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THE DANCE OF DEATH.
[Illustration]
The Dance of Death
EXHIBITED IN ELEGANT ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD
WITH A DISSERTATION
ON THE SEVERAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THAT SUBJECT
BUT MORE PARTICULARLY ON THOSE ASCRIBED TO
Macaber and Hans Holbein
BY FRANCIS DOUCE ESQ. F. A. S.
AND A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF NORMANDY
AND OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ETC. AT CAEN
Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres. HORAT. lib. i. od. 4.
LONDON
WILLIAM PICKERING
1833
C. Whittingham, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane.
PREFACE.
The very ample discussion which the extremely popular subject of the Dance
of Death has already undergone might seem to preclude the necessity of
attempting to bestow on it any further elucidation; nor would the present
Essay have ever made its appearance, but for certain reasons which are
necessary to be stated.
The beautiful designs which have been, perhaps too implicitly, regarded as
the invention of the justly celebrated painter, Hans Holbein, are chiefly
known in this country by the inaccurate etchings of most of them by
Wenceslaus Hollar, the copper-plates of which having formerly become the
property of Mr. Edwards, of Pall Mall, were published by him, accompanied
by a very hasty and imperfect dissertation; which, with fewer faults, and
considerable enlargement, is here again submitted to public attention. It
is appended to a set of fac-similes of the above-mentioned elegant
designs, and which, at a very liberal expense that has been incurred by
the proprietor and publisher of this volume, have been executed with
consummate skill and fidelity by Messrs. Bonner and Byfield, two of our
best artists in the line of wood engraving. They may very justly be
regarded as scarcely distinguishable from their fine originals.
The remarks in the course of this Essay on a supposed German poet, under
the name of Macaber, and the discussion relating to Holbein's connection
with the Dance of Death, may perhaps be found interesting to the critical
reader only; but every admirer of ancient art will not fail to be
gratified by an intimate acquaintance with one of its finest specimens in
the copy which is here so faithfully exhibited.
In the latest and best edition of some new designs for a Dance of Death,
by Salomon Van Rusting, published by John George Meintel at Nuremberg,
1736, 8vo. there is an elaborate preface by him, with a greater portion of
verbosity than information. He has placed undue confidence in his
predecessor, Paul Christian Hilscher, whose work, printed at Dresden in
1705, had probably misled the truly learned Fabricius in what he has said
concerning Macaber in his valuable work, the "Bibliotheca mediae et infimae
aetatis." Meintel confesses his inability to point out the origin or the
inventor of the subject. The last and completest work on the Dance, or
Dances of Death, is that of the ingenious M. Peignot, so well and
deservedly known by his numerous and useful books on bibliography. To this
gentleman the present Essay has been occasionally indebted. He will,
probably, at some future opportunity, remove the whimsical misnomer in his
engraving of Death and the Ideot.
The usual title, "The Dance of Death," which accompanies most of the
printed works, is not altogether appropriate. It may indeed belong to the
old Macaber painting and other similar works where Death is represented in
a sort of dancing and grotesque attitude in the act of leading a single
character; but where the subject consists of several figures, yet still
with occasional exception, they are rather to be regarded as elegant
emblems of human mortality in the premature intrusion of an unwelcome and
inexorable visitor.
It must not be supposed that the republication of this singular work is
intended to excite the lugubrious sensations of sanctified devotees, or of
terrified sinners; for, awful and impressive as must ever be the
contemplation of our mortality in the mind of the philosopher and
practiser of true religion, the mere sight of a skeleton cannot, as to
them, excite any alarming sensation whatever. It is chiefly addressed to
the ardent admirers of ancient art and pictorial invention; but
nevertheless with a hope that it may excite a portion of that general
attention to the labours of past ages, which reflects so much credit on
the times in which we live.
The widely scattered materials relating to the subject of the Dance of
Death, and the difficulty of reconciling much discordant information, must
apologize for a few repetitions in the course of this Essay, the regular
progress of which has been too often interrupted by the manner in which
matter of importance is so obscurely and defectively recorded; instances
of which are, the omission of the name of the painter in the otherwise
important dedication to the first edition of the engravings on wood of the
Dance of Death that was published at Lyons; the uncertainty as to locality
in some complimentary lines to Holbein by his friend Borbonius, and the
want of more particulars in the account by Nieuhoff of Holbein's painting
at Whitehall.
