas victorieux Premier. Saturne serat au haut dú chareau de triomphe et tiendrat un lache et vn cordage oú seront lié les femmes des nations comme esclaúes trois a trois au toúr dú chareaú ou Proserpine et Minerue seront aússy dedans tenant vn Instrument ala main et súr la poincte dú deriere du chariot il ÿ aurat vne Venús droite ayant vn carquoÿs et arc et flesche a la main toutiour preste a decoscher le chariau serat conduit et mené par trois Deesses abilléz en Venús portant le carquoys et arc et flesches toutiour prestx a decoscher et deuant les Deesses. il y aurat vn tartare auecq vne grande aisle aú mitan dú dos monté sur vne lÿcorne accompaigné des plusieurs sortes d’Instruments et flambeaux qui marcheront a la teste et feront trois tour de sale en se retirant hors de sale/ Puis les femmes des nations qui seront en liberte r’entreront furieusement en danceront un ballet [f. 105v] furieux de toutes sortes des niches des mains et de bras et de signals, Puis le ballet de pages Puis le grand ballet entrerat del’assaut furieux des dames contre le plus courageux des combats Victorieux puis les dames tiendront a la main chascun vn guidon ou estandart ou il y aurat vn coeur formé accompaigné de plusieurs estoilles et les grands courageux tiendront a la main chascun vn dard auecq vn tafta des coúleurs des dames en façon de guidon accompaigné d’un soleil plain delarmes et de ceste sorte danceront leúr ballet touts ensemble et ala fin se dancerat ce qui voudront. finis Translation of Ballet f. 105r–v: The wild assault of the ladies on the bravest of the victorious warriors First Saturn shall be on the top of the triumphal chariot, holding an axe and a rope to which shall be tied in threes, as slaves, the women of the nations around the chariot. Proserpine and Minerva will also be in the chariot, each with an instrument in her hands, and at the very rear of the chariot there will be a Venus standing upright, holding in her hands a quiver and bow, and arrows ready to be let fly. The chariot will be drawn and led by three Goddesses dressed as Venuses, carrying a quiver and bow, and arrows ready to be fired. In front of the Goddesses will be a Tartar woman with a great wing attached to the middle of her back, mounted on a unicorn and accompanied by several kinds of musicians and torchbearers who will walk ahead of her, making three circuits of the hall before leaving. Then the ladies of the nations, having been set free, will re-enter wildly and will dance a furious ballet [f. 105v] with all sorts of signs and

Transcription and Translation of the Six Ballet Plots

249

tricks using [the] hands and the arms. Then the ballet of the pages. Then the grand ballet will enter representing the wild assault of the ladies on the bravest of the victorious warriors. The ladies shall each hold in her hands a pennant [or standard] on which shall be the shape of a heart surrounded by several stars. The bravest warriors will each hold in their hands a small lance with taffeta pennants in the colours of their [respective] ladies with a sun weeping tears. In this way they will all dance their ballet together, following which they will dance what they like. Finis. Transcription of ballet ff. 105v–106r : Aultre Ballet. De la fleur d’Amour des Amants et Amantes passagers pour la grande sympatio fidelite et Affection quilz se portent de se Iamais separer ny quitter quoy quil arriue Premier. serat vn chariot triomphal auecq une fortuné au periot portant les guidons des amants et Amantes et dedans serat Dieu Mars et la [f. 106r] Reÿne Saba accompaigné des plusieurs sortes des nations cauilliers et des quatre pantalons abillez de diuerse couleurs qui Ioúeront des Instruments et respondront ala Voix d’vn Ange qui serat ala teste du chariot et vn cupidon qui sera deúant l’ Ange accompaignee des plusieurs flambeaux/ Le chariot serat tiré par deux cerf passagiers Puis feront trois tour de sale et sortiront touts hors de sale/ Puis r’entreront les quatres pantalons auecq francisquine et Isabelle et danseront un ballet des grimaches auecq figures et ala fin ilz sortiront dela sale tout en figures Puis les pages entreront dansants leúr ballet Puis entrerat la fleurs des amants et amantes passagiers trois danceront lentree des amants […]ú grand ballet et trois ⌈amantes⌉ poúr suiueront vn peú apres, et touts feront de mesme les amants tiendront un laurier a la main auecq vn tafta en guidon plain de larmes et estoilles des couleurs des amantes puis les amantes tiendront ala main vne branche de palme auecq un tafta des couleurs des amants en facon de guidon auecq vn soleil et estoilles dedans et entreront tout en figures et pour suiueront Ius quel a la fin du ballet. […] danseront ce qui voudront finis. Translation of Ballet ff. 105v–106r: Another Ballet. Of the bloom of love between fleeting lovers male and female and the great sympathy and faithfulness they declare, and the affection they bear one another, vowing never to be separated nor to abandon one another, come what may3 First shall come a triumphal chariot with the figure of Fortune au periot carrying the pennants of the male and female lovers. In the chariot will be the god Mars and [f. 106r] 3  By his use of the word ‘fleeting’ to describe the lovers who promise never to separate, I feel that the dance master is poking fun at stereotypical plots where pairs of lovers swear eternal faithfulness to each other.

250

Appendix 1

the Queen of Sheba, together with knights from various nations and four Pantalones dressed in diverse colours who will play instruments and respond to the voice of an angel who shall be at the head of the chariot, and a cupid who will be in front of the angel, accompanied by several torch-bearers. The chariot will be pulled by two passing stags, which will make three circuits of the hall and then leave the hall. Then the four Pantalones will return, with Franchescina and Isabella, and they will dance a ballet of grimaces with figures, after which, all still in figures, they will leave the hall. Then the pages will enter and dance their ballet. Then shall enter the fleeting bloom of male and female lovers, three of whom will dance the entrée of the male lovers in the grand ballet, and three female lovers will follow a short while after, all acting alike. The male lovers will hold a laurel in their hands with a taffeta pennant filled with tears and stars in the colours of their female lovers. Then the female lovers will hold a palm branch in their hands with a taffeta pennant in the colours of their male lovers, with a sun and stars on it, and they will all enter in figures, and they continue until the end of the ballet, and at the end of the ballet they will dance what they like. Finis. Transcription of Ballet f. 117r–v: L’esperance des malcontens, esperants Contentement des lanterniers Primi: il entrerat quelq[ue] voix pour representer subiec l’entree sont les malcontents les quelz danceront le ballet toút en differens grimaces tout en figures auecq plusieúrs signes et façons, les malcontens seront abillez tout d’vue mesme façon d’une toille de quelle coúleur l’on voúdrat et les habits tout d’vne Venúe auecq vne petite mandille volante touts les habits seront peincts plains des larmes et leúr boimet serat large comme vn plat de mesme aux habits auecq bottines toúts. et de la façon danceront leur ballet a la fin se retireront. Puis pour le second balet entrerat vn satÿre, vn fanthomme, vn sauúage vn súisse Puis vne moresqúe auecq le suis e vne egÿptienne auec le Satÿre, et vne Arabe auecq le sauúage et le fanthomme allumerat auecq sa lanterne deriere et touts tiendront chascun vne lanterne a la main. ⌈et danceront leur ballet et se retireront⌉ Puis entrerat des nÿmphes moresque lesquelz tiendront chascun vn flambeaú et danceront vn ballet et a la fin se rangeront tant dun coste que d’Aultre dans la sale [f. 117v] Puis entrerat le grand balet des esperants contentement qui seront cincq et seront abillez en façon de Mercúre accompaignez chascun d’vne Courtisane qui seront vne de france, vne d’Espaigne / vne d’Italie vne d’e Hongrie et vne d’Angleterre et ainsy danceront leur grand balet et a la fin danceront ce quil leur plairat. finis. Translation of Ballet f. 117r–v: The hope of the malcontents, and the contentment of the lantern bearers First a number of singers will enter in order to present the subject. The entrée consists of the malcontents who will dance their ballet, all using different grimaces, all in

Transcription and Translation of the Six Ballet Plots

251

figures and with a number of signs and in a number of [different] ways. The malcontents shall be dressed in a similar fashion, in a cloth of whatever colour they would like, and all their costumes are that of a Venus with a small, loose cloak. All the costumes shall be covered with painted tears and their hats [are] like wide dishes, similarly all the costumes have small boots. In this manner they will dance their ballet, after which they will retire. Then, for the second ballet, a satyr, a phantom, a wild man and a Swiss guard will enter. Then a Moorish woman with the Swiss guard and an Egyptian woman with the satyr, an Arab woman with the wild man [will enter] and the phantom will provide light with his lantern behind them. Each one of them carrying a lantern in their hand will dance their ballet, and then they will retire. Then Moorish nymphs will enter, each holding a torch, and dance their ballet, and at the end [of the ballet] they will arrange themselves half to one side of the hall, the rest to the other. [f. 117v] Then the Grand Ballet of those searching for happiness will enter, and there will be five of them, and all will be dressed like Mercury, and each one will be accompanied by a female courtier,4 one from France, one from Spain, one from Italy, one from Hungary and one from England. They shall all dance their Grand Ballet, after which they will dance whatever they please. Finis

4  The word ‘vne courtisane’ could also refer to a courtesan.

Appendix 2

The Pike Exhibition (ff. 94r–99v) 1 Transcription Folio 94r L1: Fault premierement faire la Reverence. L2: au bout de la picque et aduancer et L3: par le long de la dicte picque puis la L4: prendre de la main droicte par dessoubre L5: la Jettez et la retiuoir./ L6: Picque sur l’espaule. L7: Picque à terre L8: Tournez demy tour L9: Picque sur l’espaule./ L10: La Reuerence L11: Picque sur l’espaule. L12: Mettez la pointe de la picque à terre et L13: la Jettez en auant, bais[s]és la main droicte L14: de laquelle retenez la picque et advançant L15: un pas remettez la sur l’espaule. L16: Picque a terre. L17: demy tour. Folio 94v L1: Picque sur l’espaule faictes glisser vn L2: peu la picque et renversant la main L3: reprendre la pour la faire descendre à la terre L4: Les deux petits appeaux./ L5: Le grand Appeau. L6: Picque sur l’espaule L7: Encor les 2 petits Appeaux L8: Le grand appeau. L9: Picque sur l’espaule. L10: Poussez la picque derriere par dessus l’espaule L11: et faisant pencher la pointe de la picque L12: à terre, redressez la en hault toulte droicte

