'What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?'
Masculinity and Dancing in Early Modern England

Conduct Manuals

In his treatise on marriage, Of Domesticall Duties (1622), William Gouge stresses the importance of hierarchy in the family and government, ' we must distinguish betwixt the several places wherein men are: for even they who [are] superiours to some, are inferiours to others.' [23] He specifies a tripartite domestic system in which a husband rules over the wife, and they jointly rule over their children and servants, and relates this arrangement to hierarchal governments and the inferior status of everyone before God, 'a family is a little Church, and a little Commonwealth.' [24] Behaving in a manner commensurate with one's place in these hierarchy is crucial, should a husband and wife 'fail in their duty one to another, they give occasion to all the rest under them to be careless, and negligent in theirs.' [25] Instead, ' by your example draw on your children and servants [if you have any] to perform their duties: which surely they will more readily do, when they shall behold you as guides going before them, and making conscience of your joint and several duties.' [26] Not only must hierarchical relationships be maintained, but they must also be visible and transparent to others.

This insistence on visible hierarchy is mirrored in early modern conduct manuals. The Book of the Courtier (1561), Sir Thomas Hoby's translation of Baldassare Castiglione's Il libro del Cortegiano (1528), cautions:

There be some other exercises that may be done both openly and privately, as dancing: and in this I believe the Courtier ought to have a respect, for if he daunceth in the presence of many, and in a place full of people, he must (in my minde) keepe a certaine dignitie, tempered notwithstanding with a handsome and sightly sweetenesse of gestures. ' [27]  

Castiglione frowns on the 'young gentleman who dance all day with peasants in the sun on holidays, and play with them at throwing the bar, wrestling, running and leaping,' because 'it is too unseemly and shameful a thing, and beneath his dignity, to see a gentleman vanquished by a peasant.' [28] Gentlemen should only engage in dancing and athletic contests with their peers, as the small boost to the ego elicited by outperforming a peasant is not worth risking the much more significant consequences of losing. [29] Similarly, a gentleman should refrain from executing the most difficult dance steps in public, even if he is very good at them:

And for all he feeleth him selfe very nimble and to have time and measure at will, yet let him not enter into that swiftnesse of feet and doubled footinges, that we see are very comely in our Barletta [the musician and dancing master], and peradventure were unseemely for a gentleman: although privately in a chamber together as we be now, I will not say but hee may doe both that, and also dance the Morisco, and braulles, yet not openly unlesse hee were in a maske.' [30]

While amongst friends or when masked, skilful dancing is much appreciated, in public it is only appropriate for professional dancers and dancing masters. The courtier's first priority is to attend to his status and reputation, not his footwork. Cultivating a dignified and graceful image is more important than demonstrating mastery in a recreation.

English conduct manuals echo Castiglione's recommendations. In ΠΡΩΠАІΔΕΙΑ or the institution of a young noble man (1607, 1612), James Cleland advises remembering your rank, wearing nice clothes, and dancing well to make a good impression, 'When you go to Daunce in anie Honourable companie, take heede that your qualitie, your Raiment, and your skil go al three togither: if you faile in anie of those three, you wilbe derided. [31] Like Castiglione, Cleland warns against trying to excel too much in dancing, 'Imitate not so much the Masters Capers, as to have a good grace in the carriage of your bodie: this is the principal, and without the which al the rest is naught.' [32] A courtier should not be mistaken for a dancing master. On the other hand, some proficiency is commendable, 'I praise not those Ordinarie Dauncers, who appeare to be druncke in their legs... in shaking alwaies their feet, singing continuallie, one--two--three: foure; and five.' [33] A happy medium between the novice dancer who must count the steps of the galliard aloud in order to keep his place and the professional dancing master is the ideal, 'Alwaies I commend mediocritie in al things: for there is nothing so good, but if it be used with excesse wil become bad.' [34]

Richard Brathwait's The English Gentleman (1630) goes into greater detail as to the unsavory effects of overly proficient dancers. Some courtiers 'come forth so punctually, as if they were made up in a sute of Waiscot, treading the ground as if they were foundred. Others you shall see, so supple and pliable in their joynts, as you would take them to bee some Tumblers; but what are these but Jacke-an-Apes in gay cloathes?' [35] It is not the execution of difficult steps that is essential but overall carriage, 'others there are, and these onely [are] praise-worthy who with a gracefull presence gaine them respect. For in exercises of this kinde (sure I am) those only deserve most commendation, which are performed with least affectation.' [36] Like Castiglione and Cleland, Brathwait primary concern is that when dancing, a gentleman should dance in a manner appropriate to his status. Lastly, Brathwait warns against too much zeal. Even gentlemen who have followed all of the aforementioned recommendations may still mar the final effect:

Now I have heard of some who could doe all this; shew an excellent grace in their carriage; expresse themselves rare proficients in all Schoole-tricks; being so much admired as who but they: yet observe the cloze, and they spoile all with an English tricke, they cannot leave it when it is well. It is said of Apelles, that hee found fault with Protogenes, in that hee could not hold his hands from his table: and right so fares it with these young Cavalieroes, when they have shewne all that may bee shewne to give content, striving to shew one tricke above Ela, they halt in the conclusion. [37]

Not only must a gentleman be able to dance gracefully or skilfully depending on his company, but he must also be sure to stop dancing before he makes a mistake or overstays his welcome. As Anna Bryson writes in 'The Rhetoric of Status: Gesture, Demeanour and the Image of the Gentleman in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England,' 'Renaissance writing on manners, in presenting deportment and demeanour as a rhetoric of status which "represented" inner noble virtues and "civil" distance from plebians and brutes, showed the acting of "natural" superiority to be the essential principle of the "port and countenance" of the ideal gentleman.' [38]

I will now turn to two of the best known English examinations of dancing: Sir John Davies’ oft-quoted allegorical poem Orchestra Or a Poeme of Dauncing (1596) and Sir Thomas Elyot’s highly influential conduct manual The Boke Named The Governour (1531). While The Governour details the proper education and characteristics of a young gentleman like the manuals discussed above, its four emphatic chapters on dancing enable it to be classified as a defence of dancing. Both the Orchestra and The Governour offers extensive classical and biblical precedents, a history of dancing, and elaborate metaphors of virtue and harmony. These sections parallel the organisation of antidance treatises, which will be addressed subsequently.

While the aforementioned conduct manuals are primarily concerned with maintaining clear hierarchies amongst men, Sir John Davies’ Orchestra Or a Poeme of Dauncing concentrates on dancing as a guide and metaphor for relationships between men and women. When dancing a pavan or another dance for couples, the man and woman must stay together, if only because they are holding hands, ' For whether forth or back, or round he goe, / As the man doth, so must the woman doe.' [39] Davies suggests that couples take this example of joint motion to heart and apply it more generally:

If they whom sacred Love hath link't in one,
Doe as they daunce, in all theyr course of life,
Never shall burning griefe nor bitter mone,
Nor factious difference, nor unkind strife,
Arise betwixt the husband and the wife. [40]

Dancing provides a model for marital concord, whether the dance demonstrates mutual cooperation as in the branle or a patriarchal arrangement as in the pavan where the man leads and the woman follows.

However, this is not the only passage in which Davies considers dancing and masculinity. In stanza 68, he provides a curious description of the galliard:

A gallant daunce that lively doth bewray
A spirit and a vertue Masculine,
Impatient that her house on earth should stay
(Since she her selfe is fierie and divine)
Oft doth she make her body upward flyne,
  With loftie turnes and capriols in the ayre,
  Which with the lustie tunes accordeth fayre. [41]

Howard Skiles comments on this passage in her article "Hands, Feet and Bottoms: Decentering the Cosmic Dance in A Midsummer Night's Dream": 'The galliard, a fashionable dance of the late sixteenth century, was coded as "masculine" in Davies' poem, since ornate steps and high leaps, requiring "fiery spirit," were to be performed by the gentleman and admired by his partner.' [42] Howard, however, misses the most interesting aspect of the passage; Davies indeed describes the galliard as having 'a spirit and a vertue masculine,' but the dance itself he personifies as female, 'she her selfe is fierie and divine.'

Since the galliard is almost always associated with men, characterising it as female is noteworthy. [43] The Orchestra was first published in 1589, so it is likely that Davies figured the galliard as a female dance with a strong masculine spirit to honour Queen Elizabeth, who was known for her fondness for this dance, 'six or seven galliards in a morning, besides music and singing, is her ordinary exercise,' wrote a gentleman of the Privy Chamber in 1589. Although it is a compelling idea in its own right and Davies is clearly interested in parallels between marriage, courtship and dancing, Howard's misreading of the galliard as male leads her to falsely conclude that 'Davies couples and genders the two dances usually performed together in sixteenth-century festivity: the pavane and the galliard' as female and male. [44] Stanza 68 presents a complex and androgynous image of the galliard that disallows a simplistic pairing with a 'female' pavan. However, this masculine but female galliard is very much at odds with the rest of the Orchestra in which men and women's dancing is depicted along more traditional, patriarchal lines.

