Dancing in the Streets (8 page)
Read Dancing in the Streets Online
Authors: Barbara Ehrenreich
Without question, the early Christians themselves understood glossolalia as a sign of god-given ecstasy. To the second- and thirdcentury church leader Tertullian, for example, it was even a criterion of God's favor, and he challenged the Gnostic heretic Marcion
to match him if he could: “Let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayerâonly let it be by the Spirit, in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture, whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him.”
36
Very likely, early Christians expected their meetings to be productive of extraordinary feelingsâof communion, rapture, or bliss. Meeks suggests that the experience of baptism was another occasion for the experience of at least “mild dissociation,” because when the baptizandsânaked and drippingâcried out “
Abba!
” (the Aramaic word for “father”), they signaled that “the Spirit” had entered and possessed them.
37
to match him if he could: “Let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayerâonly let it be by the Spirit, in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture, whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him.”
36
Very likely, early Christians expected their meetings to be productive of extraordinary feelingsâof communion, rapture, or bliss. Meeks suggests that the experience of baptism was another occasion for the experience of at least “mild dissociation,” because when the baptizandsânaked and drippingâcried out “
Abba!
” (the Aramaic word for “father”), they signaled that “the Spirit” had entered and possessed them.
37
So it is fair to say that first- and second-century Christianity offered an experience in some ways similar to that provided by the Greek mystery cults and the “oriental” religions in Romeâone of great emotional intensity, sometimes culminating in ecstatic states. Unlike worshippers of Cybele, Christians did not slash themselves with knives (though a few, like Origen, did castrate themselves); and unlike Dionysus's followers, they did not dash into the mountains and devour small animals. But they sang and chanted, leaped up to prophesy either in tongues or in normal speech, drank wine, and probably danced and tossed their hair about.
Generalization is unwise here, since there may have been as many forms of Christian worship as there were Christian cells or congregations. It seems likely that Paul's home congregation was unusually staid, with the tongue-speaking restricted to leaders like himself and the speaking in general left to male members of the group. At the other extreme of early Christian worship, there were the Montanists in Phrygia, led by Montanus and two female prophets, Priscilla and Maximilla, who prophesied in a state of trance and were said to indulge in ecstatic practices resembling those of the “oriental” religions. Montanus himself may have been a former priest of Cybele. It is worth mentioning, given the persistent tendency to confuse communal ecstasy and sexual abandon, that the Montanists were far more sexually puritanical than other Christians.
38
Perhaps made more appealing by its ecstatic practices,
the Montanist movement spread rapidly throughout Asia Minor in the second century and boasted Tertullian as its most prominent recruit.
38
Perhaps made more appealing by its ecstatic practices,
the Montanist movement spread rapidly throughout Asia Minor in the second century and boasted Tertullian as its most prominent recruit.
Of the “oriental” cults that swept through the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, Christianity is the only one to have survived in any form. The reason for its success, at least in the first two centuries, probably lies in a quality that the other cults never attained and, as far as we know, never even tried to attain: namely, a sense of community that could outlast the emotional charge of the ceremonies and rituals themselves. Burkert points out that the pagan mystery cults led “to integration into a âblessed chorus' for celebrations ⦠Yet festive togetherness of this kind does not outlast the festival; the chorus dances for a day or a night and is disbanded thereafter.”
39
No doubt these cults had some sort of administrative structure to provide continuityâIsis and Cybele even had temples and priestsâbut the concept of a lasting community of the faithful takes hold only with Christianity. While the poor might find a few hours of ecstatic release in the cult of Dionysus or the Great Mother, they found concrete material support among the Christians, or at least a free meal, sponsored by their more affluent brethren, at every worship session. Single women and widows might achieve a temporary feeling of liberation in the pagan cults, but Christianity offered them an ongoing network of support, material as well as social.
40
A Roman commentator observed, perhaps a little enviously, that Christians “recognize each other by secret marks and signs ⦠everywhere they introduce a kind of religious lust, a promiscuous âbrotherhood' and âsisterhood.'”
41
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No doubt these cults had some sort of administrative structure to provide continuityâIsis and Cybele even had temples and priestsâbut the concept of a lasting community of the faithful takes hold only with Christianity. While the poor might find a few hours of ecstatic release in the cult of Dionysus or the Great Mother, they found concrete material support among the Christians, or at least a free meal, sponsored by their more affluent brethren, at every worship session. Single women and widows might achieve a temporary feeling of liberation in the pagan cults, but Christianity offered them an ongoing network of support, material as well as social.