The designs for the Dance of Death, published at Lyons in 1538, and
hitherto regarded as the invention of Holbein, are, in the course of this
Dissertation, referred to under the appellation of _the Lyons wood-cuts_;
and with respect to the term _Macaber_, which has been so mistakenly used
as the name of a real author, it has been nevertheless preserved on the
same principle that the word _Gothic_ has been so generally adopted for
the purpose of designating the pointed style of architecture in the middle
ages.
F. D.
CONTENTS.
Page
CHAPTER I.
Personification of Death, and other modes of representing it
among the Ancients.--Same subject during the Middle Ages.--
Erroneous notions respecting Death.--Monumental
absurdities.--Allegorical pageant of the Dance of Death
represented in early times by living persons in churches and
cemeteries.--Some of these dances described.--Not unknown to
the Ancients.--Introduction of the infernal, or dance of
Macaber 1
CHAPTER II.
Places where the Dance of Death was sculptured or depicted.--
Usually accompanied by verses describing the several
characters.--Other metrical compositions on the Dance 17
CHAPTER III.
Macaber not a German or any other poet, but a nonentity.--
Corruption and confusion respecting this word.--Etymological
errors concerning it.--How connected with the Dance.--Trois
mors et trois vifs.--Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at
Pisa.--Its connection with the trois mors et trois vifs, as
well as with the Macaber Dance.--Saint Macarius the real
Macaber.--Paintings of this dance in various places.--At
Minden; Church-yard of the Innocents at Paris; Dijon; Basle;
Klingenthal; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth;
Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Amiens; Rouen; Fescamp; Blois;
Strasburg; Berlin; Vienna; Holland; Italy; Spain 28
CHAPTER IV.
Macaber Dance in England.--St. Paul's.--Salisbury.--
Wortley-hall.--Hexham.--Croydon.--Tower of London.--Lines in
Pierce Plowman's Vision supposed to refer to it 51
CHAPTER V.
List of editions of the Macaber Dance.--Printed Horae that
contain it.--Manuscript Horae.--Other Manuscripts in which it
occurs.--Various articles with letter-press, not being single
prints, but connected with it 55
CHAPTER VI.
Hans Holbein's connection with the Dance of Death.--A dance
of peasants at Basle.--Lyons edition of the Dance of Death,
1538.--Doubts as to any prior edition.--Dedication to the
edition of 1538.--Mr. Ottley's opinion of it examined.--
Artists supposed to have been connected with this work.--
Holbein's name in none of the old editions.--Reperdius 78
CHAPTER VII.
Holbein's Bible cuts.--Examination of the claim of Hans
Lutzenberger as to the design or execution of the Lyons
engravings of the Dance of Death.--Other works by him 94
CHAPTER VIII.
List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of
Death with the mark of Lutzenberger.--Copies of them on
wood.--Copies on copper by anonymous artists.--By Wenceslaus
Hollar.--Other anonymous artists.--Nieuhoff Picard.--
Rusting.--Mechel.--Crozat's drawings.--Deuchar.--Imitations
of some of the subjects 103
CHAPTER IX.
Further examination of Holbein's title.--Borbonius.--
Biographical notice of Holbein.--Painting of a Dance of Death
at Whitehall by him 138
CHAPTER X.
Other Dances of Death 146
CHAPTER XI.
Dances of Death, with such text only as describes the subjects 160
CHAPTER XII.
Books in which the subject is occasionally introduced 168
CHAPTER XIII.
Books of emblems and fables.--Frontispieces and title-pages
in some degree connected with the Dance of Death 179
CHAPTER XIV.
Single prints connected with the Dance of Death 188
CHAPTER XV.
Initial or capital Letters with the Dance of Death 213
CHAPTER XVI.
Paintings.--Drawings.--Miscellaneous 221
CHAPTER XVII.
Trois vifs et trois morts.--Negro figure of Death.--Danse aux
Aveugles 228
CHAPTER XVIII.
Errors of various writers who have introduced the subject of
the Dance of Death 233
ERRATA.
Page 7, line 25, for _Boistuan_ read _Boistuau_.
7, ... 26, for _Prodigeuses_ read _Prodigieuses_.
28, ... 14, read _in Holland_, &c.
32, ... 23, for _Lamorensi_ read _Zamorensi_.
81, ... 4, for _fex_ read _sex_.
88, ... 10, after _difficulty_ add ?
89, ... 21, after _works_ add "
180, ... 23, for _Typotia_ read _Typotii_.
