How did medieval people dance? (2013) | Hacker News Reader

How did medieval people dance? (2013)

medievalists.net

59 pointsgpvos19 comments

I like the detail about how the most detailed accounts came from old people writing about how kids these days are going straight to hell. Some things never change.

That is interesting. I would think that someone from today who considers the manner in which current youth dance to be sinful would have no problem with the Carole dance. I have to wonder, was there a manner of dance that proceeded the Carole dance that the quoted medieval theologians would have found acceptable?

A dance that didn't involve men and women holding hands.

Indeed--as Socrates is famously quoted, around 2400 years ago:

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room.”

On the other hand, he did enjoy dancing, considering:

“Music and dance are two arts that complement each other and form the beauty and power that are the basis of happiness.”

http://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/wonderful-advice-from-so...

I believe that quote is incorrectly attributed to Socrates. See: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-childre...

Which is kind of missing the point, as the original source was summarizing what people where complaining about 2500 years ago.

That's great--it felt out of character anyway, though it's funny. Thanks for the correction!

The really interesting question is, was the author of the quote actually right at that time or not? Some generations are laziers when it comes to sport then others, some are more authority following then others.

the dance “is a circle whose centre is the Devil, and in it all turn to the left, because all are heading towards everlasting death."

anyone else immediately wonder what turning right would have implied in the 13th century?

It would be counterclockwise, and therefore also of the devil (though maybe according to other people?).

I seem to remember something about some peoples having clockwise and others counterclockwise dances, according to whether their pagan gods were sun- or moon-based.

I think the most interesting thing about this article was how they handled ads/micropayments. It detected my ad blocker and asked, "Hey, we see you have an ad blocker, disable your ad blocker or each article is 10c, we'll spot you a dollar, are you cool with that?" Yes, yes I am. That's totally reasonable.

Yeah wow. I just deleted the element blocking my view but that's strange. Ad blockers will just easily stop this countermeasure.

(Not that its unreasonable but I just want to scan the page for a few seconds to see if it's interesting or just has a clickbait title and I'm not paying 10 cents for every clickbait title on the internet.

That sounds a lot like modern country line-dancing. There's a simplified step that anyone can learn in just a minute or two. It's repeated. It's usually accompanied by singing from the dancers (in my experience).

I don't think it's as much like line dancing as it is like a dance that was popular up here in Wisconsin in my youth. (Which was a VERY long time ago.)

Anyway, it was called dancing the maypole. It was slightly different. But it sounds extremely similar to the "Carole" described in the article. Maybe there is some kind of connection to the maypole there? My understanding was that the maypole came to us via the connection of farming to solstice to harvest celebrations. But the old people might have been filling me full of nonsense. Because this "Carole" sounds WAY to similar for it to be coincidence.

We have maypole dances in New York! I have fond memories of doing them as a kid (I'm in my early 20s).

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the Carole was related to the Maypole, particularly versions that use Morris dancing[1] (as ours did).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_dance

Funny how different cultures have "go around something and dance in sync" dances. Bon odori is the one I know in Japan, which originated in the 14~1500s, and is still fun to do today.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e7SoUIKWkqc

This article doesnt seem to be accessible on mobile. It's just an interstitial.

Sounds very like Sardana [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardana

A Carole? https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=MAmpBFA988k

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