Carnival is Festival: Dances as Entertainment.

Leif Søndergaard, University of Southern Denmark, Odense.

Pusaumen, pfeifen, sagen und singen,

Essen und trinken, tanzen und springen

Mit schönen, hübschen frauen do

(Carnival she is not dead yet / Trombones, pipes, telling and singing / Eating and drinking, dancing and jumping / With lovely beautiful women there)

Und maisterlich dazu singen

(I can also fence, dance and jump / and moreover sing in a masterly manner)

Der erbeutß den gesten wol

Mit essen, trinken, tanzen, baden,

(Thus the host is drunk all night / He offers to the guests quite a lot: / teating, drinking, dancing and bathing)

These quotations from epilogues of Carnival plays in the later part of the 15th century may give an impression of the merriment and entertainment during the mad week at Shrovetide. Dancing was an integral part of the entertainment together with singing, playing music, reciting poems, performing ‘vasnachtspiele’, fencing and having a bath. When dancing took place in connection with eating, drinking and going to bath we get the impression that sexual services were included. After all that was the case at the medieval brothels where men and women often danced before they ate and drank together seated in the bath and ended up in a bed behind the curtain.

Dancing was an important part of the Carnival activities during Shrovetide as far back as we are able to trace these activities in major cities in Germany. In Braunschweig members of the merchants’ guilds "lepen sunderliche schoduvel unde hadden grote danße in dem vastelavende unde sunderliche lage" (ran their special schoduwel and had a great dance at Shrovetide and their specific feast) in 1293 - but we are not able to tell which sort of dances they performed. In this case the schoduwellaufen and the dance seem to be parallel events. In Magdeburg the activities were tied together. One of the pupils who participated in the schoduwellaufen began a dance in front of the bishop and thus jumped in the devil’s manners: "eynlich dess begunden enes dantzes vor deme biscoppe vnde sprungen also schuduuele"

Dances and costumes at Shrovetide were prohibited in Regensburg in 1300 because of previous excesses during the staging of Christmas plays. It seems to be the first place known where dancing in costumes is suggested. In Köln the dances which were organised by the members of the council were supported by the town. A regulation of weddings from München in 1320 allowed the richer people to organise dancing in the streets everywhere in the town whereas the less rich people were only allowed to dance in the street where the wedding took place.

In Göttingen dancing was permitted during the three days of Shrovetide but it seemed to be a problem that the dances continued into Lent so in 1340 and later the town council felt compelled to issue a prohibition: "Men scal nicht danzen in den vasten. Ouch en schal me nicht in der vasten noch danzen noch reyen noch zuzteren noch zorneren unde behorden. (…) Ouch en scholen vruwen noch juncfruwen weder danzen noch reyen up den straten."(Men are not allowed to dance in Lent. And likewise sisters and sons and employed people are not allowed to dance nor jump in Lent. And likewise neither wives nor maidens should dance nor jump in the streets). In 1342 both outdoor and indoor dancing were prohibited after the bell of the watchman had sounded.

A similar prohibition was stated in Leutkirch in 1382 where people were punished if they danced after the firebell had sounded - except during the three days at Shrovetide. There was a general tendency in the second half of the 14th century to restrict the dances to Shrovetide as it was done in Hamburg in 1372: "nement scal reygen up der strate bi dage edder bi nachte eer lutteken vastelauende" (nobody is allowed to dance in the street by day nor by night before little Shrovetide)

In 1353 women’s indoor dances at the inns (‘hofstuben’ or ‘tringstuben’) were explicitly mentioned in Ravensburg. The first instance (we know of) where ‘vasnacht’ was mentioned in Germany (c. 1207) referred to the Carnival activities celebrated by the merchants’ wives at Tolenstein so the sources seem to indicate that a specific ‘Weiberfastnacht’ can be dated far back in time.

In Augsburg a regulation of the dances from 1384 reveals that the young men and the young maidens had an old tradition of dancing together in the streets. In Nürnberg neither masters nor journeymen nor servants were allowed to dance or go through the streets with pipers except on the three days in Shrovetide (c. 1390).