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004377738_012

The Pike Exhibition (ff. 94r–99v) L13: Jettez la en la haussant vu peu en tournant L14: le bras puis la retienez de la main droicte L15: laquelle renversez et portez par droicte L16: laissant tomber en derriere la pointe de la picque L17: par dessus lespaule. Tenez la pointe en L18: hault et tirez le bout que vous tenez de L19: la main droicte par derriere. affin de faire L20: glisser la picque par dessus l’espaule L21: renversez la main droicte et prendré la picque L22: par la pointe./ Folio 95r L1: Tournez au bout pour faire une glissade L2: aduancer Avoyer pas et tournér pour faire encore L3: une glissade. L4: prendré la picque à contrepoider et la Jettez L5: en hault la pointe deuant à fin de la reprendre L6: de la main droicte par le bout auec la main L7: droicte tirant le pied ⌈droict⌉ en arriere./ L8: Aduancez vne estocade et aduancez le pied L9: droict tout ensemble L10: Poussez le bout de la picque en auant et la L11: faictes vn peu glisser puis la reprendré L12: de la main droicte en tournant la main L13: faictes Avoyer pas et tournez L14: poussez la picque en auant pour la releuer L15: sur lespaule dessus le bras L16: Jettez la picque en hault la pointe la L17: premiere et la retenez de la main droicte L18: Picque sur lespaule L19: faictes passer la picque par derriere L20: le col et la retenez de la main gauche L21: tournant la main de laquelle faire descendre L22: la picque la pointe tombant à terre. Folio 95v L1: Jettez la picque en hault auec la main gauche L2: la pointe en position de sorte que puisse L3: reprendre le bout de la picque auec la

253

254 L4: main droite et remuer la pointe est presque L5: toute droicte vu peu toutes faire pointe poussante L6: en bas fault poussez le bout que tenez de L7: la main droicte et l’approcher de la main gauche L8: affin de la glaiue glisser. L9: Aduancez ung pas et en faire aultant L10: de l’aultre costé commençant de la main droicte L11: Jettez la picque des la main gauche la L12: pointe la premiere et la retenez par le L13: bout de la main droicte. L14: Aduancez vne estocade et le pied droict L15: tout ensemble. L16: Poussez le bout de la picque en auant L17: glissant vn peu et la reprend[…] de la main L18: droicte en la remuersant L19: faictes Avoyer pas en tournant L20: Tenez la picq[ue] par le bout et tenez les L21: deux pieds tout droict vis à vis l’un de L22: l’aultre prendre vostre. aduançant la pointe L23: a terre deuant vous affin de tourner la Folio 96r L1: picque par dessus la teste la pointe L2: en auant puis haussez la pointe en hault L3: et faictes glisser la picque par dessus L4: le bras gauche lequel haussenez peu à peu L5: et faictes passer par deuant la haut L6: teste et la picque par dessus./ L7: Marchez 3 pas et rependant faictes L8: passer la picque par L9: derriere vous poussez la à contrepoidre L10: pour la Jetter en l’air et la retenez L11: par le bout auec la main droicte de laquelle L12: l’avoir Jettez et obseruant un temps en L13: la tenant de la main droicte tournez vn L14: tour à gauche et faictes tourner la picque L15: auec vous presentant la pointe deuant L16: vous L17: Jettez la picque en l’air et la

Appendix 2

The Pike Exhibition (ff. 94r–99v) L18: retenez de la main droicte L19: Mettez la picque sur l’espaule. L20: faictes descendre la picque et la L21: mettez à contrepoidre sur le dos de la Folio 96v L1: main droicte faictes la passer par L2: dessus la teste en tournant la main L3: droicte et la reprendre par dessous de […] la L4: dicte main la ramenant par dessoubre le L5: coulde et l’aisselle. obseruez vn temps L6: et demeurez vn peu la L7: aduancez la pointe en auant portez L8: la main droicte vers le bout tournez L9: demy tour à droict et aduancez le L10: pied gauche […] le bout de la pirque L11: portez y tout d’un temps la main gauche L12: passant la picque par dessus vostre L13: teste Aduancez le pied droict vers le L14: bout tournant vn demy tour du L15: costé gauche et y portez au mesme L16: temps la main droicte vn passant la L17: pirgue par dessus la teste Aduancér(e) L18: la picque deuant vous et portez L19: la main droicte qui est au bout vers L20: la pointe en tournant demy tour du Folio 97r L1: costé gauche et faisant passer le bout L2: de la picque par deuant vous puis L3: mettez la picque sur lespaule. L4: demy tour à gauche L5: Aduancez une estocade et glissez L6: Prenez la picque à contrepoidre auec L7: la main droicte Jettez la pointe en l’air L8: et retenez le bout de la main droicte en L9: retirant le pied droict arriere. poussez L10: une estocade en auant et glissez L11: faictes en aultant de l’aultre costé

255

256 L12: Prenez la picque à contrepoidre L13: Jettez la pointe en l’air, retenez le L14: bout du rendre de la main droicte et le L15: faictes passer par dessus la teste L16: Aduancéz une estocade et glissez L17: faictes en aultant de l’aultre costé Folio 97v L1: Faictes glisser la picque à L2: terre auec la main droicte la main droicte prendez L3: la par le bout faultez par dessus L4: la picque le pied droict deuant prendez L5: vostre glaive et passez la picque L6: par dessus vostre teste puis L7: faictes vne glissade. L8: Prenez la picque par la pointe L9: et la Jettez tout droict deuant vous L10: pour la retenoir auec la main droicte L11: par le bout aduancer vne estocade L12: et glissez. L13: Prenez la picque par la pointe L14: Jettez la tout droict deuant vostre L15: et la retenez auec la main droicte L16: par le bout en tournant un tour L17: entier et conduisant la picque deuant L18: vous aduancez vne estocade et glissez Folio 98r L1: Prenez la picque par la pointe L2: Jettez la tout droict deuant vous L3: et faictes battement de main L4: Picque sur l’espaule. L5: Le Jeu Par L6: Hault L7: La Rodemontade. L8: Releuez le bout de la picque en L9: hault et le Jettez en l’air pour L10: le retenoir de la main droicte L11: poussez une estocade et faictes glisser

Appendix 2

The Pike Exhibition (ff. 94r–99v) L12: la picque. L13: Prenez la picque à contrepoidre L14: mettez le bout à terre, Jettez le bout L15: en l’air pour le retenoir de la main L16: droicte. Folio 98v L1: Jettez la picque en lair la L2: pointe deuant faictes tourner un tour L3: et la retenez de la main droicte. L4: la faisant tourner par dessus la teste. L5: Le double Appeau L6: Picque sur l’espaule. L7: faictes le tour en l’air auec L8: le costé du pied. L9: Le double Appeau L10: Marchez Ayoyer pas turnant la pointe L11: de la picque à terre puis faictes en L12: tour en l’air L13: Picque sur l’espaule L14: demy tour a gauche L15: Jettez la pointe de la picque deuant L16: vous et la retenez à contrepoidre de’ L17: la main droicte. Folio 99r L1: Pirque sur l’espaule L2: faictes vn tour en l’air ayant la L3: picque sur l’espaule L4: le tour par sur la pointe du pied L5: le double double Appeau L5b: L6: Picque sur lespaule L7: Mettez le pied de la picque à terre L8: et faictes vn tour en l’air la picque L9: estant toutte droicte L10: Picque sur l’espaule. L11: Demy tour à gauche poussez L12: vne estocade et glissez.

257

258

Appendix 2

L13: Prenez la picque par la pointe L14: et la Jettez en l’air tout droict deuant L15: vous retenez la par le bout a main L16: renuersée portez la droicte l’espaule L17: et faictes vn tour en l’air Folio 99v L1: demy tour a gauche Aduancez L2: vne estocade et glissez. L3: Prendez la picque par la pointe L4: et la Jettez tout droict deuant vous L5: en l’air pour la retenoir par le bout L6: demeurez vn peu un temps et L7: haussant la pointe de la picque L8: toutte droicte en l’air faictes vn L9: tour et retenez la picque de la main L10: droicte. L11: Picque sur l’espaule L12: Mettez le pied de la picque à L13: terre faictes vn tour en l’air et L14: tirez vostre espeé. L15: balottez la picque en tournant. L16: La Reuerence.

2

Translation by Margaret M. McGowan

[f. 94r] First of all make the Bow [Reverence]; with the end of the pike advance the length of the said pike, then take it in the right hand underneath, throw it and bring it back again. Pike on the shoulder. Pike pointing to the ground. Make half a turn. Pike on the shoulder. Bow [La Reverence]. Pike on the shoulder. Direct the point of the pike towards the ground and throw it forward, lowering the right hand to take hold of the pike and advance a little to return it to the shoulder. Pike pointing to the ground.

The Pike Exhibition (ff. 94r–99v)

259

Half turn. [f. 94v] Pike on the shoulder, slide a little forward, the pike turning in the hand; take it up again to let it slide to the ground. Perform two thrusts. The Great assault. Pike on the shoulder. Again two thrusts. The Great assault. Pike on the shoulder. Push the pike behind above the shoulder, making the point of the pike touch the ground, and lift it up quite straight. Throw it raising it a little, then turning the arm in order to hold it with the right hand, turn it over and carry it in the right hand letting the point of the pike fall behind, above the shoulder. Hold the point high and pull the end which you hold in the right hand from behind in order to slip the pike above the shoulder and turn over with the right hand to take hold of the pike by its point. [f. 95r] Turn at the end to perform a glissade, advance again a few paces and turn in order to perform another glissade. Take hold of the pike in counterbalance and thrust the point forward in order to grasp it again with the right hand and hold it by the end in the right hand to take a step backwards with the right foot. Advance again and lead with the right foot all together. Push the end of the pike forward and make it slide forward, turning the hand in order to retake it in the right hand, take a few paces and turn, thrust the pike forward to roll it above the arm. Throw the pike high so that the point is forward and it rests secure in the right hand. Pike on the shoulder. Pass the pike behind the neck and grasp it in the left hand turning the hand so that it drops slowly. The point of the pike towards the ground. [f. 95v] Throw the pike high with the left hand, the point moving in such a way that it can be taken by the right hand and as its point is almost straight, a little point so that the end is pointing down, and thrust the point held in the right hand and bring it near to the left hand so that the glaive slides forward. Advance a little, and do the same from the other side beginning with the right hand. Throw the pike with the left hand the point forward, and take it by the tip with the right hand. Advance again and lead with the right foot all together.

260

Appendix 2

Thrust the point of the pike forward, letting it slide a little and take it again with the right hand. Advance a pace as you turn. Hold the pike by the end, and keep both feet straight one beside the other, hold the point of the pike towards the ground in front of you in order to turn the pike [f. 96r] above your head the point forward, then raise the point high so that the pike can be made to slide above the left arm which will slowly move upwards allowing the pike to pass in front over your head. Walk three paces, make the pike pass behind, so that you can effect a counterweight, allowing it to be thrown into the air; and taking the end with the right hand with which you have thrown it, observing a pause. While holding it in the right hand, turn a little to the left side and make the pike turn with you, presenting the tip in front of you. Throw the pike into the air and take it with the right hand. Put the pike on the shoulder, lower the pike so that its weight rests on the back of the [f. 96v] right hand, pass it above the head turning the right hand and take it up again in the same hand bringing it back and letting it rest above the elbow, under the arm. Keep it there and stay awhile. Then advance the point forward, put the right hand towards the end, turn a half turn to the right advancing with the left foot, grasp the end of the pike and hold it for a while in the left hand, pass the pike above your head. Advance with the right foot, making a half turn to the left and, at the same time, with the right hand pass the pike above the head. Advance the pike forward and using the right hand take hold of the end near the point, performing a half turn [f. 97r] on the left side passing the end of the pike in front to lodge the pike on the shoulder. A half turn to the left. Advance and glide, grasping the pike in counterbalance and with the right hand throw it point first into the air and seize the [end of the] pike in the right hand keeping the right foot back. Move forward and slide. Repeat the movement from the other side. Grasp the pike in counterbalance, throw the point in the air, seizing the end of the stave by the right hand and make it [the pike] pass above the head. Advance a pace and glide forward. Repeat the movement from the other side. [f. 97v] Make the pike slide to the ground with the right hand, push the point down and pass the right foot over the pike before taking your thrust and passing the pike above the head, then perform a glissade.

