Urban Courtly Dance
The performance of courtly dances in civic environments was not only a consequence of the travels of royalty and nobility through the Habsburg territories; it was a reflection of the aspirations, education and customs of the German urban elite who sought to adopt courtly behaviour wherever possible, including in dance. The importance of such dances to the cities’ upper classes is indicated in the correspondence of the Nuremberg councillor and humanist, Willibald Pirckheimer, whose circle included the renowned theologian and music theorist Johannes Cochlaeus, the astrologer and physician Lorenz Beheim, and the celebrated artist Albrecht Dürer. In 1515, Cochlaeus had accompanied Pirckheimer’s three nephews on their formative travels to Italy, from where he sent Pirckheimer regular updates on the boys’ progress in their studies. It is from this correspondence that we learn of the Pirckheimers’ interests in Italian dance. In a letter of 17 January 1517, Cochlaeus wrote from Bologna that he had not yet been able to procure details of such dances, as previously requested by Pirckheimer’s daughters back in Nuremberg. In a subsequent letter, of 7 March 1517, Cochlaeus was finally able to fulfil their wishes, enclosing the choreography, written by an unidentified acquaintance, for eight dances that appear in contemporary Italian dance treatises: the famous bassa danza La spagna and seven ‘balli’, six of which have been identified by Ingrid Brainard as dances created by Domenico da Piacenza (» Kap. Dance, Society and Politics). Brainard and Christian Meyer have both commented on the instructions sent by Cochlaeus, which in their simplicity are unlike the complex professional dance treatises prepared by Piacenza and his students - perhaps a result of the directions being written down during or following a dance performance or lesson. Moreover, their lack of detail indicates that Pirckheimer’s daughters back in Nuremberg were already sufficiently well-versed in Italian dance to be able to understand and perform these ‘new’ dances based on the rudimentary instructions conveyed with Cochlaeus’s letter.[36]
Letters to Pirckheimer from other friends present further examples of the interest of Nuremberg’s elite in foreign, courtly dance styles. On 13 October 1506, Albrecht Dürer reported from Venice of his failure to learn dancing in the local style, and in a letter of 21 February 1507, Lorenz Beheim (writing from Bamberg) referred to the public practice of such Italian dances in Nuremberg’s town hall: ‘I have learned from certain people, that you have had fine festivities this Lent, that you have brought here strange spectacles, and, of course, that you have danced in the Italian manner.’[37]
The dance practices to which Pirckheimer and his friends refer were a much sought-after accomplishment for many of those living in the cities of the Empire. These dances allowed the urban elite to adopt the deportment and etiquette appropriate to courtly society, while also enabling the presentation of the participants’ differing social status. Abb. Processional dance at Augsburg’s town hall depicts a dance in the Augsburg town hall c.1500, which highlights the representational function of the processional dances performed there in accordance with courtly customs: the dancers’ names identify each individual as belonging to the elite of the city. Their affluence is indicated by their opulent clothing, the importance of which is affirmed by the piece’s title: ‘Nach cristy gepurt 1500 iar was dise claidung zu Augspurg das ist war’ (‘In A.D. 1500, this was the clothing in Augsburg, as is the truth.’). Georg Habich suggests that Queen Bianca Maria herself can be identified to the left of the picture: she and Maximilian were both present in Augsburg that year for the Reichstag.[38]
Abb. Processional dance at Augsburg's town hall
Processional dance at Augsburg’s town hall; unknown artist c. 1500 (Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S%C3%BCddeutscher_Meister_001.jpg).
[36] Meyer 1981, 64-66, Brainard 1984, Wetzel 1990; also Brinzing 1998, 133-134.
[37] Reicke and Reimann 1940, 439-440 and 496. An English translation of Dürer’s letter is in Fry 1913, 26; Beheim’s letter is translated into French in Meyer 1981, 63.
[38] See Habich 1911, 234; also Kelber 2019, 252.
[1] Unterholzner 2015, 51; Wiesflecker 1971, 372-9.
[2] Annotations on the diary of Reinhart Noltz, Mayor of Worms, in: Boos 1893, 379. Translations of this and the following citations by Helen Coffey, unless stated otherwise.
[3] Neudecker and Preller 1851, 231.