Sometimes the young men and women seem to have danced together whereas on other occasions they danced separately. The dances might take place either indoor or outdoor Sometimes the dancing was called ‘danzen’ and sometimes ‘reyen’ but it is hard to say whether they are tautological expressions or refer to two different types of dances: even S. Dahms argues that a differentiation takes place already in the 12th century between ‘danzen’ in couples and ‘reien’ in lines.

The general impression we get from the sources points to complex and heterogeneous customs where dances exist in many different versions with different participants and in different social contexts. Franz M. Böhme distinguishes different sorts of dances according to the types, styles, purposes, contexts etc. in his comprehensive review. But he does not distinguish between the two major types of dances in the Middle Ages in functional terms:

1) social dances in which - at least in principle - everybody present in the community might participate in the common activity

2) display dances performed by a single person or a special group of dancers to entertain a separate audience in a festive context.

This distinction is essential for the understanding of the social functions of dances during the Middle Ages. We may add a third type:

3) dances as a literary topoi, for instance the Dance of Death or Salomé’s dance for Herod.

This last type will be left out here. I will focus on the display dances but the social dances might very well influence them. The examples mentioned above refer to dancing in an urban context but dancing was very popular not only in towns but also in the villages or at the castles.

The first type of dance is well known during the Middle Ages in royal and noble circles and among the peasantry in the countryside. Many documentary and pictorial sources depict dancers dancing in a chain, in the shape of a closed circle or in a long line with a lead dancer at the head of the dance, maybe the singer or musician, and a rear dancer to close the line. The group of dancers formed different figures during the dance, for example ‘the gates’ or ‘the snail’.

In noble and courtly contexts the dances normally took place inside in the halls of the castles or in similar places. The typical dance was the gliding dance (branle) in which the participants kept their feet on the ground and moved slowly and harmoniously while they held each other by the hand in different ways. Sometimes they were organised in couples and sometimes they formed groups of three (two men and one woman or one man and two women). The style of dancing was characterised by refinement and beauty and it contributed to confirm the elevated and worthy lifestyle of the leading class in society. The shapes of the body were always hidden in rich dresses that only allowed a slightly swaying movement in accordance with the fashion in the Gothic period. If eroticism was suggested it was done in a noble and indirect manner.

The peasants’ dances took place in the open air, for instance in a space in the middle of the village. Their characteristic dance was the jumping dance where the arms and legs were lifted into the air in fast movements and might be stretched into extreme positions. The muscles of the legs and the bottom were often visible, the faces and the bodies might be distorted and sometimes men and women embraced each other or made obscene gestures. A third sort of dance was the treading dance where the dancers trod a few steps before they jumped.

On a flyer from 1534 with the title The Dance of Noses at Gimpelsbruun (Der Nasentanz zu Gümpelsbrunn) a woodcut by Niclas Meldeman (followed by a Spruch by Hans Sachs) shows seven hideous peasants and one woman with long noses performing a nose dance under the leadership of a man who wears a cap with long ears and holding a stick in his right hand. On other woodcuts from the same period the brothers Barthel and Hans Sebald Beham and Erhard Schoen depicted peasants’ dances in couples at county fairs or wedding festivities.

The burghers adopted elements from both social contexts and adjusted them to their demands in the festivities during Shrovetide and other festive periods of the year. They danced together men and women in the town hall, in guildhalls and in the private houses of the alderman and possibly rich guild members. These indoor dances served the internal purpose of providing enjoyment for the members who were present and of confirming their social relationships.

The guild members were involved not only in the introvert community dances but also in other types of dances performed by one social group in town for another group, possibly the rest of the population. This type of dance may be subdivided into:

a) presentation dances where the guild members were obliged to participate when the dance chain moved out of the guild house into the town in order to manifest the power and prestige of the guild before the total population at Shrovetide.

b) entertaining dances in which groups of youngsters showed up in the guild house in order to entertain the guild members who were occupied with eating and drinking, talking and singing during their festivities.