197, ... 8, for _Stradamus_ read _Stradanus_.
THE Dance of Death.
CHAPTER I.
_Personification of Death, and other modes of representing it among
the Ancients.--Same subject during the Middle Ages.--Erroneous notions
respecting Death.--Monumental absurdities.--Allegorical pageant of the
Dance of Death represented in early times by living persons in
churches and cemeteries.--Some of these dances described.--Not unknown
to the Ancients.--Introduction of the infernal, or dance of Macaber._
The manner in which the poets and artists of antiquity have symbolized or
personified Death, has excited considerable discussion; and the various
opinions of Lessing, Herder, Klotz, and other controversialists have only
tended to demonstrate that the ancients adopted many different modes to
accomplish this purpose. Some writers have maintained that they
exclusively represented Death as a mere skeleton; whilst others have
contended that this figure, so frequently to be found upon gems and
sepulchral monuments, was never intended to personify the extinction of
human life, but only as a simple and abstract representation. They insist
that the ancients adopted a more elegant and allegorical method for this
purpose; that they represented human mortality by various symbols of
destruction, as birds devouring lizards and serpents, or pecking fruits
and flowers; by goats browsing on vines; cocks fighting, or even by a
Medusa's or Gorgon's head. The Romans seem to have adopted Homer's[1]
definition of Death as the eldest brother of Sleep; and, accordingly, on
several of their monumental and other sculptures we find two winged genii
as the representatives of the above personages, and sometimes a genius
bearing a sepulchral vase on his shoulder, and with a torch reversed in
one of his hands. It is very well known that the ancients often symbolized
the human soul by the figure of a butterfly, an idea that is extremely
obvious and appropriate, as well as elegant. In a very interesting
sepulchral monument, engraved in p. 7 of Spon's Miscellanea Eruditae
Antiquitatis, a prostrate corpse is seen, and over it a butterfly that has
just escaped from the _mouth_ of the deceased, or as Homer expresses it,
"from the teeth's inclosure."[2] The above excellent antiquary has added
the following very curious sepulchral inscription that was found in Spain,
HAEREDIBVS MEIS MANDO ETIAM CINERE VTMEO VOLITET EBRIVS PAPILIO OSSA IPSA
TEGANT MEA, &c. Rejecting this heathen symbol altogether, the painters and
engravers of the middle ages have substituted a small human figure
escaping from the mouths of dying persons, as it were, breathing out their
souls.
We have, however, the authority of Herodotus, that in the banquets of the
Egyptians a person was introduced who carried round the table at which
the guests were seated the figure of a dead body, placed on a coffin,
exclaiming at the same time, "Behold this image of what yourselves will
be; eat and drink therefore, and be happy."[3] Montfaucon has referred to
an ancient manuscript to prove that this sentiment was conveyed in a
Lacedaemonian proverb,[4] and it occurs also in the beautiful poem of
Coppa, ascribed to Virgil, in which he is supposed to invite Maecenas to a
rural banquet. It concludes with these lines:--
Pone merum et talos; pereat qui crastina curat,
Mors aurem vellens, vivite ait, venio.
The phrase of pulling the ear is admonitory, that organ being regarded by
the ancients as the seat of memory. It was customary also, and for the
same reason, to take an oath by laying hold of the ear. It is impossible
on this occasion to forget the passage in Isaiah xxii. 13, afterwards used
by Saint Paul, on the beautiful parable in Luke xii. Plutarch also, in his
banquet of the wise men, has remarked that the Egyptians exhibited a
skeleton at their feasts to remind the parties of the brevity of human
life; the same custom, as adopted by the Romans, is exemplified in
Petronius's description of the feast of Trimalchio, where a jointed
puppet, as a skeleton, is brought in by a boy, and this practice is also
noticed by Silius Italicus:
... AEgyptia tellus
Claudit odorato post funus stantia Saxo
Corpora, et a mensis exsanguem haud separat umbram.[5]
Some have imagined that these skeletons were intended to represent the
larvae and lemures, the good and evil shadows of the dead, that
occasionally made their appearance on earth. The larvae, or lares, were of
a beneficent nature, friendly to man; in other words, the good demon of
Socrates. The lemures, spirits of mischief and wickedness. The larva in
Petronius was designed to admonish only, not to terrify; and this is
proved from Seneca: "Nemo tam puer est ut Cerberum timeat et tenebras, et
larvarum habitum nudis ossibus cohaerentium."[6] There is, however, some
confusion even among the ancients themselves, as to the respective
qualities of the larvae and lemures. Apuleius, in his noble and interesting
defence against those who accused him of practising magic, tells them,
"Tertium mendacium vestrum fuit, macilentam vel omnino evisceratam formam
diri cadaveris fabricatam prorsus horribilem et larvalem;" and afterwards,
when producing the image of his peculiar Deity, which he usually carried
about him, he exclaims, "En vobis quem scelestus ille sceletum nominabat!