The Pike Exhibition (ff. 94r–99v)

261

Take the pike by the point and throw it straight before you, take it up again in the right hand by the end, advance and perform a glissade. Take the pike by the point and throw it straight before you; take it up again in the right hand by the end, making a complete turn, and then trailing the pike in front of you, advance and perform a glissade. [f. 98r] Take the pike by its point, throw it directly before you and clap your hands. Pike on the shoulder. Play from above. Display of boasting [La Rodomontade]. Raise the end of the pike up high, throw it in the air and catch it with the right hand. Advance and make the pike glide. Take the pike in counterbalance, put the point to the ground, throw the end in the air and catch it with the right hand. [f. 98v] Throw the pike into the air, the end pointing forward, make a turn and seize it with the right hand and pass it over the head. Double thrust. Pike on the shoulder. Make it turn in the air with the side of the foot. Double thrust. Walk a few paces turning the point of the pike to the ground. Then make a turn in the air. Pike on the shoulder. Half turn to the left. Throw the point of the pike in front of you and catch it in counterbalance with the right hand. [f. 99r] Pike on the shoulder. Make a turn in the air having the pike on the shoulder with the turn on the ball of the foot. Double, double thrust. Pike on the shoulder. Put the foot of the pike to the ground, do a turn in the air, keeping the pike straight. Pike on the shoulder. A half turn to the left and thrust, then advance with a glissade. Take the pike by the end and throw it into the air straight ahead in front of you, take it up by the end – hand reversed – and place it on the right shoulder, make a turn in the air. [f. 99v] A half turn to the left.

262

Appendix 2

Advance and perform a glissade. Take the pike by the point and throw it into the air in front of you to catch it again by the end, wait a little while and raising the point of the pike completely straight in the air, perform a turn, and take the pike in the right hand. Pike on the shoulder. Put the foot of the pike to the ground, make a turn in the air, and draw your sword. Wave the pike as you perform a turn. Bow [Reverence].

Bibliography 1 Manuscripts Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, MS 9085. Brussels, Archives générales du Royaume, CC 1838. Cornazano, Antonio. Libro dell’arte del danzare. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Codex Capponiano, 203. Domenio da Piacenza. De arte saltandj & choreas ducendj De la arte di ballare et danzare. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds it. 972. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Magl. XIX 31. Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, Guilielmi Hebraei pisauriensis de practica seu arte tripudii vulgare opusculum, incipit, 1463, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds it. 973. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Add. A. 33. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Res. F. 494. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Res. F. 496. Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, Cod. Holm S 253. Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, MS X 104.

2

Printed Works

Abraham, Lyndy. Marvell and Alchemy. Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1990. Ames-Lewis, Francis. The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Anderson, Warren D. Ethos and Education in Greek Music: The Evidence of Poetry and Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966. Anglo, Sydney. The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Anglo, Sydney. ‘The Barriers: From Combat to Dance (Almost)’. Dance Research 25, no. 2 (2007): 91–106. Arbeau, Thoinot. Orchésographie. 1596. Facsimile edition, Geneva: Minkoff, 1972. Arbeau, Thoinot. Orchesography. 1589. Translated by Mary Stewart Evans, 1948. Reprint New York: Dover, 1967. Arblaster, Paul. ‘Antwerp and Brussels as Inter-European Spaces in News Exchange’. In The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe, edited by Brendan Maurice Dooley. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010, pp. 193–206. Arcangeli, Alessandro. Davide o Salomè? Il dibattito europeo sulla danza nella prima età moderna. Rome: Viella, 2000.

264

Bibliography

Arcangeli, Alessandro. ‘Moral Views on Dance’. In Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750, edited by Jennifer Nevile. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008, pp. 282–94. Arena, Antonius. ‘Rules of Dancing: Antonius Arena’. Translated by John Guthrie and Marino Zorzi. Dance Research 4, no. 2 (986): 3–53. Ashbee, Andrew, and David Lasocki, A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians 1485–1714, 2 vols. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998. Ballard, Robert. Premier livre de luth. Paris: P. Ballard, 1611. Edited and transcription by André Souris and Sylvie Spycket. Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1963. Ballard, Robert. Diverses pièces mises sur le luth. Paris: P. Ballard, 1614. Edited and transcription by André Souris, Sylvie Spycket and Jacques Veyrier. Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1964. Ballet de Monsieur de Vendosme. Paris: Jean de Heuqueville, 1610. Barker, Sheila with Tessa Gurney. ‘House Left, House Right: A Florentine Account of Marie de’ Medici’s 1615 Ballet de Madame’. The Court Historian 20, no. 2 (2015): 137–65. Barlow, Jeremy. ‘Honneur a la dance: A Choreographic Analysis of Le Premier Ballet in Le Balet Comique de la Royne’. In Terpsichore, 1450–1900: Proceedings of International Dance Conference Ghent, Belgium, 11–18 April 2000, edited by Barbara Ravelhofer. Ghent: Institute for Historical Dance Practice, 2000, pp. 65–70. Bataille, Gabriel. Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth. Paris: P. Ballard, 1608. Facsimile edition, Geneva: Minkoff, 1980. Bataille, Gabriel. Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, quatrièsme livre. Paris: P. Ballard, 1613. Facsimile edition, Geneva: Minkoff, 1980. Bataille, Gabriel. Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, cinquième livre. Paris: P. Ballard, 1614. Facsimile edition, Geneva: Minkoff, 1980. Bataille, Gabriel. Airs de différents autheurs, mis en tablature de luth, sixième livre. Paris: P. Ballard, 1615. Facsimile edition, Geneva: Minkoff, 1980. Bataille, Gabriel. Airs de cour et de différents autheurs, vol. 1 for solo voice. Paris: P. Ballard, 1615. Baxandall, Michael. Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350–1450. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. Beaujoyeulx, Balthazar de. Le Balet comique de la royne. Paris: Adrian Le Roy, Robert Ballard and Mamert Patisson, 1582. Facsimile edition with introduction by Margaret M. McGowan. Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, 1982. Beaujoyeulx, Balthazar de, Le Balet comique de la royne. Translation by Carol and Lander MacClintock. Np: American Institute of Musicology, 1971.

Bibliography

265

Bevington, David, and Peter Holbrook, eds. The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Black, Robert. ‘École et société à Florence aux xive et xve siècles: Le témoignage des ricordanze’. Annales: Histoire, Sciences sociales 59, no. 4 (2004): 827–46. Boësset, Antoine de. Airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties, premier livre. Paris: P. Ballard, 1617. Brach, Pierre de. Les Poèmes. Bordeaux: Simon Millanges, 1576. Brainard, Ingrid. ‘Sir John Davies’ Orchestra as a Dance Historical Source’. In Songs of the Dove and the Nightingale: Sacred and Secular Music c. 900–c.1600, edited by Greta Mary Hair and Robyn E. Smith. Sydney: Currency Press, 1994, pp. 176–212. Breve racconto della festa a ballo. Naples: Costantino Vitale, 1620. Bridgeman, Jane, ed. and trans. A Renaissance Wedding. The Celebrations at Pesaro for the Marriage of Costanzo Sforza & Camilla Marzano d’Aragona 26–30 May 1475. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2013. Brinson, Peter. Background to European Ballet: A Notebook from its Archives. Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1966. Brissenden, Alan. ‘Jacobean Tragedy and the Dance’. Huntington Library Quarterly 44, no. 4 (1981): 249–63. Brooks, Jeanice. Courtly Song in Late Sixteenth-Century France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Brooks, Lynn Matluck. The Art of Dancing in Seventeenth-Century Spain: Juan de Esquivel Navarro and His World. Including a Translation of the Discursos sobre el arte del danzado by Juan de Esquivel Navarro (Seville, 1642) and Commentary on the Text. Lewisburg/London: Bucknell University Press/Associated University Presses, 2003. Brown, Howard Mayer. Music in the French Secular Theater, 1400–1550. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963. Brown, Richard. ‘The Politics of Magnificence in Ferrara 1450–1505: A Study in the Socio-political Implications of Renaissance Spectacle’. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1982. Bryce, Judith. ‘Performing for Strangers: Women, Dance, and Music in Quattrocento Florence’. Renaissance Quarterly 53, no. 4.1 (2001): 1074–107. Buch, David J. Dance Music from the Ballets de Cour 1575–1651: Historical Commentary, Source Study, and Transcriptions from the Philidor Manuscripts. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1993. Bussels, Stijn. ‘Le Balet de Princes Indiens 1634’. In Terpsichore, 1450–1900: Proceedings of International Dance Conference Ghent, Belgium, 11–18 April 2000, edited by Barbara Ravelhofer. Ghent: Institute for Historical Dance Practice, 2000, pp. 105–14. Butler, Martin. The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Calendar of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth I, Vol. 6, 1572–75. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1973.