In Lübeck the most prestigious dance was the torch dance. The statutes of the Kaufleutekompagnie from 1500 specify that the first two torch dances during Shrovetide took place in co-operation with the Zirkelbrüderscahft (Junkherkompagnie) on Monday night (or in former days on Sunday night) after the Carnival play had ended, at the latest at six o’clock. The youngest guild member and the youngest burgher were to ask the Junkherkompagnie where they wanted to dance. The two poets were responsible for the election of two lead dancers and two rear dancers whose job it was to conduct the dancers through the town. Two drummers provideds the rhythm. The members of the company joined in the chain, each of them wearing a torch that weighed half a pound. The oldest members did not need to participate but were allowed to enjoy themselves in the guild house until the dancers showed up again. The poets chose two new lead dancers and two new rear dancers who led the next dance out into the town. After coming back all the members were served a communal meal. The culmination was reached Tuesday night after the banquet when the musicians led the dance from the guild house to the town hall. According to the statutes the musicians went in front followed by the players of the Carnival play and the ordinary guild members with the youngest first and the oldest at the end, each of them wearing a burning torch. The stewards finished the line. They all ended up in the wine cellar of the town hall where the members of the Zirkelbrüderschaft gathered in the room named "The Rose" and the members of the Merchants guild in the "Linden" room.

The Black Heads (young patricians’ guild) in Riga organised similar torch dances. According to their Fastelavends-Ordnung (c. 1500 and again 1510) the first torch dance took place on Thursday evening in the Carnival week (called little Carnival). The procedure was described in detail. After the communal meal a servant brought the torches and the alderman opened the solemn ceremony by making three short formal speeches. He appointed four brethren to hold the torches. Two groups of dancers were formed. One of them had the old and the new alderman in front followed by the two old stewards, the ordinary members and the torch keepers at the end. The other one was led by the two new stewards, followed by the two treasurers, ordinary members and torch keepers. After that they all danced in the town in two chains with the musicians in front of the procession. While they went through the town the musicians played a treading dance (Trottertanz). At the market place the first group of dancers waited until the other dance group showed up, and then they had a common dance together. The aim of the ceremony was to bring Carnival into town. The alderman was to put it this way: "Hier kamen der ehrliken schwarten hövede unnd bringen yuw den fastelavende na der olden gewahnheit" (Here the honest Black Heads come and bring Carnival to you according to the old tradition).

On Sunday at 7 o’clock the alderman had to say three sentences and initiate the same sort of dance as on Thursday. They started in their new guild house from where the guild members moved to the market place, from the market place they danced on to the town hall and on to the guild room, to the market place once more before they ended up in the guild house. On Monday a new dance procession was initiated from the guild house to the market place and on to the town hall where the oldest steward danced with the burgomaster’s wife.

The function of the dances and the visits to the town hall was to confirm the alliance between the Black Heads, the Great Guild and the Town Council and to demonstrate the unity and power of the leadership in town. During Shrovetide it was also part of the tradition that the Great Guild and Black Heads visited each other. The relations were tight in the leading circles of the society.

Similar dances - normally less organised and pompous - took place in other towns in Northern Europe. The statutes of the journeymen shoemakers in the Danish town Slagelse (c. 1450) determined that the members of the guild were obliged to dance around in town, probably at Shrovetide. Two front dancers were appointed and all the guild members should hold each other’s hands while they danced in the streets and they were not allowed to move around alone, except when they came to a house. We do not know whether they carried torches with them. It is evident that the function here might be to secure the unity and prestige of the guild but the journeymen ranged far below the leading patricians so their dance took place in accordance with their more humble position in society.

In Nürnberg the butchers had the privilege to dance their Zämertanz at Shrovetide from 1397. The butchers formed a long line and the dance was led by a lead dancer who held a stick with a figure of a cow on the top of it, the typical sign and symbol of the butchers. The dancers were linked together by the means of holding leather rings between them. They were dressed in special costumes and wore hats with a feather fastened to them. At the end of the chain the rear dancer had a stick in his hand. Musicians played in front of a tree, which was cut off at its root and held by a man, while the dancers were performing. Hobbyhorses were part of the show, as it is shown on drawings in the Nürnberg Schembartbuch. Two men riding a hobby horse and a ‘hobby goat’ confront each other with whips in their hands and a man on a hobbyhorse looks towards a woman sitting on a ‘hobby unicorn’ probably signifying her virtue and innocence. The dancers form a figure, called ‘the snail’ and as this figure is repeated in another drawing it seems to be characteristic for the Zämertanz.