40
A Roman commentator observed, perhaps a little enviously, that Christians “recognize each other by secret marks and signs ⦠everywhere they introduce a kind of religious lust, a promiscuous âbrotherhood' and âsisterhood.'”
41
Christian solidarity stemmed in part from Jesus' sweet and spontaneous form of socialism, but it had a dark, apocalyptic side too. He had preached that the existing social order was soon to give way to the kingdom of heaven, hence the irrelevance of the old social ties of family and tribe. Since the final days were imminent, it was no longer necessary to have children or to even cleave to one's (unbelieving) spouse or kinâa feature of their religion that “profamily” Christians in our own time conveniently ignore. Christians
had only one another, clinging together in a community forged in part on eschatology. And through much of the first two centuries of the Common Era, their sense of doom was justified. The Romans hated the Christians for their clannishness, which exceeded that of the non-Christian Jews, and Roman persecution, in turn, pulled Christians ever more tightly together.
had only one another, clinging together in a community forged in part on eschatology. And through much of the first two centuries of the Common Era, their sense of doom was justified. The Romans hated the Christians for their clannishness, which exceeded that of the non-Christian Jews, and Roman persecution, in turn, pulled Christians ever more tightly together.
But as Christianity evolved from suppressed cult to official Church, it shed both the loving solidarity and the communal ecstasies that enriched its early years. In Paul's time, Christianity possessed no formal “structure of ministry and governance”âno hierarchy, in other words, and no gradient of prestige other than that derived from individual charisma.
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By the end of the first century, however, formal officersâbishops and deaconsâmake their appearance, and in the early fourth century, the emperor himself was converted, making Christianity the Roman Empire's official religion. Little is heard of glossolalia after Paul's time, and, starting in the middle of the fourth century, the Church began to crack down on religious dancing, especially by women. Basileios, the bishop of Caesarea, railed against the unseemly behavior of Christian women at the celebration of the Resurrection, and in terms suggesting that the Pauline insistence on head coverings had indeed been aimed at the suppression of ecstatic dancing in church.
42
By the end of the first century, however, formal officersâbishops and deaconsâmake their appearance, and in the early fourth century, the emperor himself was converted, making Christianity the Roman Empire's official religion. Little is heard of glossolalia after Paul's time, and, starting in the middle of the fourth century, the Church began to crack down on religious dancing, especially by women. Basileios, the bishop of Caesarea, railed against the unseemly behavior of Christian women at the celebration of the Resurrection, and in terms suggesting that the Pauline insistence on head coverings had indeed been aimed at the suppression of ecstatic dancing in church.
Casting aside the yoke of service under Christ and the veil of virtue from their heads, despising God and His Angels, they [the women] shamelessly attract the attention of every man. With unkempt hair, clothed in bodices and hopping about, they dance with lustful eyes and loud laughter; as if seized by a kind of frenzy they excite the lust of the youths. They execute ring-dances in the churches of the Martyrs and at their graves ⦠With harlots' songs they pollute the air and sully the degraded earth with their feet in shameful postures.
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Whether the women's dances were really lewd or only appeared so to Baseleios, we have no way of judging, but there was a clear effort
in the fourth century to “spiritualize” church dancing and eliminate what the Church authorities saw as its grosser, sensual aspects. In the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus strained to distinguish an acceptably solemn form of dancing from the boisterous and suggestive alternatives.
in the fourth century to “spiritualize” church dancing and eliminate what the Church authorities saw as its grosser, sensual aspects. In the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus strained to distinguish an acceptably solemn form of dancing from the boisterous and suggestive alternatives.
Let us sing hymns instead of striking drums, have psalms instead of frivolous music and song ⦠modesty instead of laughter, wise contemplation instead of intoxication, seriousness instead of delirium. But even if you wish to dance in devotion at this happy ceremony and festival, then dance, but not the shameless dance of the daughter of Herod.
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By the end of the fourth century, the fiery and intolerant John Chrysostom, the archbishop of Constantinople, virtually ended the discussion with his pronouncement: “For where there is a dance, there also is the Devil.”
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Very likely, some Christians merely continued pagan religious practices outside the purview of the Christian Church, because as late as 691 CE, we find the Council of Constantinople inveighing against the worship of Dionysus with the decree that “no man shall put on a woman's dress nor a woman, clothes that belong to men, nor shall any disguise themselves with colic, satyr, or tragic masks, nor call out the name of disgusting Dionysos while pressing grapes in the press or pouring wine in vats.”