266

Bibliography

Calhoun, Alison. ‘The Court Turned Inside Out: The Collapse of Dignity in Louis XIII’s Burlesque Ballets’. In French Renaissance and Baroque Drama, edited by Michael Meere. Lanham: University of Delaware Press, 2015, pp. 233–46. Calhoun, Alison. ‘Affective Sovereignty in Louis XIII’s Royal Ballet’. Nottingham French Studies 55, no. 3 (2016): 343–61. Canova-Green, Marie-Claude. ‘Dance and Ritual: The Ballet des nations at the Court of Louis XIII’. Renaissance Studies 9, no. 4 (1995): 395–403. Canova-Green, Marie-Claude and Francesca Chiarelli, eds. The Influence of Italian Entertainments on Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Music Theatre in France, Savoy and England. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press, 2000. Caroso, Fabritio. Il ballarino. Venice: Francesco Ziletti, 1581. Facsimile edition, New York: Broude Brothers, 1967. Caroso, Fabritio. Nobiltà di dame. Venice: Muschio, 1600. Facsimile edition, Bologna: Forni, 1980. Carter, Françoise. ‘Celestial Dance: A Search for Perfection’. Dance Research 5, no. 2 (1987): 3–17. Carter, Françoise. ‘Number Symbolism and Renaissance Choreography’. Dance Research 10, no. 1 (1992): 21–39. Carvell, Bruce R. ‘A Translation of the Preface to Terpsichore of Michael Praetorius’. Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America 20 (1983): 40–59. Choné, Paulette. ‘Firework Displays in Paris, London and Heidelberg (1612–1615)’. In Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615. A Celebration of the Habsburg and Bourbon Unions, edited by Margaret M. McGowan. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 201–14. Choné, Paulette, and Jérôme de La Gorce. Fastes de cour au xviie siècle. Costumes de Bellange et de Berain. Oise: Éditions Monelle Hayot, 2015. Christout, Marie Françoise. Le ballet de cour au xviie siècle. The Ballet de Cour in the 17th Century. Geneva: Minkoff, 1987. Christout, Marie-Françoise. Le ballet de cour de Louis XIV 1643–1672: Mises en scène, new edition. Paris: Picard/Centre national de la danse, 2005. Clulee, Nicholas H. John Dee’s Natural Philosophy Between Science and Religion. London: Routledge, 1988. Compasso, Lutio. Ballo della Gagliarda. Florence, 1560. Facsimile edition, Freiburg: fa-gisis Musik- und Tanzedition, 1995. Cooman, Ingeborg de. ‘Dance and Ballet in Seventeenth-Century Theatre of the Southern Netherlands’. In Terpsichore, 1450–1900: Proceedings of International Dance Conference Ghent, Belgium, 11–18 April 2000, edited by Barbara Ravelhofer. Ghent: Institute for Historical Dance Practice, 2000, pp. 115–29. Corazza, Bartolommeo di Michele del. ‘Diario Fiorentino anni di Bartolommeo di Michele del Corazza, 1405–1438’. Archivio Storico Italiano, edited by Giuseppe Odoardo Corazzino, 5th ser., 14 (1894): 233–98.

Bibliography

267

Cotgrave, Randle. A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues. London: Adam Islip, 1611. Facsimile edition Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1970. Cruciani, Fabrizio. Teatro nel Rinascimento Roma 1450–1550. Rome: Bulzoni, 1983. D’Accone, Frank A. ‘Lorenzo the Magnificent and Music’. In Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo, edited by Gian Carlo Garfagnini. Florence: Olschki, 1994, pp. 259–90. D’Accone, Frank A. The Civic Muse. Music and Musicians in Siena during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Dawkins, Jasmine. ‘Provincial Entertainment in the Renaissance: Le Triomphe de Diane by Pierre de Brach’. Nottingham French Studies 8, no. 1 (1969): 3–15. Daye, Anne. ‘ “Youthful Revels, Masks, and Courtly Sights”: An Introductory Study of the Revels within the Stuart Masque’. Historical Dance 3, no. 4 (1996): 5–22. Daye, Anne. ‘Torchbearers in the English Masque’. Early Music 26, no. 2 (1998): 246–62. Daye, Anne. ‘ “The power of his commanding trident”: Tethys Festival as Royal Policy’. Historical Dance 4, no. 2 (2012): 19–28. Daye, Anne. ‘The Role of Le Balet Comique in Forging the Stuart Masque: Part 1 The Jacobean Initiative’. Dance Research 32, no. 2 (2014): 185–207. Daye, Anne. ‘The Role of Le Balet Comique in Forging the Stuart Masque: Part 2 Continuation’. Dance Research 33, no. 1 (2015): 50–69. De Wilde, Maartje. ‘Sound and Soul. An Introduction to Seventeenth-Century Musical and Literary Life in Brussels’. In Embracing Brussels. Art and Culture in the Court City, 1600–1800, edited by Katlijne van der Stighelen, Leen Kelchtermans and Koenraad Brosens. Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, pp. 257–76. Deceulaer, Harald. ‘Fashion, Innovation and Regional Distribution. The Clothing Trades in Brussels, Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries’. In Embracing Brussels. Art and Culture in the Court City, 1600–1800, edited by Katlijne van der Stighelen, Leen Kelchtermans and Koenraad Brosens. Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, pp. 21–42. Description du Ballet de Madame. Lyon: Yvrad, 1615. d’Espèrey, Patrice Franchet. ‘The Ballet d’Antoine de Pluvinel and the Maneige Royal’. In Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615. A Celebration of the Habsburg and Bourbon Unions, edited by Margaret M. McGowan. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 115–36. Dickinson, Alis. ‘The Courante “La Vignonne”: In the Steps of a Popular Dance’. Early Music 10, no. 1 (1982): 56–62. Dictionnaire de Biographie Française, vol. 13. Paris: Libraire Letouzey et Ané, 1975. Dictionnaire de la Noblesse, 3rd ed., vol. 7. Paris: Schlesinger, 1865. Durand, Étienne. Discours au vray du ballet dansé par le Roy. Paris: P. Ballard, 1617. Facsimile and translation by Charles T. Downey and Greer Garden, in La Délivrance de Renaud. Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617, edited by Greer Garden. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010, pp. 244–65. Durosoir, Georgie. L’air de cour en France 1571–1655. Liège: Mardaga, 1991.

268

Bibliography

Durosoir, Georgie. Les Ballets de la cour de France au xviie siècle ou Les fantaisies et les splendeurs du Baroque. Geneva: Editions Papillon, 2004. Durosoir, Georgie. ‘Les compositeurs du ballet de La Délivrance de Renaud: l’art musical confronté aux exigences du ballet de cour’. In La Délivrance de Renaud. Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617, edited by Greer Garden. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010, pp. 55–65. Durosoir, Georgie. ‘Illustre … et inconnu: quelques notes sur Marais’. In La Délivrance de Renaud. Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617, edited by Greer Garden. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010, pp. 157–9. Elyot, Thomas. The Book Named the Governor. 1531. Edited by S. E. Lehmberg. London: Dent, 1962. Esses, Maurice. Dance and Instrumental Diferencias in Spain during the 17th and early 18th Centuries, 3 vols. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1992. Fenlon, Iain. ‘Competition and Emulation: Music and Dance for the Celebrations in Paris, 1612–1615’. In Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615. A Celebration of the Habsburgs and Bourbon Unions, edited by Margaret M. McGowan. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 137–53. Ficino, Marsilio. Three Books on Life. Critical edition and translation with introduction and notes by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1989. Forney, Kristine K. ‘The Netherlands, 1520–1640’. In European Music 1520–1640, edited by James Haar. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2006, pp. 246–79. Forrest, John. The History of Morris Dancing, 1458–1750. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Francis, E. A. ‘Jeu de la conversion de Saint Guillaume d’Aquitaine’. Humanisme et Renaissance 4, no. 3 (1937): 293–305. Franko, Mark. Dance as Text: Ideologies of the Baroque Body. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Franko, Mark. ‘Fragment of the Sovereign as Hermaphrodite: Time, History, and the Exception in Le Ballet de Madame’. Dance Research 25, no. 2 (2007): 119–33. Fumaroli, Marc. ‘Le Crispus et la Flavia du P. Bernardino Stefonio S. J. Contribution à l’histoire du théâtre au Collegio Romano (1597–1628)’. In Les fêtes de la Renaissance. Vol. 3, edited by Jean Jacquot and E. Konigson. Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1975, pp. 505–24. Garden, Greer. ‘Vocal Music, Singers and Singing in La Délivrance de Renaud’. In La Délivrance de Renaud. Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617, edited by Greer Garden. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010, pp. 67–76. Garden, Greer, ed. La Délivrance de Renaud. Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Ballet danced by Louis XIII in 1617. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010.

Bibliography

269

Gheyn, Jacob de. Maniement d’armes, d’arquebuses, mousquetz, et piques en conformité de l’ordre de Monseigneur le Prince Maurice, 2nd ed. The Hague, 1608. Gheyn, Jacob de. The Exercise of Armes for Calivres, Muskettes, and Pikes after the Ordre of his Excellence Maurits Prince of Orange. The Hague, 1608. Gossart, Ernest. Les espagnols en Flandre. Brussels: Lamartin, 1914. Gough, Melinda J. ‘A Newly Discovered Performance by Henrietta Maria’. Huntington Library Quarterly 65, nos. 3&4 (2002): 435–47. Gough, Melinda J. ‘Marie de Medici’s 1605 ballet de la reine: New Evidence and Analysis’. Early Theatre 15, no. 1 (2012): 109–44. Grassi, Giacomo di. Ragione di adoprar sicuramente l’arme. Venice: G. Ziletti, 1570. Greene, Thomas M. ‘The King’s One Body in the Balet Comique de la Royne’. Yale French Studies 86 (1994): 75–93. Greene, Thomas M. ‘Labyrinth Dances in the French and English Renaissance’. Renaissance Quarterly 54, no. 4.2 (2001): 1403–66. Guédron, Pierre. Second livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties. Paris: P. Ballard, 1613. Guédron, Pierre. Troisième livre d’airs de cour à 4 et 5 parties. Paris: P. Ballard, 1617. Guillo, Laurent. Pierre I Ballard et Robert III Ballard. Imprimeurs du roy pour la musique (1599–1673), 2 vols. Sprimont: Mardaga, 2003. Hanham, Alison. ‘The Musical Studies of a Fifteenth-Century Wool Merchant’. The Review of English Studies, n. s. 8, no. 31 (1957): 270–4. Harbage, Alfred. Annals of English Drama 975–1700. Revised by Samuel Schoenbaum. London: Methuen, 1964. Harness, Kelley A. ‘Habsburgs, Heretics, and Horses: Equestrian Ballets and Other Stages Battles in Florence during the First Decade of the Thirty Years War’. In Dynasty, Court and Imagery, vol. 2, edited by Massimiliano Rossi and Fiorella Gioffredi Superbi. Florence: Olschki, 2004, pp. 255–83. Harness, Kelley A. ‘“Nata à maneggi & essercizii grandi”: Archduchess Maria Magdalena and Equestrian Entertainments in Florence, 1608–1625’. In La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina. Räume und Inszenierungen in Francesca Caccinis Ballettoper (Florenz, 1625), edited by Christine Fischer. Zurich: Chronos, 2015, pp. 89–108. Harris-Warrick, Rebecca, and Carol G. Marsh. Musical Theatre at the Court of Louis XIV: Le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Heartz, Daniel. ‘Un divertissement de palais pour Charles Quint à Binche’. Les fêtes de la Renaissance. Vol. 2, edited by Jean Jacquot. Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1960, pp. 329–42. Heartz, Daniel. ‘A Spanish “Masque of Cupid”’. Musical Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1963): 59–74. Heawood, Edward. Watermarks: Mainly of the 17th and 18th Centuries. 1957. Facsimile edition, Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2003. Hollander, John. The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry 1500–1700. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961.

