Guest Author - Alena K Shumway

In the Middle Ages everyone was used to physical labor, even nobles did their share of heavy lifting, horseback riding, and climbing up and down stairs, things that modern folks are not required to do. Medieval folk reveled in the chance to use their bodies for something other than work. Dancing was also a time to be social. Folks would dance with their friends and neighbors, with visitors from far away, with family members and sweethearts.

Country Dancing
Villagers would dance to have fun. Dances often took up the entire village, with those who could play instruments taking turns playing for the dancers. Holidays were often celebrated with a feast and a dance. The beginning of spring was celebrated with a dance, the end of planting season, the longest day of summer, a successful harvest, all were celebrated with food and with music.
Country dances were considered rougher than those dances done by the nobles, they were often faster, wilder, involved much more swinging your partner and dancing round and round until you are out of breath. Sometimes the dances were even contests between the dancers and the musicians to see who could speed up and keep up until either the dancers or musicians collapsed. Villagers danced to leave behind the drudgery of their everyday lives.

Courtly Dancing
Nobles also danced to have fun and to escape the tedium of their lives, but they danced very differently. They danced to show off. Dancing masters would teach elaborate steps, musicians were hired to play complex songs, and tailors would sew fancy clothing. Dancers were always conscious of being watched and judged by their peers. Nobles would stand with perfect posture, they would show off their feet with fancy footwork, and show off their grace with sweeping bows. Courtly dances were a chance for men and women to flirt, for visiting nobles to get to know their hosts, and for everyone to forget their responsibilities and just dance.
Dancing started to loose popularity after the protestant reformation. Any sort of celebration including dancing came to represent excess and was considered time spent on earthly pleasures and not in contemplation of god. Villager’s dances were considered rough and too energetic, Noble’s dances were considered to be too materialistic and not accessible to the growing middle class.

Children’s Dance
Children did not have many toys, nor did they have elaborate playgrounds, but medieval children still found plenty of ways to play. When a group of children played together they would play knights and battle, they would play elaborate games of tag and hide and seek, they also sang rhymes and danced.

The “ring around the rosy” game still danced and sung by kids today has its origins in the middle ages as a rhyme about the plague. Plague victims often got rosy circles on their skin, a common cure would be to carry a bouquet of medicinal flowers called a posey, and those who died from the plague were often cremated, or burned in large bonfires.

There are several modern forms of dancing that trace their roots back to medieval dance. Ballet has its roots in the noble dances of the French court. Country Western, line dancing, and square dancing all have their roots in the villages of Medieval Europe.

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