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Very likely, some Christians merely continued pagan religious practices outside the purview of the Christian Church, because as late as 691 CE, we find the Council of Constantinople inveighing against the worship of Dionysus with the decree that “no man shall put on a woman's dress nor a woman, clothes that belong to men, nor shall any disguise themselves with colic, satyr, or tragic masks, nor call out the name of disgusting Dionysos while pressing grapes in the press or pouring wine in vats.”
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Social scientists of the twentieth century have tended to portray the early Church's assault on ecstatic, or even festive, forms of worship as part of an inevitable process of maturation. In his classic 1971 book
Ecstatic Religion
, I. M. Lewis observed that “new faiths may announce their advent with a flourish of ecstatic revelations, but once they become securely established they have little time or tolerance for enthusiasm. For the religious enthusiast, with his direct claim to divine knowledge, is always a threat to the established order.”
47
When a religion becomes established, possession experiences
are discouraged and may even be seen as a form of “satanic heresy.” Lewis goes on: “This certainly is the pattern which is clearly and deeply inscribed in the long history of Christianity.”
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Max Weber, in
The Sociology of Religion,
approved of this process of settling down, if only from the “viewpoint of hygiene,” since “hysterical suffusion with religious emotionalism leads to psychic collapse.”
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For him, the great developmental task facing each new religion was the substitution of a “rational system of ethics” for the earlier wildness of ecstatic inspiration. China had achieved this in the first century BCE, he observed, replacing its charismatic and festive indigenous religion with the cool rationality of Confucianism; and Christianity had done the same.
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The only major difference between the Chinese and the Roman Christian cases was, in Weber's view, that Christianity had always upheld a “rational ethic”â“even in the earliest period, when all sorts of irrational charismatic gifts of the spirit were regarded as the decisive hallmark of sanctity.”
51
Ecstatic Religion
, I. M. Lewis observed that “new faiths may announce their advent with a flourish of ecstatic revelations, but once they become securely established they have little time or tolerance for enthusiasm. For the religious enthusiast, with his direct claim to divine knowledge, is always a threat to the established order.”
47
When a religion becomes established, possession experiences
are discouraged and may even be seen as a form of “satanic heresy.” Lewis goes on: “This certainly is the pattern which is clearly and deeply inscribed in the long history of Christianity.”
48
Max Weber, in
The Sociology of Religion,
approved of this process of settling down, if only from the “viewpoint of hygiene,” since “hysterical suffusion with religious emotionalism leads to psychic collapse.”
49
For him, the great developmental task facing each new religion was the substitution of a “rational system of ethics” for the earlier wildness of ecstatic inspiration. China had achieved this in the first century BCE, he observed, replacing its charismatic and festive indigenous religion with the cool rationality of Confucianism; and Christianity had done the same.
50
The only major difference between the Chinese and the Roman Christian cases was, in Weber's view, that Christianity had always upheld a “rational ethic”â“even in the earliest period, when all sorts of irrational charismatic gifts of the spirit were regarded as the decisive hallmark of sanctity.”
51
But how “rational” was the ethic that Christianity began with? There is nothing rational or calculated about Jesus' command to turn the other cheek to the man who smites you, or to sell all that you have and give to the poor. As Jesus commands: “And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain” (Matthew 5:40â41). Christians in our own time wriggle mightily to evade these teachings,
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which, from a cold, capitalistic perspective, look like sheer madness. But Jesus' instructions may have made perfect sense to the early acolytes, who spoke in tongues and drank and
danced together with their hair streaming. What are possessions, what is individual pride, to people who can routinely achieve ecstatic merger through their communal rites? The early Christian patriarchs may not have realized that, in attempting to suppress ecstatic practices, they were throwing out much of Jesus too.
g
which, from a cold, capitalistic perspective, look like sheer madness. But Jesus' instructions may have made perfect sense to the early acolytes, who spoke in tongues and drank and
danced together with their hair streaming. What are possessions, what is individual pride, to people who can routinely achieve ecstatic merger through their communal rites? The early Christian patriarchs may not have realized that, in attempting to suppress ecstatic practices, they were throwing out much of Jesus too.
