The Dance of Death. Douce Francis

      Wrote thys tale so merveylous;

      Setthe was hys name of more renoun,

      Men called him the Pope Leon;

      Thys at the courte of Rome they wyte,

      And yn the kronykeles hyt ys write;

      Yn many stedys23 beyounde the see,

      More than ys yn thys cuntre:

      Tharfor men seye an weyl ys trowed,

      The nere the cherche the further fro God.

      So fare men here by thys tale,

      Some holde it but a trotevale,24

      Yn other stedys hyt ys ful dere,

      And for grete merveyle they wyl hyt here.

      In the French copies the story is said to have been taken from the itinerary of St. Clement. The name of the girl who lost her arm is Marcent, and her brother’s John.25

      Previously to entering upon the immediate subject of this Essay, it may be permitted to observe, that a sort of Death’s dance was not unknown to the ancients. It was the revelry of departed souls in Elysium, as may be collected from the end of the fourth ode of Anacreon. Among the Romans this practice is exemplified in the following lines of Tibullus.

      And Virgil has likewise alluded to it:

      In the year 1810 several fragments of sculptured sarcophagi were accidentally discovered near Cuma, on one of which were represented three dancing skeletons,28 indicating, as it is ingeniously supposed, that the passage from death to another state of existence has nothing in it that is sorrowful, or capable of exciting fear. They seem to throw some light on the above lines from Virgil and Tibullus.

      At a meeting of the Archæological Society at Rome, in December, 1831, M. Kestner exhibited a Roman lamp on which were three dancing skeletons, and such are said to occur in one of the paintings at Pompeii.

      In the Grand Duke of Tuscany’s museum at Florence there is an ancient gem, that, from its singularity and connexion with the present subject, is well deserving of notice. It represents an old man, probably a shepherd, clothed in a hairy garment. He sits upon a stone, his right foot resting on a globe, and is piping on a double flute, whilst a skeleton dances grotesquely before him. It might be a matter of some difficulty to explain the recondite meaning of this singular subject.29

      Notwithstanding the interdiction in several councils against the practice of dancing in churches and church-yards, it was found impossible to abolish it altogether; and it therefore became necessary that something of a similar, but more decorous, nature should be substituted, which, whilst it afforded recreation and amusement, might, at the same time, convey with it a moral and religious sensation. It is, therefore, extremely probable, that, in furtherance of this intention, the clergy contrived and introduced the Dance or Pageant of Death, or, as it was sometimes called, the Dance of Macaber, for reasons that will hereafter appear. Mr. Warton states, “that in many churches of France there was an ancient show, or mimickry, in which all ranks of life were personated by the ecclesiastics, who danced together, and disappeared one after another.”30 Again, speaking of Lydgate’s poem on this subject, he says, “these verses, founded on a sort of spiritual masquerade antiently celebrated in churches, &c.”31 M. Barante, in his History of the Dukes of Burgundy, adverting to the entertainments that took place at Paris when Philip le Bon visited that city in 1424, observes, “that these were not solely made for the nobility, the common people being likewise amused from the month of August to the following season of Lent with the Dance of Death in the church yard of the Innocents, the English being particularly gratified with this exhibition, which included all ranks and conditions of men, Death being, morally, the principal character.”32 Another French historian, M. de Villeneuve Bargemont, informs us that the Duke of Bedford celebrated his victory at Verneuil by a festival in the centre of the French capital. The rest of what this writer has recorded on the subject before us will be best given in his own words, “Nous voulons parler de cette fameuse procession qu’on vit defiler dans les rues de Paris, sous le nom de danse Macabrée ou infernale, epouvantable divertissement, auquel présidoit un squelette ceint du diadême royal, tenant un sceptre dans ses mains décharnées et assis sur un trône resplendissant d’or et de pierreries. Ce spectacle repoussant, mêlange odieux de deuil et de joie, inconnu jusqu’alors, et qui ne s’est jamais renouvellé, n’eut guere pour témoins que des soldats étrangers, ou quelques malheureux échappés à tous les fléaux réunis, et qui avoient vu descendre tous leurs parens, tous leurs amis, dans ces sepulchres qu’on dépouilloit alors de leurs ossemens.”33 A third French writer has also treated the Dance of Death as a spectacle exhibited in like manner to the people of Paris.34 M. Peignot, to whom the reader is obliged for these historical notices in his ingenious researches on the present subject, very plausibly conceives that their authors have entirely mistaken the sense of an old chronicle or journal under Charles VI. and VII. which he quotes in the following words. – “Item. L’an 1424 fut faite la Danse Maratre (pour Macabre) aux Innocens, et fut comencée environ le moys d’Aoust et achevée au karesme suivant. En l’an 1429 le cordelier Richard preschant aux Innocens estoit monté sur ung hault eschaffaut qui estoit près de toise et demie de hault, le dos tourné vers les charniers encontre la charounerie, à l’endroit de la danse Macabre.” He observes, that the Dance of Death at the Innocents, having been commenced in August and finished at the ensuing Lent, could not possibly be represented by living persons, but was only a painting, the large dimensions of which required six months to complete it; and that a single Death must, in the other case, have danced with every individual belonging to the scene.35 He might have added, that such a proceeding would have been totally at variance with the florid, but most inaccurate, description by M. Bargemont. The reader will, therefore, most probably feel inclined to adopt the opinion of M. Peignot, that the Dance of Death was not performed by living persons between 1424 and 1429.

      But although M. Peignot may have triumphantly demonstrated that this subject was not exhibited by living persons at the above place and period, it by no means follows that it was not so represented at some other time, and on some other spot. Accordingly, in the archives of the cathedral of Besançon, there is preserved an article respecting a delivery made to one of the officers of Saint John the Evangelist of four measures of wine, to be given to those persons who performed the Dance of Death after mass was concluded. This is the article itself, “Sexcallus [seneschallus] solvat D. Joanni Caleti matriculario S. Joannis quatuor simasias vini per dictum matricularium exhibitas illis qui choream Machabeorum fecerunt 10 Julii, 1453, nuper lapsa hora misse in ecclesia S. Joannis Evangeliste propter capitulum provinciale fratrum Minorum.”36 This document then will set the matter completely at rest.

      At what time the personified exhibition of this pageant commenced, or when it was discontinued cannot now be correctly ascertained. If, from a moral spectacle, it became a licentious ceremony, as is by no means improbable, in imitation of electing a boy-bishop, of the feast of fools, or other similar absurdities, its termination may be looked for in the authority of some ecclesiastical council at present not easily to be traced.

      CHAPTER II