The sword dance spread all over Northern Europe from the end of the 14th century onwards. The dance was normally performed by young guild members of the blacksmiths’ craft guilds at Shrovetide. First the dancers moved around in a circle thrice with the swords in their sheaths raised upwards. Then they drew the swords and held them vertically up into the air and they slowed down before each of the dancers took the point of another sword so that they together formed a sort of hexagon. This figure was named ‘a rose’. After that they drew back their swords and raised them in order to form a rose over their heads. At the end they clashed the flat sides of the swords against each other. The dance was accompanied by music by pipers. In the beginning the dance moved slowly but as it proceeded the speed was gradually accelerated.

The dance demanded the participants’ full attention and concentration. In the statutes of the journeymen smiths in Copenhagen (1554) there were fines for letting go the handle or the point of the sword or for falling over the swords in the dance. From this and other description we get the impression that the swords were waved and the dancers had to jump over them.

Later other figures were added to ‘the rose’, for instance ‘the bridge’ The sword dance reached its most developed form in Nürnberg in the middle of the 16th century. The swords were interlaced and thus formed two strong platforms where two fencers might mount in order to feign a fight against each other. More than one hundred dancers participated in the formation and up to four roses might be formed at the same time during the dance.

It might be dangerous to waive the swords so instead of swords sticks could be used. A stick dance (Steck rey) was mentioned in the earliest Carnival Regulations from Riga in 1416. A later description tells elaborately how the stick dance might be danced. Six dancers formed a circle and each of them carried a stick of a length about 80 centimetres. With the sticks they formed different figures, first the bridge and then an open circle. The leader of the dance (the captain) stood outside the circle and he had a stick and a hoop. When he threw the hoop into the middle of the circle the dancers pointed their sticks to the centre while they walked around. The first dancer took the hoop with his stick and crawled through it while the others continued to move in a circle. Then the next and the next again bent down and crept through the hoop till the last dancer ended up by throwing the hoop to the captain with his stick. After that two dancers formed a gate and the other pairs passed under it in turn before the sticks were intertwined to a figure called the star. Later the dancers turned underneath their sticks and stood with their backs to each other while they formed a star in the air before they clashed the sticks against each other in a rhythmic way. They dissolved the star, turned around and formed a closed circle. The dance ended when they lined up in a long row and left the dancing area riding the sticks like hobbyhorses.

The hoop dance (Reiftanz) is first known from Bautzen in 1411. The dancers normally used the wooden hoop from barrels, and that is why the dance was often performed by the coopers, as was the case in Köln, Zittau, Erfurt, Augsburg, Ulm, Danzig and other towns. But the hoop dance might also be performed by masters or journeymen of other crafts. In Eßlingen the butchers performed the dance and the tailors from Strasbourg danced a hoop dance through the town in 1538. They were dressed in Moorish costumes, and they had small bells tied around their knees. Their faces were blackened and they wore black knitted caps and white shirts. They used large hoops adorned with ivy. This costume is well known from hoop dances later in the 16th century. The hoop dance had many figures in common with the sword dance but in addition the hoops allowed the dancers to dance, step, bend or crawl through them as the dance moved along. The Zwickauer Chronicle by Tobias Schmidt gives a description of the way the hoop dance was danced in 1518. Twenty-six men danced during night with burning lights, placed in lanterns, on their heads. This combination of hoop dance with lantern dance was also performed in Breslau.

Sometimes the hoops were opened so that that dance became a bow dance (Bogelldantz) which is known from Lübeck, Danzig, Braunschweig, Warburg and other towns especially in Northern Germany. The two sorts of dances are not always separated from each other. In Olaus Magnus’ description there is some confusion about the two dances. It seems to be a hoop dance to judge from the woodcut where the dancers use hoops decorated with ivy (in the same way as in Strasbourg). The text on the other hand tells about slackening the bows during the fast dance and the formation of ‘a rose’ where the bows were woven together almost in the same way as was done in the sword dance. The dancers wore bells and jingles and they followed the movements of their ‘king’ in order to copy them. A later illustration from Nürnberg shows how a dancer might mount onto the interwoven hoops.

