I have been researching medieval dances this week, as it turns out that Benedict, the protagonist in my 13 century novel, has an aptitude for dance – who knew! (Neither he or I did until I got to that scene in the book)
As we medieval history fans are well aware, sources for many medieval facets of life are limited and fragmentary, and of course this is the case for examples of dances. There are patchy references, and texts are alluded to, but not much more than that. The best examples seem to be depicted in paintings. However, we do know that medieval dance can be split into two categories, one being court dance and one country dance.
The most common dances of the period are the carole, the jig, the egg dance, the quadrille, morris dancing, country dancing and May pole dancing.
The scene in the book requires an element of comedy, as well as being Benedict’s first performance as a skilled dancer. On first investigations I liked the sound of the egg dance, until it clicked that this was probably a seasonal dance, and it was. It was a traditional Easter game involving the laying down of eggs on the ground and dancing among them whilst trying to break as few as possible.
The carole was a very popular dance, and could be found in both rural and court settings. No surviving lyrics or music are known for this dance, but we know it consisted of a group of hand holding dancers, usually in a circle. The dancers sang along in a leader and refrain style, repeating the verse after each stanza.
The scene is set around late November/early December, so after ruling out the other dances as being a bit too involved for what I needed, or not being appropriate, I settled on the jig.
The jig was a general name, used to describe a variety of rustic style dances. It involved skipping, kicking and leaping. Music was played in three-four time, i.e. having a ‘waltz’ quality to it, 1-2-3, 1-2-3.
The jig was general enough for me to use and mould it into what I needed for the scene, and had enough scope in it to give Benedict a range of movements that he can impress with.
Now to research how he would be musically accompanied whilst dancing…
Janet Stock 