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Danza Practica

The journal of Justin Pagitt, a student at the Middle Temple of the Inns of Court, contains the following instructions in an entry from 1633:

De arte Saltandi [The Art of Dancing]

I. ffollow yr dauncing hard till you have gott a habit of dauncing neately
2. Care not to daunce loftily, as to carry yr body sweetly & smoothly away with a graceful comportment

3. In some places hanging steps are very gracefull & whill give you much ease & time to breath

4. Write the marks for the stepps in every daunce under the notes of the tune, as the words are in songs. [44]

These instructions are quite possibly notes that Pagitt wrote down after attending a dancing class, or they may represent Pagitt’s independent observations or the recommendations of a peer on how to improve his dancing. They show the concern with grace discussed above as a central componenet of the danza humana, but they also feature aspects of the danza practica, the study and execution of dance steps.

In investigating the third branch of the danza speculativa, the sources shift from the theoretical works of scholars and educators to personal correspondence, journals and commonplace books, ecclesiastic and civil courts, and legislation. There is a great deal of mostly unexplored material pertaining to dance in these records, but given the focus of this paper on dance and education, I will concentrate primarily on one source of dance records, those compiled in the recently published Records of Early English Drama: Oxford.

The most familiar references to dance in Renaissance England are the antidance treatises by authors like Phillip Stubbes, William Prynne, John Northbrooke, and Christopher Fetherstone. Mary Pennino-Baskerville’s article, “Terpsichore Reviled: Andidance Tracts in Elizabethan England,” provides an excellent overview of these tracts, which generally condemn dancing as lascivious and wanton. Typical is one of Stubbes’ descriptions of dancing in The Anatomie of Abuses (1579):

Dancing, as it is used (or rather abused) in these days, is an introduction to whoredom, a preparative to wantonness, a provocative to uncleanness, & an introit to all kind of lewdness, rather than a pleasant exercise to the mind, or a wholesome practise for the body. [45]

For Stubbes the link between dancing and illicit sexuality is explicit and dominant. However, I have discovered that records of dancing in ecclesiastic and civic court records indicate that, at least in England, officials were not particularly concerned about dancing leading to sexual impropriety. Rather dancing was problematic if and when it was disorderly: sexual impropriety was only one, small subset of disruptive behaviour along with insobriety, fighting, and fiscal irresponsibility.

The earliest dance reference in the Oxford REED collection is a c1300 decree forbidding students to celebrate feast days with too much festivity. The decree mandates, “that no one lead dances with masks or with any noise in churches or streets...” [46] The penalty for disobeying is excommunication and lengthy imprisonment.  The lengthy passage “On dancing, wrestling matches, and other unlawful pastimes not to occur in the chapel or hall” in the New College Statutes c. 1398 is similarly motivated. The statute prohibits:

dances, wrestling matches, and any other careless and irregular games from taking place in the chapel or the aforesaid hall ever at any time, by which (activities) … damage or loss could be inflicted on the images, sculptures, glass windows, paintings, or other aforesaid sumptuous works... [47]

While they initially read as condemnations of dancing and other recreations, the main concerns are avoiding loud and riotous revelling in the street and property damage. This latter injunction is mostly surprising because its existence shows that enough students were wrestling, and dancing in the chapel and college hall to prompt an amendment. That the University would discourage such activities, however, does not seem unreasonable.

Likewise, the Vice-Chancellor’s Proclamation of 1593 is less harsh when considered in context. The proclamation that, “It shall not be lawfull for any man within this university, city or suburbs of the same to keep or use any dancing school, fencing school or vaulting school upon pain of 5 pounds and 3 months imprisonment,” [48] was given during a time of plague. Therefore, it is likely that the University was not concerned about the morality of dancing, but wanted to protect students from potential exposure to the plague.