[4] Hegel 1874, 732.
[5] Letter from Barbara Crivelli Stampi to Anna Maria Sforza, Duchess of Ferrara, 24 January 1494. Full transcript in Aigner 2005, 76-7.
[6] Guglielmo di Ebreo claimed that anyone who had studied the exercises in his treatise (1463) would be able to master the dance of any nation. See Nevile 2008, 13.
[7] See note 5.
[8] Amongst the earliest and most significant treatises of the fifteenth century are those prepared by dance masters of the Italian courts, which include Domenico da Piacenza’s De arte saltandi e choreas ducendii (c.1440-50), Antonio Cornazano’s Libro dell’arte del danzare (first version (now lost), 1455; second version, 1465) and Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro’s De Pratica Seu Arte Tripudii (1463). French and Burgundian dance practices and repertoire are conveyed in the basse danse manuscript associated with the Burgundian court of Maximilian’s daughter Margaret (now Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique MS 9085, c.1470-1501) and the related printed treatise L’Art et Instruction de Bien Dancer (published in Paris by Michel Toulouze, in or before 1496). For these, and later dance treatises, see Nevile 2004 and Heartz 1958-1963.
[9] See Heartz 1958-1963 and Heartz and Rader 2001a.
[10] See Heartz 1966; Heartz and Rader 2001b.
[11] Heartz 1958-1963, 290; Nevile 2004, 21.
[12] Sparti 1986, 347; Heartz and Rader 2001a.
[13] Aigner 2005, 45-54; Nevile 2004, 26-7. See also Sparti 1986 and Brainard 2001.
[14] Gombosi 1941, 294, 299-300; Heartz 1958-1963; Strohm 1993, 348, 553.
[15] Aigner 2005, 45-54; Nevile 2004, 26-7.
[16] Heartz 1966, 19. A significant use of the melody occurred in the Missa La Spagna by Henricus Isaac: see Mücke-Wiesenfeldt 2012.
[17] Nevile 2004, 2.
[18] Gombosi 1941, 298; Nevile 2004, 1-3.
[19] Gachard 1876, 305-306; for a German translation of the text, see Jungmann 2002, 65-66.
[20] Fucker 1505 (not paginated), quoted in Kelber 2018, 128.
[21] RI XIV,4,1 n. 15882, in: Regesta Imperii Online: http://www.regesta-imperii.de/id/1502-01-09_1_0_14_4_0_49_15882
[22] Kelber 2018, 124-7.
[23] Forthcoming in Regesta Imperii Online.
[24] Franke and Welzel 2013, 34-40.
[25] Leitner 1880-1882, IV.
[26] Leitner 1880-1882, LIII.
[27] Locke 2015, 115, 117-125; Franke and Welzel 2013; Welker 2013; Vignau-Wilberg 1999, 76.
[28] ‘zu frewden seinem volk und zu eren der frembden geest … ist [er] in sonderhait geren in der mumerey gegangen’. See Schultz 1888, 82-4; also Franke and Welzel 2013, 35 and Kelber 2019, 59.
[29] ‘At in aulicorum suorum nupciis conseuit frequenter conmutatis vestibus in gencium aliquarum ritum personatus coram populo saltare. Qua humanitate atque liberalitate sibi multum fauoris tum principum tum populi precipue soeminarum conciliauit.’ See Chmel 1838, 91 for a transcript of the original text; a German translation is presented in Ilgen 1891, 57-8 and quoted in Gstrein 1987, 94.
[30] Barozzi 1880, 216.
[31] Quoted in Kelber 2018, 123-4.
[32] Letter from Mercurino Arborio di Gattinara to Maximilian’s daughter Margaret, 22 November 1507, quoted in Kooperberg 1908, 363.
[33] Heartz and Rader 2001c; Sutton et al. 2001.
[34] Translation from Guthrie and Zorzi 1986, 19.
[35] See Kelber 2019, 66-67; also Schwindt 2018, 83.
[36] Meyer 1981, 64-66, Brainard 1984, Wetzel 1990; also Brinzing 1998, 133-134.
[37] Reicke and Reimann 1940, 439-440 and 496. An English translation of Dürer’s letter is in Fry 1913, 26; Beheim’s letter is translated into French in Meyer 1981, 63.