Hiccine est sceletus? Haeccine est larva? Hoccine est quod appellitabatis
Daemonium."[7] It is among Christian writers and artists that the
personification of Death as a skeleton is intended to convey terrific
ideas, conformably to the system that Death is the punishment for original
sin.
The circumstances that lead to Death, and not our actual dissolution, are
alone of a terrific nature; for Death is, in fact, the end and cure of all
the previous sufferings and horrors with which it is so frequently
accompanied. In the dark ages of monkish bigotry and superstition, the
deluded people, seduced into a belief that the fear of Death was
acceptable to the great and beneficent author of their existence, appear
to have derived one of their principal gratifications in contemplating
this necessary termination of humanity, yet amidst ideas and impressions
of the most horrible and disgusting nature: hence the frequent allusions
to it, in all possible ways, among their preachers, and the
personification of it in their books of religious offices, as well as in
the paintings and sculptures of their ecclesiastical and other edifices.
They seemed to have entirely banished from their recollection the
consolatory doctrines of the Gospel, which contribute so essentially to
dissipate the terrors of Death, and which enable the more enlightened
Christian to abide that event with the most perfect tranquillity of mind.
There are, indeed, some exceptions to this remark, for we may still trace
the imbecility of former ages on too many of our sepulchral monuments,
which are occasionally tricked out with the silly appendages of Death's
heads, bones, and other useless remains of mortality, equally repulsive to
the imagination and to the elegance of art.
If it be necessary on any occasion to personify Death, this were surely
better accomplished by means of some graceful and impressive figure of the
Angel of Death, for whom we have the authority of Scripture; and such
might become an established representative. The skulls and bones of
modern, and the entire skeletons of former times, especially during the
middle ages, had, probably, derived their origin from the vast quantities
of sanctified human relics that were continually before the eyes, or
otherwise in the recollection of the early Christians. But the favourite
and principal emblem of mortality among our ancestors appears to have been
the moral and allegorical pageant familiarly known by the appellation of
the _Dance of Death_, which it has, in part, derived from the grotesque,
and often ludicrous attitudes of the figures that composed it, and
especially from the active and sarcastical mockery of the ruthless tyrant
upon its victims, which may be, in a great measure, attributed to the
whims and notions of the artists who were employed to represent the
subject.
It is very well known to have been the practice in very early times to
profane the temples of the Deity with indecorous dancing, and ludicrous
processions, either within or near them, in imitation, probably, of
similar proceedings in Pagan times. Strabo mentions a custom of this
nature among the Celtiberians,[8] and it obtained also among several of
the northern nations before their conversion to Christianity. A Roman
council, under Pope Eugenius II. in the 9th century, has thus noticed it:
"Ut sacerdotes admoneant viros ac mulieres, qui festis diebus ad ecclesiam
occurrunt, ne _ballando_ et turpia verba decantando choros teneant, ac
ducunt, similitudinem Paganorum peragendo." Canciani mentions an ancient
bequest of money for a dance in honour of the Virgin.[9]
These riotous and irreverent tripudists and caperers appear to have
possessed themselves of the church-yards to exhibit their dancing
fooleries, till this profanation of consecrated ground was punished, as
monkish histories inform us, with divine vengeance. The well-known
Nuremberg Chronicle[10] has recorded, that in the time of the Emperor
Henry the Second, whilst a priest was saying mass on Christmas Eve, in the
church of Saint Magnus, in the diocese of Magdeburg, a company of eighteen
men and ten women amused themselves with dancing and singing in the
church-yard, to the hindrance of the priest in his duty. Notwithstanding
his admonition, they refused to desist, and even derided the words he
addressed to them. The priest being greatly provoked at their conduct,
prayed to God and Saint Magnus that they might remain dancing and singing
for a whole year without intermission, and so it happened; neither dew nor
rain falling upon them. Hunger and fatigue were set at defiance, nor were
their shoes or garments in the least worn away. At the end of the year