University officials also frowned on dancing’s potential to elicit intellectual or academic negligence. An exercise book from Magdalen in the early sixteenth century has a passage written in Latin and then translated into English by a student that reads:

ye had your liberte now a grette whill to play at dise at cardes at tables at chestes to syng to daunce to drynke to reuell and to do suche thynges as ys thowght pertynyd to ye pleasur of mynde now this day begynges in another manor of lernyng . yt requirith other manores it is your parte therfor to go a bowght other thyng[g]ges yat is to sa go se a nother whyll your bokes & renew your studis yat haue ben discontinuyd . and set your myndes to them for & you begynne all to pla styll a pece ye shall neuer cum to ye lernyng yat ye desire. [49]

This passage, which would have been assigned by the instructor, reminds the student that if he wants to learn, he must privilege studying over dancing, playing games, and revelling, an injunction all students and scholars will recognize, if not necessarily embrace. Dancing is not banned, but it is considered a distraction from and impediment to learning. Moreover, if dancing occurred in conjunction with more overt transgressions, university officials were prepared to intervene. This was the case of Bartholomew Bolney and his friends, charged during an Episcopal visitation to New College in 1566 with the following:

the aforesaid Bartholomew Bolnye, contrary to the form of the statutes of the said college, is accustomed to fighting, and that, for the sake of dancing, almost every day he betakes himself from dinner into the town and to suspect places.... Likewise that the said Christopher Diggles and William Browne in a similar way commonly frequent the town and the aforesaid suspect places for sake of dancing. [50]

Once again, dancing itself is not the enemy here, but it serves as an excuse for students to neglect their studies and go to places that the University does not sanction.

Cases like that of Bartholomew Bolnye strengthened associations of dancing with disorder and wantonness. Yet there is surprisingly little evidence of the latter. The 1557 inquiry of Cardinal Pole as to whether the women or wives of townsfolk “be disreputable, also (whether there be) games of chance, fencing schools, or swordsmen or dancing schools,” [51] would seem to be an exception. Clearly, at least in Cardinal Pole’s mind, dancing schools were potentially disruptive institutions that posed a possible danger to Oxford students. However, based on the other restrictions of dancing, I suspect that Cardinal Pole was concerned with dancing schools as distractions from studying, just like fencing schools and disreputable women, not because dances schools were places where students would be likely to encounter disreputable women. In fact, it is possible that dancing schools like that above the Bocardo Prison taught only men and boys. [52]

The only other mention of sexual impropriety and dancing is a refutation of the same in a letter from Gager to Rainolds in 1592. Rainolds had heard a rumour that in a play performed at Oxford the boys playing women’s roles had been kissed by and danced wantonly with the others boys acting in the performance. Gager adamantly refutes these accusations as ridiculous. The performance contained no kissing, and the dancing had been moderate and symbolic, “owre younge men dansed only twoe solleme measures, withowte any lyter galliarde, or other danse, only for a decorum...” [53] The galliard was not a particularly licentious dance -- its kicks, turns, and jumps were more athletic than amorous – but the measures, as Gager points out, were beyond reproach. The measures, or old measures as they were sometimes called, referred to a series of stately, simple dances frequently danced at ceremonies and official events. [54] Either Rainolds’s informant was utterly ignorant of the sober symbolism of the measures, or he was trying to create a scandal.

Apparently Rainold’s fears were alleviated, or at least his accusations discredited, as dancing continued in university performances. In 1602 St. John’s College sponsored a Twelfth Night play, in 1608 they had masques and morris dancers as part of the Christmas Prince revels, and in 1621 they paid dancers for performing in a masque. These performances varied in quality. The Twelfth Night play describes “cutting capers aloft in ye ayre,” [55] but the revels in honour of the Christmas Prince included some less well rehearsed numbers, “After some few daunces the Prince, not much liking the sporte (for that most of them were out both in there speeches and measures, having but thought of this devise some few houres before) rose, & lefte the Hall.” [56] This account might leave the reader with the impression that the dancers were unskilled, and valued dancing little. However, that a few young men could throw together a choreography for at least twelve dancers in a few hours is impressive and suggests a fairly high level of competence. This supposition is supported by the description of another masque a few days later where the performers “daunced well to the great delite of the beholders.” [57] This dance was “an anticke” so it is possible that it was performed by professional dancers hired for the purpose and not by students. Regardless, the account shows the interest and appreciation of dancing, not to mention practical knowledge.

Clearly there was a lively tradition of dancing at Oxford. But how did students learn dances like the galliard or the measures? That there were dancing masters in Italy and France who wrote dancing manuals has been demonstrated above. The Oxford records give evidence of dancing schools at, or at least in the vicinity of, English universities, as well.