Weber was wrong, too, to suggest that Christians just tired of their strenuous and “hysterical” forms of worship; over time, these practices were increasingly forbidden to them. As the early Christian community became the institution of the Church, all forms of
enthusiasm
âin the original sense of being filled with or possessed by a deityâcame under fire. And when the community of believers could no longer access the deity on their own, through ecstatic forms of worship, the community itself was reduced to a state of dependency on central ecclesiastic authorities. “Prophesying” became the business of the priest; singing was relegated to a specialized choir; and that characteristic feature of early Christian worshipâthe communal meal or feastâshriveled into a morsel that could only tantalize the hungry. But it was to take many centuries before large numbers of Christians came to accept this diminished form of Christianity.
enthusiasm
âin the original sense of being filled with or possessed by a deityâcame under fire. And when the community of believers could no longer access the deity on their own, through ecstatic forms of worship, the community itself was reduced to a state of dependency on central ecclesiastic authorities. “Prophesying” became the business of the priest; singing was relegated to a specialized choir; and that characteristic feature of early Christian worshipâthe communal meal or feastâshriveled into a morsel that could only tantalize the hungry. But it was to take many centuries before large numbers of Christians came to accept this diminished form of Christianity.
From the Churches to the Streets: The Creation of Carnival
Almost a thousand years after the early Church fathers issued their first condemnations of dancing in churches, we find the leaders of Catholicism still railing against ecstatic and “lascivious” behavior at Christian services. Judging from the volume of condemnations from on high, the custom of dancing in churches was thoroughly entrenched in the late Middle Ages and apparently toleratedâif not actually enjoyedâeven by many parish priests. Priests danced; women danced; whole congregations joined in.
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Despite the efforts of the Church hierarchy, Christianity remained, to a certain extent, a danced religion.
h
Despite the efforts of the Church hierarchy, Christianity remained, to a certain extent, a danced religion.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Catholic leaders finally purged the churches of unruly and ecstatic behavior. They must have known that they could not prohibit such behavior in the society at large. If the people were so determined to frolic, condemnations and bans would not suffice; some kind of compromise had to
be worked outâsome kind of balance between obedience and piety on the one hand, and riotous good times on the other.
be worked outâsome kind of balance between obedience and piety on the one hand, and riotous good times on the other.
The form that this compromise took helped shape European culture for centuries: Simply put, the laity could dance on Church holidays and otherwise amuse themselves more or less to their hearts' content; they just could not do so in churches. Extruded from the physical realm of the church, the dancing, drinking, and other forms of play that so irritated the ecclesiastic authorities became the festivities that filled up the late medieval and early modern Church calendar: on saints' days, just before Lent, and on a host of other occasions throughout the year. In its battle with the ecstatic strain within Christianity, the Church, no doubt inadvertently, invented carnival.
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Elements of carnival had of course existed for centuries. “In the early and central Middle Ages,” observes the French historian Aron Gurevich, “carnival had not yet crystallized in time and space; its elements were diffused everywhere, and hence there was no carnival as such.”
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In his study of festive traditions in England, Ronald Hutton found that, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, many of the elements of festivityâsuch as dances around maypoles and the mockery associated with a “lord of misrule,” the English version of a “king of fools”âwere themselves relatively recent; in fact “many had been either introduced or embellished only a few generations before or even within living memory.” Gurevich offers no clue as to the reasons for the burst of festive creativity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and Hutton, too, comes up empty from his review of the English scene: “It must be concluded, very lamely, that there is no clear and obvious reason for the apparent greater investment in English seasonal ceremony during the later Middle Ages.”
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In his study of festive traditions in England, Ronald Hutton found that, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, many of the elements of festivityâsuch as dances around maypoles and the mockery associated with a “lord of misrule,” the English version of a “king of fools”âwere themselves relatively recent; in fact “many had been either introduced or embellished only a few generations before or even within living memory.” Gurevich offers no clue as to the reasons for the burst of festive creativity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and Hutton, too, comes up empty from his review of the English scene: “It must be concluded, very lamely, that there is no clear and obvious reason for the apparent greater investment in English seasonal ceremony during the later Middle Ages.”
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But the dots can be connected. The reason for the expansion of festivities may be simply that festive behavior was increasingly
prohibited within the churches. Once, people could rely on official church services as occasions for dancing and perhaps drinking and other forms of carrying on. As the services became more disciplined and orderly, people had to create their own festive occasions outside of church property and official times of worship, usually on holy days. “One thing is certain,” the historian Jean Delumeau writes. “People danced in both churches and cemeteries in the Middle Ages, especially on holidays such as the Feast of Fools, the Day of the Innocents, and so on, [until] the Council of Basel ⦠ruled against this practice.”
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There may have been no burst of festive creativity in the late Middle Agesâonly a change of venue.
prohibited within the churches. Once, people could rely on official church services as occasions for dancing and perhaps drinking and other forms of carrying on. As the services became more disciplined and orderly, people had to create their own festive occasions outside of church property and official times of worship, usually on holy days. “One thing is certain,” the historian Jean Delumeau writes. “People danced in both churches and cemeteries in the Middle Ages, especially on holidays such as the Feast of Fools, the Day of the Innocents, and so on, [until] the Council of Basel ⦠ruled against this practice.”