[38] See Habich 1911, 234; also Kelber 2019, 252.
[39] Translation adapted from Young 2013, 46. Also cited in » H. Kap. Eine süddeutsche Humanistenkorrespondenz (Markus Grassl), with further explanation.
[40] See Meyer 1981, 63-64, Polk 1992, 141-2.
[41] Translation adapted from Young 2013, 47.
[42] Young 2013, 46.
[43] See Heartz 1966, 19-20 and Polk 1992, 135, 139.
[44] Heartz 1966, 20-26.
[45] Habich 1911, 220. For another pictorial document of civic dancing and musicians, see » E. Kap. Musik im Dienst, und » Abb. Patrizierfest.
[46] See Polk 1992, 141; Brinzing 1998, 139-140; Kelber 2018, 136-8. Further on the MS, see » H. Kap. Schubinger und das Augsburger Liederbuch (Markus Grassl).
[47] For an overview of the restrictions see Brunner 1987.
[48] Stiefel 1949, 135.
[49] Brunner 1987, 58-63; Salmen 2001, 165.
[50] Quoted in Polk 1992, 11.
[51] Nuremberg Staatsarchiv, Rep.60a (Ratsverlässe), Nr.259, fol. 5v.
[52] Brunner 1987, 58.
[53] Salmen 1992, 23; see also Salmen 1995.
[54] Vogeleis 1979, 228.
[55] Salmen 2001, 174.
[56] Ernst 1945, 203.
[57] Schwindt 2018, 83-4.
[58] Gstrein 1987, 81.
[59] Polk 1992, 109. See also » E. Musiker in der Stadt (Reinhard Strohm).
[60] On surviving written sources related to Stadtpfeifer and their music (Maastricht fragment and others), see also Strohm 1992; Brown and Polk 2001, 127.
[61] Polk 2003, 98-104; see also, Heartz 1958-1963, 313-316; Heartz and Rader 2001b.
[62] Polk 1992, 161.
[63] Schünemann 1938, 53.
[64] See Welker 2013, 76.
[65] ‘so ließ die künigliche majestat derselben nacht ein tantz auf dem rathaus halten und mancherlei tentz auf welsche und niderlendische art üben und spil treiben, darin auch der kunig persönlich in einem schempart was.’ in: Hegel 1874, 732.
[66] Several references in the records of Nuremberg’s council refer to permission granted for use of the Stadtpfeifer, Stadtknechte and Schützen for the butchers’ annual Shrovetide dance. See, for example, Nuremberg Staatsarchiv, Rep.60b (Ratsbücher), Nr. 4, fol. 156r (1486), fol. 228v (1487), Nr. 5, fol. 4v (1488) and Nr. 6, fol. 2r (1493). For the development of and sources for the Schembartlauf, see Sumberg 1941 and Roller 1965.
[67] ‘Der ro. kinig und sein sun Philipps sind zü pfingsten 1496 hie gewessen. da hat man 10 füder holtz auff den Fronhoff gefiert, und nach ave Maria zeit ain himelsfeur gehebt, und hertzog Philipp und sein adel haben 3 mall um das feur dantzt, und sind da all trumether gewessen, und hand da ob 10000 menschen dantzt.’ in: Roth 1894, 71-72.
[68] Quoted in Kelber 2018, 128.
[69] Donauwörth Stadtarchiv, Johann Knebel, Stadtchronik (unpublished), fo.206v (cited in correspondence from Donauwörth Stadtarchiv).
[70] Quoted in Gstrein 1987, 86.
[71] Gstrein 1987, 88.
[72] ‘sunst ist noch ein Klein peucklin, das haben die frantzosen und niderlender ser zu den Schwegeln gebraucht, und sunderlich zu dantz, oder zu den hochzyten.’ (there is also a small kettledrum, which the French and Netherlanders have often used, above all for dancing or for weddings). Quoted in Gstrein 1987, 91.
[73] Gstrein 1987, 89; Schwindt 2018, 81-2.
[74] Hoffmann-Axthelm 1983, 96. See also Green 2011, 17.
[75] Sumberg 1941, 88.
[76] Translation from Sutton 1967, 39, 47. See also Brunner 1983, 54-5.