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Antidance Treatises

The similar background of the treatise writers is evident in the characteristics shared by the antidance treatises themselves. In “Terpsichore Reviled” Pennino-Baskerville provides a helpful summary of the common structure and methods favoured by treatise writers. Written in dialogue or prose, the treatises provide a history of dancing, determined as pagan, if not diabolical, in origin. The moralist offers counter arguments to the possible benefits of dancing, “shoring up the sometimes shaky foundation of his arguments with innumerable citations from classical authors, the Bible, the Fathers and Councils of the early Church, assorted humanists and Protestant reformers.” [16] As John Northbrooke’s spokesman Age claims, “I finde that dauncings were often times reproued: but neuer commaunded (in the Scriptures) to be vsed, as you may reade in Exodus, Esay, Ecclesiasticus, Romaines, Corinthians, Ephesians, Mathewe and Marke (which places, in the margent you shall finde them.)” [17] In the introductory epistle, throughout the body of the treatise, and in the conclusion, writers regale dance practitioners and aficionados with “the precariousness of their spiritual footing,” and reassure them of “promises of salvation through faith and hope in an all-forgiving Lord,” if they give up the dancing habit. [18]

While there are a few discrepancies, Thomas Lovell’s treatise is written in verse, for example, almost all of the tracts considered conform to this description. They all mention the biblical references to King David, Miriam, and Salome’s dancing; offer refutations of, amongst others, the pro-dance contentions that dancing is good exercise and facilitates harmonious marriages; and provide a few horror stories of women who have lost their chastity or worse due to dancing. [19] Other similarities include unfavourably comparing the dances of their day with those of the past; associating dancing with drinking, gambling, and other vices; and decrying the practice of dancing on Sundays and holy days. In short, while each treatise has its own particular style, it is valid to consider antidance and related treatises collectively; they share recognizable structural components and arguments.

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