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There may have been no burst of festive creativity in the late Middle Agesâonly a change of venue.
Church leaders tolerated, though with considerable uneasiness, the festive behavior they drove from churches. Complete repression was probably impossible and certainly unwise, since suppressed ecstatic desires could always find alternative sites for expression in the heretical, millenarian movements that sprang up again and again to bedevil the Church. In the thirteenth century, when carnival-like activities so decisively expand, the Church was facing its gravest challenges since the time of the Roman Empire. Heretical movements swept Germany, southern France, and northern Spain, threatening to splinter the Church into rival sects. So great was the danger that in 1233 Pope Gregory IX established a permanent institution for the suppression of heresyâthe papal Inquisitionâwhich was made all the more effective when, twenty-nine years later, it adopted torture as one of its tools of interrogation.
At roughly the same time as the institution of the Inquisition, though in a less centralized fashion, Church authorities applied themselves to making Catholicism more emotionally and sensually engaging, as if to compete with the festive alternatives. Church buildings were beautified or at least physically embellished; there was a proliferation of special prayers, relics (typically, the alleged bones and other remains of saints), and indulgences. Along with the improved production values, there were new special effects, like the
addition of incense to the mass. As the ecclesiastical rites grew more complex, they, in turn, encouraged the development of ecclesiastical dramas in which liturgy was expanded into narrative. New holidays were added, like the feast of Corpus Christi, adopted in the mid-thirteenth century at the urging of the order of laywomen known as Beguines. All in all, Christianity became busier, more demanding, and, especially in the larger towns, gaudier.
addition of incense to the mass. As the ecclesiastical rites grew more complex, they, in turn, encouraged the development of ecclesiastical dramas in which liturgy was expanded into narrative. New holidays were added, like the feast of Corpus Christi, adopted in the mid-thirteenth century at the urging of the order of laywomen known as Beguines. All in all, Christianity became busier, more demanding, and, especially in the larger towns, gaudier.
The solution represented by externalizing festivities suited both the repressive impulses of the Church and its desire to be more accessible to laypeople who might otherwise be tempted by competing religious sects. Purged of disorderly behavior, church property could be devoted to rites whose solemnity was in keeping with the vast and intricate hierarchy the Church had become. At the same time, the people could have their funâthough only at times designated by the Church calendar, outside of church and churchyard, for limited periods, under of the aegis of the Church, and surrounded by the trappings and symbols of the Christian religion.
In the centuries leading up to this compromise, the activity that most vexed Church leaders, or at least the more puritanical among them, was dancing. Just as in ancient times, the perpetrators were often femaleâat least it was women's dancing that brought down some of the angriest condemnations. In the ninth century, bishops meeting at the Council of Rome complained that women were coming to church only to “sing shameless songs and perform choir dances.” According to the medieval historian E. K. Chambers: “Upon great feasts and wake-days, choruses of women invaded with wanton
cantica
and
ballationes
the precincts of the churches and even the sacred buildings themselves, a desecration against which generation after generation of ecclesiastical authorities was fain to protest.”
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cantica
and
ballationes
the precincts of the churches and even the sacred buildings themselves, a desecration against which generation after generation of ecclesiastical authorities was fain to protest.”
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One clerical tactic was to warn of dire supernatural punishments. There was a legendâor, perhaps, as we might now say, an
urban mythâof how the people of Kolbigk had persisted in dancing while the priest said mass on Christmas day and, as a result, were condemned to dance year-round without a break, causing most of them to die of exhaustion. In other minatory tales, dancers are carried away by the devil, struck by lightning, or surprised to discover that the musician to whose music they have been dancing is none other than the devil himself. Traditional “death watches,” in which the mourners danced the night away in the church's graveyard, presented another opportunity for the devil to snatch up an errant soul.
urban mythâof how the people of Kolbigk had persisted in dancing while the priest said mass on Christmas day and, as a result, were condemned to dance year-round without a break, causing most of them to die of exhaustion. In other minatory tales, dancers are carried away by the devil, struck by lightning, or surprised to discover that the musician to whose music they have been dancing is none other than the devil himself. Traditional “death watches,” in which the mourners danced the night away in the church's graveyard, presented another opportunity for the devil to snatch up an errant soul.