270

Bibliography

Holman, Peter. ‘Terpsichore at 400: Michael Praetorius as a Collector of Dance Music’. Viola da Gamba Society Journal 6 (2012): 34–51. Hoogvliet, Margriet. ‘The Ballet de la Reyne (1609) and the Politics of Virtù: Media and Political Communication’. In Selling and Rejecting Politics in Early Modern Europe, edited by Martin Gosman and Joop W. Koopmans. Leuven: Peters, 2007, pp. 71–92. Howard, Jean E. Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy 1598–1642. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Howard, Skiles. The Politics of Courtly Dancing in Early Modern England. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. Howarth, William D., ed. French Theatre in the Neo-Classical Era, 1550–1789. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Hutchings, Mark and Berta Cano-Echevarría, ‘Between Courts: Female Masquers and Anglo-Spanish Diplomacy, 1603–5’. Early Theatre 15, no. 1, (2012): 91–108. Il corago, o vero alcune osservazioni per metter bene in scena le composizioni drammatiche. Edited by Paolo Fabbri and Angelo Pompilio. Florence: Olschki, 1983. Instruction pour dancer. An Anonymous Manuscript. Edited and introduction by Angene Feves, Ann Lizbeth Langston, Uwe W. Schlottermüller and Eugenia Roucher. Freiburg: fa-gisis Musik- und Tanzedition, 2000. Jackson, Roland, ed. A Neapolitan Festa a Ballo ‘Delizie di Posilipo Boscarecce, e Maritime’ and Selected Instrumental Ensemble Pieces from Naples Conservatory MS 4.6.3. Madison: A-R Editions, 1978. Jaeger, Stephen J. ‘Humanism and Ethics at the School of St. Victor in the Early Twelfth Century’. Mediaeval Studies 55 (1993): 51–79. Jayne, Sears Reynolds. Introduction to Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love, by Marsilio Ficino. Translated by Sears Reynolds Jayne, 2nd rev. ed. Dallas: Spring Publications, 1985, pp. 1–32. Johnson, A. W. Ben Jonson: Poetry and Architecture. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Jonson, Ben. Works, 11 vols. Edited by C. H. Herford, Percy and Evelyn Simpson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950. Kalpisch-Zuber, Christiane. ‘Le chiavi fiorentine di Barbablù: L’apprendimento della lettura a Firenze nel XV secolo’. Quaderni storici 57, no. 3 (1984): 765–92. Katritzky, M. A. ‘The Diaries of Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria: Commedia dell’arte at the Wedding Festivals of Florence (1565) and Munich (1568)’, in Italian Renaissance Festivals and their European Influence, edited by J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992, pp. 143–72. Kettering, Sharon. ‘Favour and Patronage: Dancers in the Court Ballets of Early Seventeenth-Century France’. Canadian Journal of History 43 (2008): 391–415. Knox, Dilwyn. ‘Disciplina: The Monastic and Clerical Origins of European Civility’. In Renaissance Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Eugene F. Rice Jr., edited by J. Monfasani and R. G. Musto. New York: Italica Press, 1991, pp. 107–35.

Bibliography

271

Knox, Dilwyn. ‘Gesture and Comportment: Diversity and Uniformity’. In Forging European Identities, 1400–1700, edited by Herman Roodenburg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 289–307. Kociszewska, Ewa. ‘War and Seduction in Cybele’s Garden: Contextualizing the Ballet des Polonais’. Renaissance Quarterly 65, no. 3 (2012): 809–63. Lachèvre, Frederick. Charles de Lespine, Parisien, et sa breve description de plusieurs royaumes … suivie de ses vers de ballet,…. Paris: L. Giraud-Badin, 1935. Lacroix, Paul. Ballets et masquerades de cour de Henri III a Louis XIV (1581–1652). Vol. 1, 1868. Facsimile reprint vol. 1, Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1968. Lacroix, Paul. Ballets et masquerades de cour de Henri III a Louis XIV (1581–1652). Vol. 2. Geneva: J. Gay et fils, 1868. Lanoye, Diederik. ‘Structure and Composition of the Household of the Archdukes’. In Albert and Isabella 1598–1621, edited by Werner Thomas and Luc Duerloo. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998, pp. 107–19. Lecomte, Nathalie. Entre cours et jardins d’illusion: Le ballet en Europe (1515–1715). Pantin: Centre National de la Danse, 2014. Lupi, Livio. Mutanze di gagliarda, tordiglione, passo e mezzo, canari, e passeggi. Palermo: Carrara, 1600. Transcription edited by Dario De Cicco, Modelli educativi dell’esperienza coreutica: Livio Lupi da Caravaggio. Padua: Armelin Musica, 2010. Lutij, Prospero. Opera bellissima nella quale si contengono molte partite, et passeggi de gagliarda. Perugia: Pietropaolo Orlando, 1587. MacClintock, Carol. Introduction to Le Balet comique de la royne, 1581, by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx. Translated by Carol and Lander MacClintock. Np: American Institute of Musicology, 1971, pp. 9–22. Malkiewicz, Michael. ‘On the Choreography of Claudio Monteverdi’s Ballet Music: Aspects of (Re)construction’. Recercare 13 (2001): 125–45. Marrocco, W. Thomas, and Marie-Laure Merveille. ‘Anthonius Arena: Master of Law and Dance of the Renaissance’. Studi musicali 18, no. 1 (1989): 19–48. Marsh, Christopher. Music and Society in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. McGee, Timothy J. ‘Dancing Masters and the Medici Court in the 15th Century’. Studi musicali 17, no. 2 (1988): 201–24. McGinnis, Katherine Tucker. ‘Moving in High Circles: Courts, Dance, and Dancing Masters in Italy in the Long Fifteenth Century’. Ph.D. dissertation, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2001. McGinnis, Katherine Tucker. ‘Your Most Humble Servant, Cesare Negri Milanese’. In Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750, edited by Jennifer Nevile. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008, pp. 211–28. McGinnis, Katherine Tucker. ‘“Face Time-Mask Time”: The Merging and Diverging of Public and Private Space in Sixteenth-Century Dance Practices’. In Virtue et arte

272

Bibliography

del danzare: Contributi di storia della danza in onore di Barbara Sparti, edited by Alessandro Pontremoli. Rome: Aracne, 2011, pp. 83–97. McGowan, Margaret M. L’art du ballet de cour en France 1581–1643. Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1963. McGowan, Margaret M. ‘A Renaissance War Dance: The Pyrrhic’. Dance Research 3, no. 1 (1984): 29–38. McGowan, Margaret M. Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. McGowan, Margaret M. The Court Ballet of Louis XIII: A Collection of Working Designs for Costumes 1615–33. London: Victoria & Albert Museum in association with Hobhouse & Morton Morris, 1986. McGowan, Margaret M. ‘The Arts Conjoined: A Context for the Study of Music’. Early Music History 13 (1994): 171–98. McGowan, Margaret M. ‘Ballets for the Bourgeois’. Dance Research 19, no. 2 (2001): 106–26. McGowan, Margaret M. ‘Recollections of Dancing Forms from Sixteenth-Century France’. Dance Research 21, no. 1 (2003): 10–26. McGowan, Margaret M. Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. McGowan, Margaret M. La Danse à la Renaissance. Sources livresques et albums d’images Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2012. McGowan, Margaret M. ‘Marguerite de Valois, Reine de Navarre (1553–1615): Patroness and Performer’. Early Music History 34 (2015): 191–206. McGowan, Margaret M., ed. Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615. A Celebration of the Habsburg and Bourbon Unions. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. McManus, Clare. Women on the Renaissance Stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court 1590–1619. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. Meagher, John C. Method and Meaning in Jonson’s Masques. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966. Miller, James. ‘The Philosophical Background of Renaissance Dance’. York Dance Review 5 (1976): 3–15. Mirabella, Bella. ‘“In the sight of all”: Queen Elizabeth and the Dance of Diplomacy’. Early Theatre 15, no. 1 (2012): 65–89. Mulryne, J. R., Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly and Margaret Shewring, eds. Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe, 2 vols. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. Naunton, Robert. Fragmenta Regalia or Observations on Queen Elizabeth: Her Times and Her Favourites (1630). Edited by John S. Cerovski. Washington D.C./London: Folger Shakespeare Library/Associated University Presses, 1985.

Bibliography

273

Nauwelaerts, Marcel Augustijn. Latijnse school en onderwijs te ‘s Hertogenbosch tot 1629. Tilburg: Stichting Zuidelijk Historisch Contact, 1974. Negri, Cesare. Le gratie d’amore. Milan: Pacifico Pontio & Giovanni Battista Piccaglia, 1602. Facsimile edition, New York: Broude Brothers, 1969. Nevile, Jennifer. ‘Cavalieri’s Theatrical Ballo “O che nuovo miracolo”: A Reconstruction’. Dance Chronicle 21, no. 3 (1998): 353–88. Nevile, Jennifer. ‘Cavalieri’s Theatrical Ballo and the Social Dances of Caroso and Negri’. Dance Chronicle 22, no. 1 (1999): 119–33. Nevile, Jennifer. ‘Dance and the Garden: Moving and Static Choreography in Renaissance Europe’. Renaissance Quarterly 52, no. 3 (1999): 805–36. Nevile, Jennifer. ‘Dance Patterns of the Early Seventeenth Century: The Stockholm Manuscript and Le Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme’. Dance Research 18, no. 2 (2000): 186–203. Nevile, Jennifer. The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Nevile, Jennifer. ‘“Rules for Design”: Beauty and Grace in Caroso’s Choreographies’. Dance Research 25, no. 2 (2007): 107–18. Nevile, Jennifer. ‘Dance Rehearsal Practices in Early Modern Court Spectacles’. Parergon 28, no. 1 (2011): 135–53. Nevile, Jennifer. ‘Learning the Bassadanza from a Wolf: Andrea Calmo and Dance’. Dance Research 30, no. 1 (2012): 80–97. Nevile, Jennifer. ‘Performer-Audience Relationships in Fifteenth- and SixteenthCentury Danced Spectacles’. In Medieval Theatre Performance: Actors, Dancers, Automata and their Audiences, edited by Philip Butterworth and Katie Normington. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2017, pp. 123–40. Nevile, Jennifer, ed. Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. Nicholl, Charles. The Chemical Theatre. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980. Oldani, Louis J., and Victor R. Yanitelli. ‘Jesuit Theater in Italy: Its Entrances and Exit’. Italica 76, no. 1 (1999): 18–32. Oliver, P. M., ed. John Donne: Selected Letters. New York: Routledge, 2002. Orgel, Stephen. Foreword to Shakespeare’s Songbook, by Ross W. Duffin. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, pp. 1–13. Orgel, Stephen, ed. Ben Jonson: The Complete Masques. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969. Orgel, Stephen, and Roy Strong, eds. Inigo Jones: The Theatre of the Stuart Court, vol. 1. London: Southeby Parke Bernet, 1973. Palmer, Barbara D. ‘Court and Country: The Masque as Sociopolitical Subtext’. Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 7 (1995): 338–54.