During the 15th and 16th centuries a variety of dances were developed. The dances became more and more sophisticated, as we can see from the descriptions. The figures were numerous and complicated: the closed and the open circle and the chain were followed by the rose, the star, the bridge, the gate, the street, the snake, the snail, the double circle, the figure of eight etc. The dancers might hold each other’s arms in order to weave a fence or they might move in and out under the arms of the other dancers who danced in a row.

The number of dancers increased so that the most prestigious dances in major towns might have more than a hundred dancers in motion at the same time. The dance traditions spread and developed all over Northern Europe. Often the specific dances were connected to the craft of the respective guilds. The blacksmiths danced sword dances, the knifesmiths danced knife dances, and the coopers danced hoop dances or bow dances.

In Lübeck different groups of young people danced different dances during Shrovetide. The seamen danced a cable dance (Kabel dantz). The ship carpenters danced with wooden clubs. School pupils danced a bow dance through the streets. The different dances are often mentioned in a way that suggests they were danced at the same occasions: "raiff, schwerdt und andere dännetz" (bow, sword and other dances).

Outdoor dancing seemed to be a way of manifesting a cultural unity and identity vis-à-vis the other groups in the town. This type of dance took place in the streets and all the guild member were obliged to participate, except when they were ill.

Indoor dancing took place during the festivities in the guilds. The older members of the guilds did not participate in these dance activities. They were reserved for the younger members or youngsters coming from abroad to entertain the audience. For the younger journeymen or schoolboys dancing, together with singing, playing music and performing Carnival plays, might serve as a way of earning a little money or get something to eat and drink.

From the statutes of the Kaufleutekompagnie in Lübeck (1500) we know that the wool weaver boys, the fencers and the school boys used to come to play for these reasons: "vor deme vastelauende plegen de scholer mit deme bogelldantze vnde ander vasteauendes spele in de kumpanie tokamende, den gifft men denne vort eynen schillinck offte Sosz pennige" (before Shrovetide the school pupils used to come to the guild with the bow dance and other Carnival plays, one gives to them one shilling or 6 pennies). If others showed up the steward had to talk to the alderman but at least they offered the performers some Hamburger beer.

The torch, sword, stick and hoop dances also might take place inside. A woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (1516) shows a torch dance (Fackeltanz). Three men with blackened faces hold burning torches while three men with black faces and three women dance a circle dance. The dance takes place in front of an audience of women so we can be sure that the woodcut depicts an entertainment dance from the early 16th century where the dancers performed in front of an audience.

Another woodcut by Hans Leinberger (c. 1520) shows a wooing dance (Werbetanz). A crowned woman who is dressed in rich clothes holds an apple in her right hand and a mirror in her left hand. Seven dancers make obscene and grotesque gestures in order to attract her attention and win the prize (the apple). A musician plays his drum and blows his pipe. The apple symbolises the woman’s sexuality and the mirror her vanity. One of the dancers wears a fools cap with long ass’s ears and a cockscomb and he holds a club with fools heads in both ends of it and another dancer has jingles tied to his knees. Everything is designed to teach the lesson that this sort of dance is foolish. It is equally foolish to attend the dance. We see six persons in the audience, two of them dressed as King and Queen of Carnival and to the right a fool. On the one hand we are informed about the way of dancing and on the other hand we get the moralistic opinion of the artist and the community where he works in the early 16th century.

Dieter Huschenbett includes Leinenberger’s woodcut in his list of iconographic representations of the morris dance (Moriskgentanz) in the Later Middle Ages even though the dancers do not act in Moorish costumes or with blackened faces. He is right in his conclusion that the play, called Morischgentanz (Keller 14) was not danced: "In K 14 handelt es sich also um einen Redewettbewerb, "Reden um den Preis", zu dem die Frau mit dem Apfel zehn als Narren bezeichnete Burschen aus dörflichem Milieu auffordert." (Keller 14 deals with a competition in words, "a speaking for the prize", which the Woman with the apple invite ten youngsters, called fools, from the rural area to initiate).

In one of his Reimparsprüche Hans Folz describes a Carnival play followed by a morris dance at the festivities organised by the town council when the emperor Maximilian I came to visit Nürnberg in 1491. Here he tells about a musician who played a morisckendancz on his drum and pipe. A fool who held a club distorted his body in obscene positions. Six dancers in Moorish costumes wooed a beautiful woman who had a delicious red apple for the best dancer.