In fact, Satan, the purported leader of the illicit dance, resembles no one so much as Dionysus, who, like his manifestation as Pan, was sometimes portrayed with horns and tail, and his companion satyrs. As Steven Lonsdale writes:
Like the satyr, the Devil is a rakishly handsome man with at least one cloven hoof, a long tail, horns or goat's ears. Both are master musiciansâthe satyr plays the lyre or pipes, the Devil the violin. Both scamper in dance-like movements of the goat, performing caprioles. In theatrical embodiment Satan and the satyr again coincide. The Devil, dressed in a furry skin, not unlike the satyrs, performed wild antics, pantomimes and dances akin to those enacted by the chorus in the Greek satyr play. The dramatic effect was one and the same.
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By the thirteenth century, the condemnations of dancing had grown in volume and intensity. The Lateran Council of 1215 instituted a new means of social controlâthe requirement of an annual confession of one's sins to a priestâand one of the sins was dancing, and certainly dancing of the “lascivious” sort. “Immoderate” or “lascivious” dancing was again listed as a confessable sin in an important
summa,
or directory of sins, promulgated in 1317. For the most part, though, the Church aimed its condemnations not at dancing in general but at dancing
within churches
or their immediate
physical environs. E. Louis Backman, a historian of dance in the Christian Church, reports:
summa,
or directory of sins, promulgated in 1317. For the most part, though, the Church aimed its condemnations not at dancing in general but at dancing
within churches
or their immediate
physical environs. E. Louis Backman, a historian of dance in the Christian Church, reports:
Shortly before 1208 the Bishop of Paris forbade dancing in churches, churchyards, and processions ⦠In 1206 the Synod of Cahors threatened with excommunication those who danced inside or in front of churches ⦠The Council of Trier in 1227 forbade three-step and ring-dances and other worldly games in churchyards and churches ⦠A council of Buda, in Hungary, in 1279 exhorted the priests to prevent dancing in churchyards and churches ⦠In Liege it was only dances in churches, porches and churchyards that were forbidden ⦠The Council of Würzburg in 1298 attacked these dances expressly, threatening heavy punishment and describing them as grievous sin.
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In their condemnations, Church officials sometimes described dancingâmeaning especially dancing in churches or their vicinitiesâas a pagan custom, and this is how many medievalists have interpreted it too: Christian churches were often intentionally erected on the sites of preexisting pagan temples, so it was within them that people naturally sought to reenact their ancient rites. Thus the war on dance could be interpreted as a continuation of the Church's war on pre-Christian folk traditions. But European pre-Christian traditions must have been extremely diverseâhow did so many of them manage to culminate in an apparently widespread and uniform habit of dancing in churches? And if the lay public was so bent on performing its “pagan” dances, why not avoid ecclesiastical censure by doing so on secular turf?
The most likely explanation is that, despite the volume and duration of official condemnations, church dancing was in fact a long-standing Christian custom. We have already seen the evidence for liturgical dancing in the early Church, and there is far sturdier evidence of dancing within or around medieval churches. For example, a twelfth-century traveler in Wales described ecstatic dancing on St. Eluned's Day:
You can see young men and maidens, some in the church itself, some in the churchyard and others in the dance which wends its way round the graves. They sing traditional songs, all of a sudden they collapse on the ground, and then those who, until now, have followed their leader peacefully as if in a trance, leap up in the air as if seized by frenzy.
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In fact, there is ample evidence that priests themselves joined in or even led medieval church dancing. In the twelfth century, the rector of the University of Paris related that there were some churches in which bishops and even archbishops on certain occasions played games with their parishioners and danced openly. In other places, we learn that it was customary for deacons to dance on St. Stephen's Day, priests on St. John's Day, and choirboys on Innocents' Day.
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In Limoges, the priests performed an annual ringdance in the choir of the church. In some bishoprics, a new priest was expected to enliven his first mass by performing a sacral dance.
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According to the medievalist Penelope Doob, the custom of dancing in churches was firmly enough engrained to be inscribed into the very architecture of medieval Catholicism. She offers evidence that labyrinths built into the pavements of church navesâa common feature of twelfth- and thirteenth-century French and Italian church architectureâwere designed to serve as aids to a winding, circular dance performed by priests at Easter: “Labyrinth and dance together ⦠constitute a celebratory dance performed by religious [i.e., priests and nuns] ⦠a dance that incidentally imitates and invokes cosmic order and eternal bliss.”
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In Limoges, the priests performed an annual ringdance in the choir of the church. In some bishoprics, a new priest was expected to enliven his first mass by performing a sacral dance.