they were released from their situation by Herebert, the archbishop of the
diocese in which the event took place, and obtained forgiveness before
the altar of the church; but not before the daughter of a priest and two
others had perished; the rest, after sleeping for the space of three whole
nights, died soon afterwards. Ubert, one of the party, left this story
behind him, which is elsewhere recorded, with some variation and
additional matter. The dance is called St. Vitus's, and the girl is made
the daughter of a churchwarden, who having taken her by the arm, it came
off, but she continued dancing. By the continual motion of the dancers
they buried themselves in the earth to their waists. Many princes and
others went to behold this strange spectacle, till the bishops of Cologne
and Hildesheim, and some other devout priests, by their prayers, obtained
the deliverance of the culprits; four of the party, however, died
immediately, some slept three days and three nights, some three years, and
others had trembling in their limbs during the whole of their lives. The
Nuremberg Chronicle, crowded as it is with wood-cut embellishments by the
hand of Wolgemut, the master of Albert Durer, has not omitted to exhibit
the representations of the above unhappy persons, equally correct, no
doubt, as the story itself, though the same warranty cannot be offered for
a similar representation, in Gottfried's Chronicle and that copious
repertory of monstrosities, Boistuau and Belleforest's Histoires
Prodigieuses. The Nuremberg Chronicle[11] has yet another relation on this
subject of some persons who continued dancing and singing on a bridge
whilst the eucharist was passing over it. The bridge gave way in the
middle, and from one end of it 200 persons were precipitated into the
river Moselle, the other end remaining so as to permit the priest and his
host to pass uninjured.
In that extremely curious work, the Manuel de Peche, usually ascribed to
Bishop Grosthead, the pious author, after much declamation against the
vices of the times, has this passage:--
Karoles ne lutes ne deit nul fere,
En seint eglise ki me voil crere;
Kas en cimetere karoler,
Utrage est grant u lutter.[12]
He then relates the story in the Nuremberg Chronicle, for which he quotes
the book of Saint Clement. Grosthead's work was translated about the year
1300 into English verse by Robert Mannyng, commonly called Robert de
Brunne, a Gilbertine canon. His translation often differs from his
original, with much amplification and occasional illustrations by himself.
As the account of the Nuremberg story varies so materially, and as the
scene is laid in England, it has been thought worth inserting.
Karolles wrastelynges or somour games,
Whosoever haunteth any swyche shames,
Yn cherche other yn cherche yerd,
Of sacrilage he may be aferd;
Or entyrludes or syngynge,
Or tabure bete or other pypynge;
All swyche thyng forboden es,
Whyle the prest stondeth at messe;
But for to leve in cherche for to daunce,
Y shall you telle a full grete chaunce,
And y trow the most that fel,
Ys sothe as y you telle.
And fyl thys chaunce yn thys londe,
Yn Ingland as y undyrstonde,
Yn a kynges tyme that hyght Edward,
Fyl this chaunce that was so hard.
Hyt was upon crystemesse nyzt
That twelve folys a karolle dyzt,
Yn Wodehed, as hyt were yn cuntek,[13]
They come to a toune men calle Cowek:[14]
The cherche of the toune that they to come,
Ys of Seynt Magne that suffred martyrdome,
Of Seynt Bukcestre hyt ys also,
Seynt Magnes suster, that they come to;
Here names of all thus fonde y wryte,
And as y wote now shal ye wyte
Here lodesman[15] that made hem glew,[16]
Thus ys wryte he hyzte[17] Gerlew;
Twey maydens were yn here coveyne,
Mayden Merswynde[18] and Wybessyne;
All these came thedyr for that enchesone,} doghtyr
Of the prestes of the toune. }
The prest hyzt Robert as y can ame,
Azone hyzt hys sone by name,
Hys doghter that there men wulde have,
Thus ys wryte that she hyzt Ave.
Echone consented to o wyl,
Who shuld go Ave out to tyl,
They graunted echone out to sende,
Bothe Wybessyne and Merswynde:
These women zede and tolled[19] her oute,
Wyth hem to karolle the cherche aboute,
Benne ordeyned here karollyng,
Gerlew endyted what they shuld syng.
Thys ys the karolle that they sunge,
As telleth the Latyn tunge,
Equitabat Bevo per sylvam frondosam,}
Ducebat secum Merwyndam formosam, }
Quid stamus cur non imus. }
By the levede[20] wode rode Bevolyne,
Wyth hym he ledde feyre Merwyne,
Why stonde we why go we noght:
Thys ys the karolle that Grysly wroght,
Thys songe sung they yn chercheyerd,
Of foly were they nothyng aferd.