It is significant that play and dance are linked together. For one reason or another Huschenbett is not concerned with the other wooing plays of the same type in Keller’s collection. It is not particularly important whether the dancers are dressed up like Moors, peasants or fools. In all three cases the plays deal with projections of the burghers’ erotic dreams and wishes into a space where a ritual wooing could take place. The plays are overflowing with sexual symbols that refer to the male or the female sexual organs and to sexual intercourse.

In general Shrovetide was a period when erotic and sexual licence was tolerated. It opened a space for contacts, experiments and experiences in the relations between the genders. Young people had an opportunity to meet each other and feel if there was an attraction. In Ein Vasnachtspil (Keller 9) the prologue speaker addresses the housemaid in such a way that we suspect he woos the maid as he speaks the prologue. Many wooing plays (Werbespiele) refer to a real situation where young men try to convince maids that they should marry them or that they should have sex with them without marrying. In Ein spil von der Freiheit (Keller 63) the prologue speaker tells that he has an appointment with a girl in the house where the playgroup is to play. After the play he runs away to escape from her in a way that suggests he has had sexual intercourse with her during the play (behind the curtain).

The fools or peasants in the wooing plays might use rhetoric, wordplay, mimicry and gestures in order to attract the attention of frau Venus with the apple but - with a very few special exceptions - the persons in the plays do not dance during the performance. It is not possible for the actors to dance and speak at the same time. The dance would totally ruin the speech - and the opposite!

Sometimes frau Venus accept the offer from one of the wooers but at other times she rebukes them and mocks their foolish attitudes. In some plays the fools or peasants use sexual symbols and metaphors in order to convince the woman of their sexual capacities and advantages in comparison with the others. In other plays the wooers who are not peasant or fools use rational arguments in order to make themselves attractive for the woman. In the play entitled Ain Vasnachtspil von Pulschaft (Keller 15) the woman chooses the fifth wooer who argues that he is rich and generous and that has a gentle disposition: "Ein mildes herz ich alzeit han, / Mein hand gibt aus volles schrein." (I always have a gentle heart, my hand gives from the full shrine). In Die Vasnacht von Werben um die Junkfrau (Keller 70) the knight, the peasant, the priest, the parish clerk, the monk, the trickster, the blacksmith, the coach maker, the shoemaker, the tailor, the furrier and the butcher in turn woo the woman but they are all rejected in favour of the clerk who tells her that he is able to read and write and thus take care of her: "Ich iss frü und tu euch hilf gern / Ich kann schreiben und lesen." (I have dinner early and like to help you / I can write and read).

Some of the plays suggest that an entertaining dance might take place immediately after the play:

Und mit den frauen gar säuberlich umbher swanzen!

Pfeif auf spilman! Der est rei ist mein,

Und spring daher mit einer junkfraun fein.

(And therefore let us dance a chain / And swing properly with the women! / Play musician! The first dance is mine / And jump about with a sweet maiden, Keller 5).

With one exception the dance always takes place at the end of the play. This means that both can be appreciated properly by the audience. In Keller 51 the dance is inserted before the epilogue of the play so that the play and the dance are tied totally together. When he asks the drummer to play a dance melody the last peasant of the play tells that he will take over the task of the lead dancer: "So wil ich den vorraien treten" (Thus I will tread the head of the dance). And he ends up by asking one of the maids present in the house to dance with him: "Wol auf, junkfrau Ell, wir wollen daran." (Well now, maid Ell, we will to it). These dances are not morris dances but entertaining dances that are added to the fiction at the end of some plays.

In the very long play Das Neidhardspiel (Keller 53) the action is suspended several times so that a dance can take place. As it is stated in the stage directions the action of the play stops in order to make room for a display: "Die pfeiferen pfeifend auf und die herzogin mit ir junkfrauen und fraun tanzen" (the pipers start to play and the duchess dance together with her maids and ladies). While the dance is performed nobody speaks in the play. It is explicitly stated who will have to speak first when the dance has come to an end. The Neidhard play is no typical Carnival play so we are not able to draw any general conclusions from that play.