274

Bibliography

Palmieri, Matteo. Vita Civile. Florence, 1529. Edited by Gino Belloni. Florence: Sansoni, 1982. Peck, Linda Levy. Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pennino-Baskerville, Mary. ‘Terpsichore Reviled: Antidance Tracts in Elizabethan England’. Sixteenth Century Journal 22, no. 3 (1991): 475–93. Pierce, Ken. ‘Coarse, Odd and Comic: A New Study of Jigs’. Dance Chronicle 38, no. 1 (2015): 81–6. Polk, Keith. German Instrumental Music of the Late Middle Ages: Players, Patrons and Performance Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Polk, Keith. ‘Instrumental Music in Brussels in the Early 16th Century’. Revue Belge de Musicologie 55 (2001): 91–101. Pont, Graham. ‘Plato’s Philosophy of the Dance’. In Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750, edited by Jennifer Nevile. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008, pp. 267–81. Pontremoli, Alessandro. ‘Danza ed educazione del corpo alla corte degli Sforza’. Il Castello di Elsinore 59 (2009): 9–29. Pontremoli, Alessandro. ‘Memorabilia saltandi. Archivi e memorie per la danza alla corte degli Sforza’. In Ricordanze: Memoria in movimento e coreografie della storia, edited by S. Franco and M. Nordera. Turin: UTET Università, 2010, pp. 239–58. Pontremoli, Alessandro. La danza nelle corti di antico regime. Modelli culturali e processi di ricezione fra natura e arte. Bari: Edizioni di Pagina, 2012. Pontremoli, Alessandro and Patrizia La Rocca. Intermedio spettacolare e danza teatrale a Milano fra cinque e seicento. Milan: Euresis, 1999. Potter, David, and P. R. Roberts. ‘An Englishman’s View of the Court of Henri III, 1584– 1585: Richard Cook’s “Description of the Court of France” ’. French History 2, no. 3 (1988): 312–44. Powell, John S. Music and Theatre in France 1600–1680. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Praetorius, Michael. Terpsichore. Wolfenbüttel, 1612. Proesmans, Klaartje. ‘The Key Role of the Archducal Court in Spreading a New Musical Style in the Low Countries’. In Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621, edited by Werner Thomas and Luc Duerloo. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998, pp. 129–35. Proot, Goran. ‘Musique, danse et ballet dans le théâtre scolaire des jésuites de la Provincia Flandro-Belgica (1575–1773)’. Revue de la Société liègeoise de musicologie 27 (2008): 121–67. Proot, Goran. ‘Augustine on Stage in the Southern Low Countries in the Early Modern Period’. In Augustine Beyond the Book: Intermediality, Transmediality and Reception, edited by Karla Pollmann and Meredith Jane Gill. Leiden: Brill, 2012, pp. 111–28.

Bibliography

275

Pyron, Mary V. ‘ “Sundry Measures”: Dance in Renaissance Comedy’. Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1987. Ravelhofer, Barbara. Introduction to Louange de la Dance, by B. de Montagut, edited by Barbara Ravelhofer. Cambridge: RTM Publications, 2000, pp. 1–81. Ravelhofer, Barbara. ‘Dancing at the Court of Queen Elizabeth I’. In Queen Elizabeth I: Past and Present, edited by Christa Jansohn. Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004, pp. 101–15. Ravelhofer, Barbara. The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Ravelhofer, Barbara. ‘Burlesque Ballet, a Ballad and a Banquet in Ben Jonson’s The Gypsies Metamorphos’d (1621). Dance Research 25, no. 2 (2007): 144–55. Ravelhofer, Barbara. ‘Ancient Greece, Dance, and the English Masque’. In The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World. Responses to Greek and Roman Dance, edited by Fiona MacIntosh. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 211–23. Ravelhofer, Barbara. ‘Dance’. In Ben Jonson in Context, edited by Julie Sanders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 171–80. Ravelhofer, Barbara. ‘Choreography as Commonplace’. In Commonplace Culture in Western Europe in the Early Modern Period: Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Revolt, Vol. 1, edited by David J. Cowling and Mette B. Bruun. Leuven: Peters, 2011, pp. 209–28. Ravelhofer, Barbara. ‘Middleton and Dance’. In The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton, edited by Gary Taylor and Trish Thomas Henley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 130–47. Ravelhofer, Barbara, ed. Terpsichore, 1450–1900: Proceedings of International Dance Conference Ghent, Belgium, 11–18 April 2000. Ghent: Institute for Historical Dance Practice, 2000. Le Recueil des plus belles chansons de danse de ce temps. Caen: Jacques Mangeant, 1615. Rickard, Peter. A History of the French Language, 2nd ed. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989. Roodenburg, Herman. The Eloquence of the Body: Perspectives on Gesture in the Dutch Republic. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2004. Roodenburg, Herman, ed. Forging European Identities, 1400–1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Rollin, Monique. ‘Etude biographique’. In Oeuvres de Nicolas Vallet pour luth seul. Le Secret des Muses, edited and transcription by André Souris. Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1970, pp. xi–xiv. Ruiz, Teofilo F. A King Travels. Festive Traditions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Russell, Nicolas, and Hélène Visentin. ‘The multilayered production of meaning in sixteenth-century French ceremonial entries’. In French Ceremonial Entries in the Sixteenth Century: Event, Image, Text, edited by Nicolas Russell and Hélène Visentin. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2007, pp. 15–27.

276

Bibliography

Saint-Hubert, La manière de composer et faire réussir les ballets. Translated by Andrée Bergens, ‘How to Compose a Successful Ballet’. Dance Perspective, no. 20 (1964): 26–37. Salmen, Walter. ‘Dances and Dance Music, c. 1300–1530’. In Music as Concept and Practice in the Late Middle Ages, edited by Reinhard Strohm and Bonnie J. Blackburn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 162–90. Sánchez Cano, David. ‘Dances for the royal festivities in Madrid in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’. Dance Research 23, no. 2 (2005): 123–52. Santucci, Ercole. Mastro da Ballo. 1614. Facsimile edition with introduction and commentary by Barbara Sparti. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2004. Sardoni, Alessandra. ‘“Ut in voce sic in gestu”: Danza e cultura barocca nei collegi gesuitici tra Roma e la Francia’. Studi musicali 25, nos. 1–2 (1996): 303–16. Savage, Roger. ‘The Staging of Courtly Theatre: 1560s to 1640s’. In Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe, 2 vols., edited by J. R. Mulryne, Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly and Margaret Shewring. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004, I: 57–74. Slocum, Kay Brainerd. ‘Confrérie, Bruderschaft and Guild: The Formation of Musicians’ Fraternal Organisations in Thirteenth-and Fourteenth-Century Europe’. Early Music History 14 (1995): 257–74. Smart, Sara. ‘The Württemberg Court and the Introduction of Ballet in the Empire’. In Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe, 2 vols., edited by J. R. Mulryne, Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly and Margaret Shewring. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004, II: 35–45. Smith, A. William. ‘Dance at Mantua and in Northern Italy: The Tradition Inherited by Leone de’ Sommi and His Generation’. In Leone de’ Sommi and the Performing Arts, edited by Ahuva Belkin. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1997, pp. 83–97. Sparti, Barbara. Introduction to Guglielmo Ebreo of Pesaro De pratica seu arte tripudii. On the Practice or Art of Dancing, by Guglielmo Ebreo, edited and translated by Barbara Sparti. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, pp. 3–72. Sperandini, Giovanni Maria. Feste, spettacoli e tornei cavallereschi nella Modena di Cesare d’Este (1598–1628). Modena: Edizioni Artestampa, 2008. Stone, Lawrence. The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558–1641. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965. Streitberger, W. R. Court Revels, 1485–1559. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Stryckers, Piet. ‘Music and Music Production in Seventeenth-Century Brussels’. In Embracing Brussels. Art and Culture in the Court City, 1600–1800, edited by Katlijne van der Stighelen, Leen Kelchtermans and Koenraad Brosens. Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, pp. 59–79. Thesiger, Sarah. ‘The Orchestra of Sir John Davies and the Image of the Dance’. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973): 277–304. Thøfner, Margit. ‘The Court in the City, the City in the Court: Denis van Alsloot’s depictions of the 1615 Brussels “ommegang”’. Netherlands Yearbook for the History of Art 49 (1998): 185–207.

Bibliography

277

Thøfner, Margit. A Common Art: Urban Ceremonial in Antwerp and Brussels during and after the Dutch Revolt. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2007. Thomas, Werner. ‘Andromeda Unbound: The Reign of Albert and Isabella in the Southern Netherlands, 1598–1621’. In Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621, edited by Werner Thomas and Luc Duerloo. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998, pp. 1–14. Thomas, Werner, and Luc Duerloo, eds. Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998. Thorp, Jennifer. ‘Dances and dancers in the Ballet de la Nuit’, in Ballet de la Nuit Rothschild B1/16/6, edited by Michael Burden and Jennifer Thorp. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2009, pp. 19–33. Tuccaro, Arcangelo. Trois dialogues de l’exercice de sauter, et voltiger en l’air. Paris: Claude de Monstr’oeil, 1599. Vallet, Nicolas. Le Secret des Muses, 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1615 and 1616. Edited and transcription by André Souris, Oeuvres de Nicolas Vallet pour luth seul: Le Secret des Muses. Paris: Éditions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1970. van Aelbroeck, Jean-Philippe. Dictionnaire des danseurs à Bruxelles de 1600 à 1830. Liège: Mardaga, 1994. van Bruaene, Anne-Laure. ‘“A wonderfull tryumfe, for the wynnyng of a pryse”: Guilds, Ritual, Theater, and the Urban Network in the Southern Low Countries, ca. 1450– 1650’. Renaissance Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2006): 374–405. van der Stighelen, Katlijne, Leen Kelchtermans and Koenraad Brosens, eds. Embracing Brussels. Art and Culture in the Court City, 1600–1800. Turnhout: Brepols, 2013. van der Straeten, Edmond. Les ménestrels aux Pays-Bas. Brussels: A & F Mahillon, 1878. Reprinted Geneva: Minkoff, 1972. van Orden, Kate. Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Veronese, Alessandra. ‘Una societas ebraico-cristiano in docendo tripudiare sonare ac cantare nella Firenze del quattrocento’. In Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del xv secolo, edited by Maurizio Padovan. Pisa: Pacini, 1990, pp. 51–7. Villa, Antonio Rodríguez. Correspondencia de la Infanta Archiduquesa Doña Isabel Clara Eugenia de Austria con el duque de Lerma y otros personajes. Madrid, 1906. Ward, John M. ‘Newly Devis’d Measures for Jacobean Masques’. Acta Musicologica 60, no. 2 (1988): 111–42. Welch, Ellen R. ‘Rethinking the Politics of Court Spectacle. Performance and Diplomacy under the Valois’. In French Renaissance and Baroque Drama: Text, Performance, Theory, edited by Michael Meere. Lanham: University of Delaware Press, 2015, p. 101–16. Werrett, Simon. Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. West, William N. ‘When is the Jig Up – and What is it Up To?’. In Locating the Queen’s Men, 1583–1603: Material Practices and Conditions of Playing, edited by Helen

278

Bibliography

Ostovich, Holger Schott Syme and Andrew Griffin. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009, pp. 201–16. Wilson, David. The Basse Dance Handbook: Text and Context. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2012. Winerock, Emily. ‘Reformation and Revelry: The Politics and Practices of Dancing in Early Modern England, c. 1550–c. 1640’. PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 2012. Winerock, Emily. ‘Churchyard Capers: The Controversial Use of Church Space for Dancing in Early Modern England’. In The Sacralization of Space and Behaviour in the Early Modern World: Studies and Sources, edited by Jennifer Mara DeSilva. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015, pp. 233–56. Zancani, Diego. ‘Writing for Women Rulers in Quattrocento Italy: Antonio Cornazano’. In Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society, edited by L. Panizza. Oxford: Legenda – European Humanities Research Centre, 2000, pp. 57–74.