The party continued dancing and carolling all the matins time, and till
the mass began; when the priest, hearing the noise, came out to the church
porch, and desired them to leave off dancing, and come into the church to
hear the service; but they paid him no regard whatever, and continued
their dance. The priest, now extremely incensed, prayed to God in favour
of St. Magnes, the patron of the church:
That swych a venjeaunce were on hem sent,
Are they out of that stede[21] were went,
That myzt ever ryzt so wende,
Unto that tyme twelvemonth ende.
Yn the Latyne that y fonde thore,
He seyth not twelvemonth but evermore.
The priest had no sooner finished his prayer, than the hands of the
dancers were so locked together that none could separate them for a
twelvemonth:
The preste yede[22] yn whan thys was done,
And comaunded hys sone Azone,
That shuld go swythe after Ave,
Oute of that karolle algate to have;
But al to late that wurde was sayde,
For on hem alle was the venjeaunce leyd.
Azonde wende weyl for to spede
Unto the karolle asswythe he yede;
Hys syster by the arme he hente,
And the arme fro the body wente;
Men wundred alle that there wore,
And merveyle nowe ye here more;
For seythen he had the arme yn hand,
The body yode furth karoland,
And nother body ne the arme
Bled never blode colde ne warme;
But was as drye with al the haunche,
As of a stok were ryve a braunche.
Azone carries his sister's arm to the priest his father, and tells him the
consequences of his rash curse. The priest, after much lamentation, buries
the arm. The next morning it rises out of the grave; he buries it again,
and again it rises. He buries it a third time, when it is cast out of the
grave with considerable violence. He then carries it into the church that
all might behold it. In the meantime the party continued dancing and
singing, without taking any food or sleeping, "only a lepy wynke;" nor
were they in the least affected by the weather. Their hair and nails
ceased to grow, and their garments were neither soiled nor discoloured;
but
Sunge that songge that the wo wrozt,
"Why stond we, why go we nozt."
To see this curious and woful sight, the emperor travels from Rome, and
orders his carpenters and other artificers to inclose them in a building;
but this could not be done, for what was set up one day fell down on the
next, and no covering could be made to protect the sinners till the time
of mercy that Christ had appointed arrived; when, at the expiration of the
twelvemonth, and in the very same hour in which the priest had pronounced
his curse upon them, they were separated, and "in the twynklyng of an eye"
ran into the church and fell down in a swoon on the pavement, where they
lay three days before they were restored. On their recovery they tell the
priest that he will not long survive:
For to thy long home sone shalt thou wende,
All they ryse that yche tyde,
But Ave she lay dede besyde.
Her father dies soon afterwards. The emperor causes Ave's arm to be put
into a vessel and suspended in the church as an example to the spectators.
The rest of the party, although separated, travelled about, but always
dancing; and as they had been inseparable before, they were now not
permitted to remain together. Four of them went hopping to Rome, their
clothes undergoing no change, and their hair and nails not continuing to
grow:
Bruning the Bysshope of Seynt Tolous,
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 stedys[23] 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.
Sed me, quod facilis tenero sum semper Amori,
Ipsa Venus campos ducit in Elysios.
Hic _choreae_ cantusque vigent ...[26]
And Virgil has likewise alluded to it:
Pars pedibus plaudunt _choreas_ et carmina dicunt.[27]
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 Archaeological 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 Macabree ou infernale_, epouvantable divertissement,
auquel presidoit un squelette ceint du diademe royal, tenant un sceptre
dans ses mains decharnees et assis sur un trone resplendissant d'or et de
pierreries. Ce spectacle repoussant, melange odieux de deuil et de joie,
inconnu jusqu'alors, et qui ne s'est jamais renouvelle, n'eut guere pour
temoins que des soldats etrangers, ou quelques malheureux echappes a tous
les fleaux reunis, et qui avoient vu descendre tous leurs parens, tous
leurs amis, dans ces sepulchres qu'on depouilloit 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 comencee environ le moys d'Aoust et achevee au karesme
suivant. En l'an 1429 le cordelier Richard preschant aux Innocens estoit
monte sur ung hault eschaffaut qui estoit pres de toise et demie de hault,
le dos tourne vers les charniers encontre la charounerie, a 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
Besancon, 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.