Sir Thomas Elyot's The Boke Named The Governour likewise turns to dancing to exemplify the proper characteristics of men and women. First he gives a detailed description of the ideal man and woman:

'A man in his naturall perfection is fiers, hardy, stronge in opinion, couaitous of glorie, desirous of knowledge, appetiting by generation to brynge forthe his semblable. The good nature of a woman is to be milde, timerouse, tractable, benigne, of sure remembrance, and shamfast.' [45]

and then explains how the manner in which men and women dance (or ought to dance) corresponds with and conveys these gendered traits:

‘And the meuing of the man wolde be more vehement, of the woman more delicate, and with lasse aduancing of the body, signifienge the courage and strenthe that oughte to be in a man, and the pleasant sobreness that shulde be in a woman.’ [46]

While Elyot implies that by simply being male, a man’s dancing will automatically be more vigorous than a woman’s movements and so demonstrate the masculine attributes of courage and strength. However, he recognises that this is an ideal, ‘the courage and strenthe that oughte to be in a man’ [my emphasis], and so offers specific instructions as to how to dance properly. Somewhat reluctantly, Elyot acknowledges that masculinity is not inherent, but a performance that can be directed and influenced. The Orchestra’s preferred metaphor of dancing representing marital concord also receives some attention, 'Elyot carefully promoted the dancing couple as an image of ideal marriage, with the "vehement" movements of the man and the "delicate" movements of the woman expressing the "sundry virtues" of each partner and the perfection of their intercourse,' [47] but his primary focus is on how dancing conveys individual attributes such as masculinity rather than interpersonal relationships.

To support his argument, Elyot gives classical examples of dances that expressed the masculinity or femininity of the dancers:

'Also there was a kynde of daunsinge called Hormus, of all the other moste lyke to that whiche is at this time used; wherin daunsed yonge men and maidens, the man expressinge in his motion and countenance fortitude and magnanimitie apt for the warres, the maiden moderation and shamefastnes, which represented a pleasant connexion of fortitude and temperance. In stede of these we haue nowe base daunsis, bargenettes, pauions, turgions, and roundes. [48]

A man’s dancing revealed not only easily demonstrated traits such as strength, but also less visible feelings such as generosity. Elyot emphasises the relevance of ancient dances like the Hormus by specifying contemporary dances that offer similar opportunities for conveying personal and gendered traits.

In fact, every movement was potentially rich with meaning, 'In euery of the said daunsis, there was a concinnitie of meuing the foote and body, expressing some pleasaunt or profitable affectes or motions of the mynde.' [49] Nobility was particularly well suited to being conveyed by dancing, and benefit could be derived by spectators as well as by dancers:

'Wherfore all they that haue their courage stered towarde very honour or perfecte nobilitie, let them approache to this passe tyme, and either them selfes prepare them to daunse, or els at the leste way beholde with watching eien other that can daunse truely, kepynge iuste measure and tyme.' [50]

Moreover, 'the well-ordered rhythms of music and the dance lead the soul to embrace the divine principle of order. [51] Although he does not distinguish between dances appropriate for public performance and those better left to private gatherings as later conduct writers do, Eloyot shares their belief that ‘the personages of man and woman daunsinge, do expresse or sette out the figure of very nobilitie,' [52] and that 'For the purpose of acquiring grace of carriage and demeanor, certain physical exercises, among them dancing, were though to be efficacious.' [53] Since 'A right gentleman ought to be a man fyt for the warres, and fytte for the peace, mete for the courte and meete for the countrey,’ [54] dancing was highly recommended, if not required, for courtiers and aspiring gentlemen in early modern England.

The influence of The Boke Named The Governour was extensive and long lasting. It went through several reprints and although written in the early sixteenth century, 'even at the end of the century gentleman were being referred for instruction in the decent use of music to Elyot as well as to Aristotle.' [55] The chapters on dancing had a similar impact. Although many of the dances described by Elyot soon went out of fashion, the structure of his defence became the standard, not only for fellow defenders of dancing but also for its critics.

In Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage, Elizabeth Foyster points out that, 'In the seventeenth century "effeminate" was a term that was applied to those men who were deviant in some way within their heterosexual relationships, it was not until the mid-eighteenth century that it began to connote homosexuality.' [56] In early modern England men simply did not have the modern fear that they would be considered homosexual if they danced. Sir Thomas Elyot, for example, may specify masculine and feminine styles of dancing, but he never worries that dancing is effeminate or effeminising. For this concern, we must turn to antidance treatises.

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