3

Online Sources

A modern edition of Lespine’s lute pieces, which includes the pieces in S 253, can be found online, edited by John H. Robinson in 2013, http://www.tabulatura.com/ LespineV4jhr.pdf (accessed 1/10/2016). Durosoir, Georgie. ‘Boësset, Antoine’. Grove Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusic online.com (accessed 9/3/2015). Hazebroucq, Hubert and Jean-Noël Laurenti, eds. La danse française entre Renaissance et baroque. Le manuscript Instruction pour dancer (vers 1610). Tours: Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, 2017, http://umr6576.cesr.univ-tours.fr/publica tions/instruction (accessed 31/1/2018). Ledbetter, David. ‘Lespine, Charles de’. Grove Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusic online.com (accessed 23/10/2013). Spiessens, Godelieve. ‘Adriaenssen, Emanuel’. Grove Music Online, http://www.oxford musiconline.com (accessed 1/10/2016).

Index Adriaenssen, Emanuel 141n3 Adson, Thomas (dance teacher in London) 105 Agarite 45 air de cour 2, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 140, 141, 142–151, 161, 162, 164 Adieu volage empire 148, 164 C’est trop courir les eaux 148 Donc pour aymer 16, 149 Est-ce Mars le grand dieu 142 Fuyés amants 148 Je ne veux 148, 149 Je voudrois bien 148, 149–151 Lors que je suis aupres de vous 164 Ne dois-je donc 16, 148, 149 O! grands dieux 148 Que de douleurs 16 Qu’ont servi 149 Sous la fraicheur 164 Albert, Archduke 15, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 62, 63, 81, 84, 86, 162 alchemical images 95–96, 97 allemande 49, 69, 140 Almenda, Antonio de (dance master) 104 Alta Regina 128 Amsterdam 15, 60n127, 110–111, 112, 114, 155, 164 Antonio’s Revenge 46 Antwerp 59, 60–61, 63, 141n3 Apollo 51–52 Aragona Camilla d’ 133 Eleonora d’ 134 Arbeau, Thoinot (Jehan Tabourot, dance master) 34–35, 128, 135–136 Arena, Antonius 1, 31 Armide 67, 81, 85 ars 100 artificer 11, 96, 99, 101, 164 See also gunner Bagnacavallo, Francesco 41 Baïf, Jean-Antoine de 95 Ballard, Pierre 140, 141, 147, 153 Ballard, Robert 64, 140, 142, 152, 154–155

ballet Balet comique de la royne (1581) 55, 72, 76, 80–81, 82, 95n76, 99, 132 Balet des onze Anges  (1614) 57–59 Balet des Princes Indiens (1634) 64 Ballet de la Prosperite des armes de la France (1641) 86 Ballet de la reine (1605) 68, 71, 83–84, 85 Ballet de la reyne (1619) 68 Ballet de la Sérénade (1613) 148 Ballet de la vieille cour (1635) 85 Ballet de Madame (1615) 68, 73–74, 76–77, 80, 148 Ballet de Monseigneur de Vendosme (1610) 74, 76, 77, 83, 84–85 Ballet des Fous (verses by Lespine) 153 Ballet des Grimasseurs (1598 ) 157 Ballet des Mores (verses by Lespine) 153 Ballet des Moscovites (verses by Lespine) 153 Ballet des Polonais (1573) 42, 132 Ballet de Trois Âges (1608) 157 Ballet pour Madame (1613) 142 La Délivrance de Renaud (1617) 67, 73, 75–76, 81, 84, 93 Les noces de Psyché et de Cupidon (1608) 50–53, 54, 81 Mascarade des eschecs (1607) 68 ballet à entrées 65 ballet de cour 4, 6, 43, 54, 55, 65, 68, 70, 71, 78–79, 86 vocal airs from 81, 143–146 See also individual ballets ballet entrées 4, 6, 7, 52, 65, 68–69, 70, 72, 74, 75, 77, 78, 85, 140–141, 162 Ballo fatto da sei cavalieri 72 Ballo fatto da sei dame 72 Barriera 133 barriers 130–131 basse danse 34, 35–36, 48, 50, 105, 108 steps of 35–36 Bataille, Gabriel 142, 148, 151 Battaglia, La 132, 133 Beauchamp, Pierre (dance master fl. 1597–1626) 157

280 Beaujoyeulx, Balthazar de 72, 81, 82, 99, 132 Bellange, Jacques 71, 79 Belleville. See Montmorency, Jacques de bergamasque 151 Bergen op Zoom 62 Berghes, marquis de 119 Binche 119, 134, 138 Boësset, Antoine de 15, 82, 147, 148, 164 Bordeaux 55, 108 Borgia, Lucrezia 130, 134 bourrée 128, 129 Boÿd, Mattheú 115 Brach, Pierre de 55, 80, 81–82, 136, 138 Brainard, Ingrid 107 branle 31, 52, 69–70, 129, 130, 141 Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeilles, seigneur 31 Braunschweig and Lüneberg, Duke of 156 Brinson, Peter 3, 15 Brissac, maréchal de 31 Bristol 60n127 Broken Heart, The 47 Brussels 4, 5, 6, 12, 15, 16, 47–50, 56–57, 59, 60–61, 63–64, 110, 112, 115, 119–120, 152, 153, 156, 159, 162, 163 archducal court in 14, 50, 53, 54, 63–64, 115, 162 carillon 146–147 Buch, David J. 3–4 Buffons 135–136 Burensköld-Broman family 9 Calais 105 Cambridge 105 candles 71–73 capriole 77, 92, 127 carnival 31, 40–41, 49–50, 93, 117, 133 Caroso, Fabritio (dance master) 31, 39, 76, 92, 127, 128, 139 Carr, Robert, Earl of Somerset 42 Cecil, William, Lord Burghley 106 Cely, George 105 Chamberlain, John 43 Chambers of Rhetoric 59–62, 162 chariot, triumphal 54, 65, 66–70, 76, 85, 86, 158, 244, 247, 248, 249 Charles IX, king of France 31 Charles, Prince of Wales 106

Index Charles V 49, 63, 119 Choné, Paulette 79 choreographic figures 57–58 See also geometric figures Cicero, Marcus Tullius 37–38 Circe 55 Claes, Hendrick 147 Cologne 115 combat, danced 6, 65, 74, 75, 78, 85, 120–121, 131–139, 158 commedia dell’arte 44 Franchesina 75 Isabella 75 Pantalone 44, 66, 68, 74, 75, 250 Compasso, Lutio 139 Confesse, Nicolas 54 continenze 127 Conway, Edward, Secretary of State 83 Corbény 110 Cornazano, Antonio (dance master) 1, 102, 133 costumes 71, 79, 83–84 Coulon 115 courante 2, 6, 69, 140, 151–152, 154, 155–156, 159 La vignonne 154–155 couranto 69 court ballets 64 participation of sovereign 55–56 See also elite, dance of; ballet de cour court balls 41, 69–70 See also elite, dance of courtiers as dance performers 49, 49n94, 49n95, 50, 51–52, 64, 86, 160 Créquy, family 160 Crispus (play by Bernardino Stefonio)  37 Cupid 49–50, 51–52, 54, 55, 68, 80, 81, 82, 97, 133, 136–137, 159, 250 Cynthia’s Revels (1600) 45 Cypris. See Venus Dallington, Robert 106 dance and alchemy 6, 96 and civic pride 40 and courtship 34–35

281

Index and drama 5, 34, 36–37, 43–47, 57–59, 60–61 and fireworks 99–101 and politics 41–43 and social order 40–41 as entertainment 30–32, 44 as ethical activity 35–40, 46, 108 as physical exercise 32 as social marker 33–34 bodily control 33, 38, 109–110 skill required 33 social 34, 49, 50, 52, 54, 69–70, 86, 133, 159 See also court balls teaching 2, 4, 6, 33, 47–48, 53, 63–64, 105–109, 111–112 theatrical 72, 92, 131 treatises 1 dance masters 2, 53, 58–59, 61, 76, 78, 99, 100, 103–104, 106, 107–108, 120, 128–129, 131–132, 139, 156, 157, 161 dance music 2, 6, 7–8, 140–141, 151–152, 154–159, 162 dance pupils general description of 2, 7–8, 15, 113–117, 158 signatures of 2, 7–8, 15–16, 113, 114–115, 116–117 social standing of 116–117 dancers bodily movements of 77 professional 85, 107 dance schools 6, 15, 48, 103–105, 107–109, 110–113, 115–116, 117, 161, 162–164 dance steps 76–77, 127 Daniel, Samuel 99 Daye, Anne 72 Delamotte, Jean (dance master) 157 demy sault rond 77 deportment 33, 38–39 Destourmelle 10, 157, 159–160, 161, 164 Diana, goddess 80, 82, 136 Diane de Foix, comtesse de Gurson 55, 81, 136 Dickinson, Alis 154 Domenico da Piacenza (dance master) 102, 128 Donne, John 43

Dorat, Jean 132 Du Bellay, cardinal 160 Duchesne, Joseph 32 Durand, Étiènne 73, 75, 84 Dürer, Albrecht 107 Durosoir, Georgie 66 dwarfs 69, 74, 78, 80, 83, 86, 138, 246–247 See also notebook S 253, ballet plots Eleanor, queen of France 49 elite, dance of 30, 49 Elizabeth, daughter of James I 98n89 Elyot, Thomas 35–36, 46, 108 Emeraud, Antoine (dance master) 156 emotions, portrayal of in choreographies 79–80, 82 entrechat 77, 79 Epicene 47 Esquivel Navarro, Juan de 103–104, 113, 136n46 Este 102 Alfonso d’ 134 Isabella d’ 41 Estourmel 160–161 Antoine d’ 160 Jean d’ 160 Louis d’, Baron de Surville 160 Estrella, Juan Calvete de 49n93 fantasmata 129 Feltre, Vittorino da 108 fencing positions 135–136 Ferdinand of Austria 64 Ferrara 40, 108, 134 Ficino, Marsilio 94–95 Filelfo, Francesco 32 Filelfo, Mario 100 Fineschi, Maestro Marcantonio di Maestro Francesco (dance master) 104 fireworks 2, 5, 6, 7, 11–12, 96–101 floor patterns 33, 34, 61, 133 Florence 102–103, 121 Ford, John 47 Fortune, figure of 67, 245, 247, 249 Francesco, Mariotto di Bastiano di (dance teacher) 103 Francesco (ran a dance school with Guiseppe Ebreo) 103