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According to the medievalist Penelope Doob, the custom of dancing in churches was firmly enough engrained to be inscribed into the very architecture of medieval Catholicism. She offers evidence that labyrinths built into the pavements of church navesâa common feature of twelfth- and thirteenth-century French and Italian church architectureâwere designed to serve as aids to a winding, circular dance performed by priests at Easter: “Labyrinth and dance together ⦠constitute a celebratory dance performed by religious [i.e., priests and nuns] ⦠a dance that incidentally imitates and invokes cosmic order and eternal bliss.”
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Were there perhaps very different kinds of dances going on in the churchesâdecorous ones performed by clerics versus “indecent” ones indulged in by the laity? Possibly, but there is reason to believe that the clerics themselves were not always sober and restrained. Church discipline over its own priests was weak and unreliable; many lived openly with their mistresses, few were thoroughly literate in the official Church language, Latin. Priests were sometimes criticized not only for dancing in cathedrals but for
certain unseemly activities involving choirboys and women that often accompanied it. Until late in the fourteenth century, newly inducted monks and nuns danced when they took their vowsâan activity that was finally prohibited on account of the “wild behaviour” that ensued. So it is not really possible, Backman admitted, to clearly distinguish medieval “sacred” and “popular” forms of dancing.
certain unseemly activities involving choirboys and women that often accompanied it. Until late in the fourteenth century, newly inducted monks and nuns danced when they took their vowsâan activity that was finally prohibited on account of the “wild behaviour” that ensued. So it is not really possible, Backman admitted, to clearly distinguish medieval “sacred” and “popular” forms of dancing.
But if dancing in churches was a venerable Christian tradition, why did so many powerful elements in the Church oppose it, or come to oppose it, in the thirteenth century? One motivation was probably a fear of the disorder that could be unleashed if whole congregations were moved to get up and engage in vigorous motion. When Church authorities in Wells, in England, banned dances and games from their cathedral in 1338, they cited the damage to church property, which suggests that dancing within churches was not a reliably decorous affair. And there was good reason for the Church to be fearful of the laity, especially its low-income majority: Christian doctrine upheld the virtues of poverty, but the late medieval Church had itself become a huge concentration of wealth, in the form of farmlands, monasteries and convents, as well as the visible luxury enjoyed by ecclesiastical higher-ups. Better, given this inherent paradox in medieval Christianity, for the laity to be kept as immobile as possible, at least in church.
Furthermore, the Church was determined to maintain its monopoly over human access to the divine. If religious dancing became ecstatic dancingâand the stories of dancers being “possessed” by the devil suggest that it sometimes may haveâthen ordinary people might get the idea that they could approach the deity on their own (as did, for example, the ancient worshippers of Dionysus) without the mediation of Catholic officialdom. Certainly the Church has a long history of suppressing enthusiasm, in the ancient Greek sense of being filled with, or possessed by, the deity. Consider the Church's vacillating attitude toward the flagellation fad that swept through the Italian and German lower classes in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. At first Church officials
encouraged self-flagellation as a form of public penance, but as the movement grew it took on ecstaticâand often anticlericalâovertones. The flagellants moved in large groups from town to town, beating themselves in a rhythm set by religious songs sung, daringly enough, in the vernacular, and perhaps achievingâif only as an escape from the physical painâaltered states of consciousness. In 1349, a papal bull outlawed the flagellant movement, which had achieved the size and militancy of an insurrection.
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encouraged self-flagellation as a form of public penance, but as the movement grew it took on ecstaticâand often anticlericalâovertones. The flagellants moved in large groups from town to town, beating themselves in a rhythm set by religious songs sung, daringly enough, in the vernacular, and perhaps achievingâif only as an escape from the physical painâaltered states of consciousness. In 1349, a papal bull outlawed the flagellant movement, which had achieved the size and militancy of an insurrection.
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The most flamboyant form of what might be called “ecstatic dissent,” however, was the dance manias that rocked parts of northern Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and Italy a century later. The first outbreak sounds like another cautionary tale about the perils of dancing: In Utrecht in the summer of 1278, two hundred people started dancing on the bridge over the Mosel and would not stop until it collapsed, at which point all the dancers drowned.
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A hundred years later, in the wake of the Black Death, a much larger outbreak of dance mania again struck Germany and spilled out into Belgium: “Peasants left their plows, mechanics their workshops, house-wives their domestic duties, to join the wild revels.” Arriving in Aix-la-Chapelle (now the German town of Aachen), “they formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to have lost all control over their senses, continued dancing, regardless of the by-standers, for hours together in wild delirium, until they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion.”
13
We have, unfortunately, no testimonies from the dancers themselves, but contemporary observers saw them in a condition ethnographers would now describe as a
possession trance.