From 1606 to 1636, the Oxford City Council granted John Bosseley a lease of a room at the Boccardo, the city jail at the North Gate of Oxford. This upper chamber (which was not in the jail itself, but in the same building) was “called or knowne by the name of the Dauncing Schoole then and now.”[58] Apparently John Bosseley, described as a city musician, ran a lively operation, for the 1610 City Council Minutes record the following amendment:

a Provisoe shalbee putt into Iohn Bosseleys Lease nott to lett or sett without lycense etc And also not to daunce nor sufferr any Dauncing after tenne of the Clocke in the night nor before ffyve of the Clocke in the morning.[59]

That this proviso was added just four months after Bosseley had signed the 1610 lease implies that dancing at the school between 10pm and 5am was a significant enough problem to warrant an amendment. This proviso also indicates, as do the repeated renewals of the lease, a substantial interest in dancing in seventeenth-century Oxford. Similarly a 1635 expense account book shows that Christ Church paid William Stokes, a dancing master associated with the Bocardo dancing school, twenty-two pounds for “composing & performing 3 Dances and for Pumpes and some apparel.”[60] Stokes may have received money on behalf of several dancers, but even so, twenty-two pounds was a substantial payment and suggests the value and importance of performance and choreographer.

Taking dancing lessons could be expensive. In 1632-3 Thomas Rockley spent one pound two shillings for admission and two shillings six pence for quartering at dancing schools at Oxford plus an additional five shillings “at the reuells.”[61] (“The revels” can refer to the final section of a court masque where performers danced with audience members, or to the general dancing found at the end of entertainments before the banquet.) Many students probably found themselves in the position of John Warre who, in 1621, wrote to his father in Somerset asking for more money. His explanation?  “I am also entred to the dancing schoole which togeether with cost for pumpes ribboan and a small fee to his man amount to 20 s.”[62] Presumably John Warre was not made destitute by dancing, and his father, an Inns of Court man, may well have considered dancing lessons a useful supplement to his son’s education.

Where dancing lessons became problematic was when young men spent money on dancing that they needed for necessities. This situation may be apocryphal, as most references to dance-induced poverty are literary, but the numerous occurrences of this scenario in literature suggest a widespread concern, even if it was unfounded. Henry Parrot’s satirical poem “Latet Anguis in herba” provides a concise description of the prodigal dancer:

When Capring Cosmo comes from dauncing Schoole,
He first commaunds the Maide pluck off his Hose:
Next bids her bring a Cushion and a stoole,
On which (she kneeling) rubbes his feete and toes.
That done, hee calls for's night-cap and his gowne,
Fearing the colde might catch him vnaware;
Nor more will walke forth (sayes) that day in towne,
Whence you may gesse, he hath no Coine to spare.
But that's not it, Cosmo to bed is gone,
Causing his shirt be washt that hath but one.[63]

The protagonist, according to Parrot, goes to (and receives) great pains to attend dancing school, but the price of the lessons is such that he cannot afford to go anywhere else.

Although teasing and light-hearted in tone, the poem mocks and attacks social climbers. Capring Cosmo is trying to approximate the airs of a courtier or gentleman by dancing like one, even though he probably lacks the means, education, and status to be an aristocrat. Dancing, as Davies so clearly articulates, revealed inner nobility and virtue. Therefore, a youth who spent all of his money on dancing lessons was not only viewed as foolhardy, but could be considered a threat to the established hierarchy.

It is telling that the meteoric rise of both Christopher Hatton and George Villiers, favourites of Elizabeth I and James I respectively, was attributed by their enemies to pleasing figures and skilful dancing rather than to intellectual or political acumen. Sir Christopher Hatton reputedly “Came into court ‘by the galliard’” when his role in an Inns of Court masque, and “his activity and person, which was tall and proportionable,” brought him royal advancement. [64] More frequently dancing enabled men who were candidates for positions of power to distinguish themselves and attract the attention of the sovereign. Dancing lessons might be expensive, but they were a potentially lucrative investment. Still, dancing masters were cognizant that their expertise could be sought for other reasons. Caroso stresses in Il Ballarino (1581) that dancing is best suited to the nobility, but advises that “through devotion of spirit” in their dancing, lower status individuals could “become the equal of those created by birth.” [65] That all and sundry could take lessons to learn how to dance properly contradicted the tenet of danza humana that asserted that grace was the natural and exclusive province of the nobility. Danza practica purported that with dedication, time, and energy, anyone could learn to dance well. When it came to dancing lessons, the theories of danza practica and danza humana contradicted each other, a Renaissance version of the still current debate of nature versus nurture.

Footnotes