The two cocks plays Vasnachtspil, der alt hannentanz (Keller 67) and Der kurz hannentanz (Keller 89) are the only plays where dances are integral parts of the plays. No stage directions suggest that dances are performed during the plays but in Der alt hannentanz some of the speeches are divided in a way that will only be meaningful if there is a dance between the two parts. Both parts are indicated with exactly the same name of the person in question. One of the dancers introduces him self and tells that he will not spare the high jumps. After that he dances and finally he asks: "Heuslein, wie hat dir gefallen der tanz? / Danach so setz mir auf dein rosenkranz!" (Heuslein, did you like the dance / After that place your garland on me!) Another person finishes the first part of his speech in this way: "Das gib ich dir umb einen tanz" (I deliver you a dance) and we must imagine that he dances before he asks Adelhait about her garland.

In Der alt hannentanz there seem to be two elements. Apparently the first two male dancers dance to win the cock but as the play moves on we get the impression that the male dancers have to dance in order to win a maid so that they can form a couple and dance for the cock. Each of the other male protagonists dance in order to win the garland of the object of his choice:

Ich will den reien mit euch treten,

Umb euren Kranz, der ihr auf fürt,

Wann ir an meiner kunst wol spürt,

Das ich das pest heut hab getan.

Ich hoff, uns werd zu lon der han.

(Maid Metz, I tell you / that I would like to tread the dance with you / for the garland that you have / when you feel well in my art / that I have done the best today / I hope that we will win the priZe of the cock).

It is significant that he says "we" when he talks about the prize dance (Wetttanz) and a little later die Metz repeats the "we". This interpretation gets support from the prologue of the play where we are told that "Dorfmaid und baurnknecht, / Die wollen tanzen umb den han" (village maiden and peasants boy / they want to dance for the cock). On the other hand we are told in the prologue that the best peasant will get the cock and furthermore "ain bruch" (a sort of garment to use around the abdomen).

The only possible explanation may be that each of the young maidens has her favourite whom she wants give her garland. At the same time she hopes that her partner will win the cock, not for himself but for them as a couple. The cock has evident symbolic references to male potency. The same is the case for the "bruch". The garland has a parallel meaning as a symbol for female virginity. One of the maids in the play is accused of not being a virgin any more so she should not be allowed to wear a garland.

In Der kurz hannentanz it is said clearly that the young men have to dance in order to please the women. But we cannot be sure that four of the five persons dance: The first of them tells the (parodic) rules of the dance. The second asks the dance leader to organise the dance. The third is willing to dance whereas the fourth and the fifth both ask the woman to initiate a dance. She refuses as it will be to reverse the order of things (to let the saddle carry the horse etc.) and asks them to dance themselves. The sixth asks the best of the dancers to step forward to receive the prize from the woman. Both of the plays are parodies of village dances. They are transformed into fiction and placed in an urban context where the burghers may enjoy themselves at the expense of the peasants. In Der alt hannentanz one of the peasants offers to dance with a wheel from a plough on his head and glasses placed on the wheel. Another boasts that he is able to carry a horn with wine on his head and at the same time not even touch the ground.

A woodcut by Barthel Beham, The country fair at Mögeldorf shows how the peasants’ dances might take place. First the peasants and the maids ate a solid meal and after that the musicians played so that the dance could begin. The maids gave their garlands to the peasants they chose and after having formed couples they danced one couple after the other with two maids and two peasants in the lead. The author of the text thinks that the dance might cause conflicts and violence so he prefers to leave.

In The Dance of Noses at Gimpelsbrunn the prices are an artificial nose, a "bruch" (both symbols of male sexuality) and a garland. The winner was elected king of noses and the three best dancers each won a prize. In the background we see a cock’s dance where three couples dance round a pole with a cock on the top while a bagpiper plays. In the text by Hans Sachs the fictive visitor tells that the peasants fool around, quarrel and fight.

Both woodcuts are parodies of the way peasants had their village fairs and dances - seen from the perspective of the burghers in the towns. Beside the parodic dances to mock the peasants they had their own dances either designed to entertain and to enjoy themselves and confirm their internal unity or to show their power and prestige to the other classes and groups in the town.