282 François I, king of France 42, 160 Frederick V 98n89 Frías, Manuel de (dance master) 106 Frythe, Richard 107 Fuccio, Maestro Lorenzo di (dance master) 105 Gaffoyne, Jasper (dance master) 106 Gagliarda di Spagna 128 galliard 31, 69, 92, 110, 141 gavotte 10, 129 geometric figures 2–3, 5, 7, 9, 37, 42, 46n73, 57–58, 75–76, 78, 87–94, 95, 96, 99–100, 132, 163 gestures 33, 38–39, 77, 78–80 Ghent 60n127 Gheyn, Jacob de 118, 121–125 Gibbsons, Jérémias 110 Giuseppe Ebreo (dance master) 102 glissades 129–130 glisses 129–130 goddesses 51–52, 54, 66, 68, 74, 85, 248 Gonzaga 102 Margherita 68 Vincenzo 68 Grand Ballet 4, 10, 52, 54, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 76, 85, 95, 132, 137, 158, 245, 248, 249, 250, 251 Grassi, Giacomo di 119 Grelle, Anthony 110 grimaces. See gestures groot 16 Guarini, Guarino 108 Guédron, Pierre 15, 82, 140, 142, 147–148 Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro (dance master) 38, 45, 77, 100, 102, 103, 128 guilds 40, 47–48, 59 militia 62, 119–120, 163 Guise, Charles de, duc de Aumale 52 gunners 11, 96, 98, 100–101 Hancock, Edward 15, 111–112 Hatton, Christopher 110 Hearne, Jeremy (dance master) 54 Hearne, Mr (dance teacher in York) 105 Heawood, Edward 9 Hector 100 Henri, duc de Bar 68

Index Henrietta Maria, queen of England 83 Henri III, king of France 41, 42, 56, 69 Henri II, king of France 134 Henri IV, king of France 42, 109, 147 Henry, Prince of Wales 42 Henry VIII, king of England 106 Hercules 134 Hours, the 52, 81 Hugh of Saint Victor 38 Hymenaei (1606) 100 imitative dancing 65 See also mime ingenio 100 Inns of Court 109 Instruction pour dancer 128–130 Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain 14, 15, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 63–64, 81, 84, 86, 120, 162 James I, king of England 42 Jesuit colleges 58n121, 60, 135n44 in Brussels 56–57, 59, 162, 163 Jesuit drama 36–37, 57–59 jig 43–44 Jonson, Ben 42, 43, 45, 47, 100 Joyeuse, duc de 55 Ker, Robert 43 La Grené, Adam-Pierre de (dance master) 115 La Grénée, Pierre (dance master) 157 La Grené, family of musicians 64 Lambrecht, J. 62 Langen, Otto à 116 Lassus, Orlando 44 Lavagnolo, Lorenzo (dance master) 102 Lespine, Charles de 151–153, 164 Lille 58 livret 5, 55, 65, 67, 70, 79 London 60n127, 105, 107–108 Lorraine, court of 152, 153, 163 ballets at 71, 74, 76, 79, 85 Louis XIII, king of France 65, 73, 85 Louis XIV, king of France 85 Louvain 115 Lupi, Livio (dance master) 139

Index Lutij, Prospero (dance master) 139 Lyon 134 Madrid 40, 104, 106 Maestro Lorenzo (dance master) 104 Mantua 108 Marais 67, 85 Margaret of Austria 48–49 Marolles, Michel de 99–100 Mars 67, 74 Marston, John 46 martial arts 118–119, 130, 136, 139, 163 See also pike Mary of Hungary 49 masks 79 masque 41, 42, 43, 61, 69–71, 72, 75, 83, 92, 96, 100 masquerades 41, 50, 55, 71, 80, 81, 136–137, 138 master-of-arms 11, 119, 120, 131, 138, 163 measures 69 Mechelen 49 Medici Catherine de’ 42 Lorenzo de’ 102 Marie de’ 85 Medusa 129 Mercoeur, duc de 41 Mercury 85 Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court (1615) 42 mesura 77–78 military drill manuals 121–126, 138–139, 163 mime 65, 75, 78, 82, 85 miners 78, 80, 83, 86 See also notebook S 253, ballet plots Minerva 74 Monteux, Jérôme de 32 Montmorency, Jacques de (or Belleville) 66–67, 156, 164 Montpellier 31 moresca 31, 105, 133 Munich 44 Muses, Nine 51–52 musicians 15, 49, 50, 61, 63, 64, 66, 72, 79, 80, 111–112, 156, 164, 244, 247, 248 guild of 47–48, 111n46 mutanze 127, 128

283 Nancy 71, 74, 76, 85, 163 Naples 37, 60n127 festa a ballo (1620) 2 Naunton, Sir Robert 110 Negri, Cesare (dance master) 1, 72, 76, 92, 127, 134–135, 139 Neufville, Charles de (son of Nicholas de Villeroy) 106 Norwich 60n127 notebook S 253 airs de cour in 12–13, 142–151, 164 ballet plots 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 50, 54, 65, 80–81, 84–85, 121, 137–138, 163, 164, 244–251 Aultre Ballet De la fleur d’Amour 66, 67, 75, 85, 249–250 Ballet de sept Vertus 67, 158–159, 247–248 Ballet des mineúrs des Paÿs 54, 69, 74, 78, 86, 137–138, 245–247 Ballet L’enuie de l’honneur de l’Amour 10, 66, 87, 244–245 characters in 74 choreographic descriptions in  75–78 ending formula 69–70 l’assaút fúrieux des dames 67, 80, 87, 137, 248–249 L’esperance des malcontens 85, 87, 250–251 music 80–81 purpose of 82–83 staging of 86–87 structure of 66–70 ballet titles, list of 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 87, 162 dance music in 151–152, 153–156, 157–159, 161 date of compilation 14–16 different hands in 8, 9–14, 159, 164 language of 14–15 music for ballet entrées 157–159 orthographic features of 14 physical description of 8–9 provenance of 9 purpose of 4, 164 resets 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11–12, 15, 164 teaching records in 112–116 See also pike, exhibition in notebook

284 Nuremberg 33 nymphs 49–50, 60, 66, 74, 247, 251 of Diana 80, 133, 136–137 Nyon, Claude (dance master) 157 Oberon (1611) 54 ommegang 62, 120 Orgel, Stephen 44 Orpheus 66, 67, 80, 244 Padua 106 pages 68–69, 71–72 See also notebook S 253, ballet plots Palmierei, Matteo 38 Paris 60n127, 100, 107, 108, 109, 140, 146, 156, 162 Parma 118 passamezzo 140 passi gravi 127 Passo e mezzo 127, 128 pause. See fantasmata pavane 69 Pavaniglia 127 Pesaro 133 Philidor, André Danican 155n46 Philidor collection 153–154, 155–156, 157–158 See also dance music Philip II, king of Spain 40, 49, 63, 119 Philip IV, king of Spain 104 Philips, Peter 15 Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius 38n36 pike 118–120 combat with 119 exhibition in notebook 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 118, 120, 121–126, 138–139, 163, 252–262 similarities with choreographed dances 127–131 step vocabulary 129–130 Plato 46 Platter, Felix 31 Pluvinel, Antoine de 108–109 Polk, Keith 47 Pontaymery, Alexandre de 109 posture. See deportment Powell, John S. 43 Praetorius, Michael 108, 140, 152, 156–157 processions, dancing in 62

Index Psyche 51–52 Puckering, Sir John 107 Ravelhofer, Barbara 37, 45 Rede, Thomas (musician and dance teacher) 105 rehearsals 53–54, 61 Renée, Princess of Lorraine 44 revels 69–70 reverence 86, 105n16, 118, 127, 129 rijksdaaler 16 riverenza grave 127 Roche, Sieur de la 55 Rome 59, 134 Ronsard, Pierre de 46, 95 royal entry 40 Saint Ambrose 38 Saint Catherine (location) 114 Saint-Hubert 65, 77 Santucci, Ercole 139 sarabande 140 Saturn 74 seguiti finti 127 seguiti ordinari 127 Sforza 102 Costanzo 133 Galeazzo Maria 32, 100n95 Ippolita 1 Shakespeare, William 45 ‘s Hertogenbosch 59n124 Siena 103, 104, 105 slaves 66, 68, 74, 158 See also notebook S 253, ballet plots Slingsby Eleanor 105 Henry 105 Thomas 105 Sophonisba Africana 61 spectacles 2, 4, 5, 41, 42, 46, 49, 50, 53, 59, 71–72, 75, 82, 95, 98–100, 120–121, 131, 133, 136 music forces for 80–81 rehearsals for 53–54 staging of 54–55 Spencer, Margaret 105 staff weapons 11, 118–119, 120, 130n27, 163 See also pike

285

Index stage machines 75, 86 Stefonio, Bernardino 37 step sequences 127–128 storks 74, 80, 83, 138, 246 See also notebook S 253, ballet plots Strozzi, Filippo di Piero 31 Strozzi, Piero 99 stuivers 16 Swift, Richard 110, 111 sword dances 62, 135–136 See also combat, danced symbols 94–96 tablature lute 2, 8, 141–142, 161 mandore 2, 153, 161 violin 2, 154, 161 Tethys Festival (1610) 42, 99 Thuloye, Madame de la 50 Tindel, Robert 111 torchbearers 65, 68, 70–74 torch dances 71–72 torches, effect of 72–74 Tordiglione 127 Tordiglione nuovo 127 Torneo Amoroso 132 Toulouse 108 trabuchetti presti 127 Trevi, Matteo da 32 Tuccaro, Arcangelo 39, 46 turns 122, 125–126, 129 Valladolid 71 Vallet, Nicolas 15, 110–112, 114, 140, 151, 154–155, 161, 164 Valois, Marguerite de 63, 133 van Alsloot, Denis 120 Vandenesse, Jean de 49n93 van der Briel, Hans (dance master) 61 Vaudemont, Mademoiselle de 55 Vegio, Maffeo 38n36

Vendôme, duc de 160 Venice 107 Venus 67, 74, 159, 248, 251 Verçeppe 133 Vermeulen, Juan (or Hans, dance teacher) 53 Vezzani, Antonio 118 Villeroy, Nicolas de 106 Villiers, George, Marquess of Buckingham 42–43, 106 virtue, physical enactment through dance 35–39 virtues 35–36 charity 158 chastity 82, 136 circumspection 36 faith 158 fortitude 158 industry 36 justice 158 moderation 36 patience 158 providence 36 prudence 35–36, 158 temperance 158 Vlaemsche Vrede-vrengd 62 volta 31, 69, 140, 151–152 von Waldheim, Fredrik August Schürer 9 Ward, John M. 3 Warren, Robert (dance teacher) 107 Warren, William (dance teacher) 107 watermarks 9 Weckherlin, Georg Rudolf 82–83 Wilhelm of Bavaria, Crown Prince 44 William IX, duke of Aquitaine 57 Winter’s Tale, The 45 York 60n127, 105 zurlo 92