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A hundred years later, in the wake of the Black Death, a much larger outbreak of dance mania again struck Germany and spilled out into Belgium: “Peasants left their plows, mechanics their workshops, house-wives their domestic duties, to join the wild revels.” Arriving in Aix-la-Chapelle (now the German town of Aachen), “they formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to have lost all control over their senses, continued dancing, regardless of the by-standers, for hours together in wild delirium, until they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion.”
13
We have, unfortunately, no testimonies from the dancers themselves, but contemporary observers saw them in a condition ethnographers would now describe as a
possession trance.
While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions [with the exception, one might guess, of the music they danced to] ⦠but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out ⦠Others, during the paroxysm, saw the heavens open and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary.
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Hence the Church authorities' worry that the “manias” represented a new form of heresy: Nothing is more threatening to a hierarchical religion than the possibility of ordinary laypeople's finding their own way into the presence of the gods.
The dance manias of the late Middle Ages have fascinated scholars ever since, most of whom have inclined toward medical explanations of this baffling and sometimes self-destructive behavior. J. C. Hecker, the nineteenth-century physician who chronicled the dancing manias, proposed that the dancers were inspired by some “inward morbid condition which was transferred from the sensorium to the nerves of motion,”
15
and the search for an exact physical diagnosis has continued into the present time. A 1997 article, for example, describes the “Dancing Plague” as “a public health conundrum,” the “etiology” of which remains a mystery.
16
In Italy, the dancing manias that broke out in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries were often blamed on the bite of the tarantula, although the same kind of dance (called the tarantella, after the spider) was also believed to
prevent
the spider's bite and subsequent illness. Another favorite explanation is ergot poisoning caused by a fungus that grew on rye, a common grain in the German sites of dancing mania. But rye does not grow in Italy, nor do tarantulas menace Germans, and neither of these suspected agents of the “plague”âergot or spider poisonâhas since been found to induce anything resembling dancing mania.
15
and the search for an exact physical diagnosis has continued into the present time. A 1997 article, for example, describes the “Dancing Plague” as “a public health conundrum,” the “etiology” of which remains a mystery.
16
In Italy, the dancing manias that broke out in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries were often blamed on the bite of the tarantula, although the same kind of dance (called the tarantella, after the spider) was also believed to
prevent
the spider's bite and subsequent illness. Another favorite explanation is ergot poisoning caused by a fungus that grew on rye, a common grain in the German sites of dancing mania. But rye does not grow in Italy, nor do tarantulas menace Germans, and neither of these suspected agents of the “plague”âergot or spider poisonâhas since been found to induce anything resembling dancing mania.
There is another reason to rule out any form of toxin, whether ingested by or injected into the “victims” of dancing mania: The manias were contagious and could be spread by visual contact alone. Bystanders might first watch in amazement and then, overcome by the music provided by the bands of musicians who traveled with the dancers, find themselves swept up by the dance as well. As Hecker, still clinging to a disease model, put it, “Inquisitive females [in Italy] joined the throng and caught the disease, not indeed from the poison of the spider, but from the mental poison which they eagerly received through the eye.”
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At one point, eleven hundred people
danced simultaneously in the city of Metz, utterly resistant to the priests' attempts to exorcise whatever demons were driving them. All this is reminiscent of the Dionysian revels described by Euripides: a contagious mania, pulling people away from their normal occupations, and indifferent to the disapproval of authorities. But in the medieval dancing manias, we can also discern faint political overtones, perhaps even a half-conscious form of dissent. It was the poor who were most likely to be stricken, and they often experienced their affliction as a cure for what Hecker describes as “a distressing uneasiness,” marked by dejection and anxiety, or what we would now call depression. Moreover, the dancers often turned violently against the priests who tried to drive out the demons: “The possessed assembling in multitudes, frequently poured forth imprecations against them, and menaced their destruction.”
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17
At one point, eleven hundred people
danced simultaneously in the city of Metz, utterly resistant to the priests' attempts to exorcise whatever demons were driving them. All this is reminiscent of the Dionysian revels described by Euripides: a contagious mania, pulling people away from their normal occupations, and indifferent to the disapproval of authorities. But in the medieval dancing manias, we can also discern faint political overtones, perhaps even a half-conscious form of dissent. It was the poor who were most likely to be stricken, and they often experienced their affliction as a cure for what Hecker describes as “a distressing uneasiness,” marked by dejection and anxiety, or what we would now call depression. Moreover, the dancers often turned violently against the priests who tried to drive out the demons: “The possessed assembling in multitudes, frequently poured forth imprecations against them, and menaced their destruction.”
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