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DANCING MANIA 



DANDELION 



saw deadly sin in 'promiscuous dancing.' St 

 Chrysostom says dancing came first from the devil, 

 and Father Mariana tells us the famous saraband 

 worked more mischief than the plague. The fan- 

 dango was hotly condemned by the clergy, but when 

 danced before the Sacred College, who wished 

 to see it before finally prohibiting it, so charmed 

 the grave judges that they gave it their unani- 

 mous approval. Many of the medieval dance's were 

 solemn and stately in character, like the danses 

 busses, which were danced to psalm-tunes at the 

 court of Charles IX. of France ; while it was not 

 uncommon to see the princes of the church them- 

 selves treading a measure, and it is said the whole 

 august Council of Trent danced at a ball given 

 in 1562 to King Philip II. of Spain. The more 

 lively galliarde and volta were introduced into 

 France from Italy by Catharine de' Medici, but it 

 was not till the reign of Louis XIV., himself an 

 enthusiastic dancer and performer in the court 

 ballets until cured by some verses about Nero in 

 Racine's Britannicus, that dancing reached its 

 height in France. A Royal Academy of Dancing 

 was founded in 1662, at the head of which was the 

 famous Beaucharnps, from whom the king took a 

 dancing lesson every day for twenty years. Later 

 great dancing-masters in France were Pecour, 

 Marcel, and Noverre. Among dances that succes- 

 sively were paramount in society in France were 

 the graceful minuet, the favourite for a century ; 

 the quadrille or contre-datise, often connected 

 erroneously with the English country-dance ; the 

 Bcossaise, first introduced in 1760; the galop, a 

 death-blow to the 'poetry of motion,' introduced 

 from Germany ; the cotillon, fashionable under 

 Charles X. ; the polka, first danced at the Odeon 

 in 1840 by a dancing-master from Prague ; the polka 

 tremblante, or schottisch, also of Bohemian origin, 

 first brought out in Paris in 1844 ; the lancers, intro- 

 duced by Laborde in 1836 ; and the waltz, originally 

 Bavarian, and which, now considerably modified 

 from its original form, promises to maintain its 

 supremacy. The French provide the world with 

 fashions, and society everywhere in Europe has 

 followed their lead. The people, however, have 

 preserved their own old national dances, and 

 these are still danced in every corner of Europe, 

 stamped everywhere with as distinct an impress of 

 nationality as the grave Basque mutchiko, or the 

 cachucha, the fandango and bolero of southern 

 Spain. Characteristic again of particular races or 

 merely of classes of people are such forms of the 

 dance as the Scotch reel, Highland-fling and strath- 

 spey, the Irish jig, the negro break-downs, sailors' 

 hornpipes, step-dances, the can-can, morris-dances, 

 and the like. Skirt-dancing became popular about 

 1891 ; and between that date and 1898 the Ameri- 

 can dancer Loie Fuller, by means of voluminous 

 draperies deftly managed and skilfully illumined, 

 revealed new possibilities in the art. 



See BALLET, WALTZ, STRATHSPEY, &c. ; German books 

 by Czerwinski, V"oss, Angerstein, Zorn, and Freising ; 

 Desrat, Dictionnaire de la Danse ( 1896 ) ; Soria, Histoire 

 de la Danse ( 1897 ) ; E. Scott, Dancing as an A rt ( 1893 ), 

 and Dancing in all Ages ( 1899 ) ; Mrs Grove, Dancing 

 (Badminton Library, 1896); Gastou Vuillier, The His- 

 tory of Dancing ( trans. 1897 ). 



Dancing Mania, an epidemic disorder allied 

 to Hysteria (q.v. ). Imposture was often present, 

 and the consequences often clearly showed impure 

 motives ; but there is also evidence that in many 

 cases the convulsive movements were really beyond 

 the control of the will, whatever may have been the 

 original character of the motives that prompted 

 them. Epidemics of this sort were common in 

 Germany during the middle ages, and are formally 

 described as early as the 14th century ; in Italy, 

 tarantism, a somewhat similar disease, was ascribed 



to the bite of a spider called the Tarantula (q.v.); 

 and similar convulsive affections have been wit- 

 nessed in Abyssinia and India, and even in com- 

 paratively modern times and in the most civilised 

 countries in Europe, under the influence of strong 

 popular excitement, especially connected with 

 religious demonstrations. But the true dancing 

 mania of the middle ages had its theatre chiefly 

 in the crowded cities of Germany. 



In July 1374 there appeared at Aix-la-Chapelle 

 assemblies of men and women, who, excited by the 

 wild and frantic, partly heathenish, celebration of 

 the festival of St John, began to dance on the 

 streets, screaming and foaming like persons pos- 

 sessed. The attacks of this mania were various in 

 form, according to mental, local, or religious con- 

 ditions. The dancers, losing all control over their 

 movements, continued dancing in wild delirium, till 

 they fell in extreme exhaustion, and groaned as in 

 the agonies of death ; some dashed out their brains 

 against the walls around. When dancing they 

 were insensible to external impressions, but haunted 

 by visions, such as of being immersed in a sea of 

 blood, which obliged them to leap so high, or of 

 seeing the heavens open, and the Saviour enthroned 

 with the Virgin Mary. The frenzy spread over 

 many of the towns of the Low Countries. Troops 

 of dancers, inflamed by intoxicating music, and 

 followed by crowds, who caught the mental 

 infection, went from place to place, taking posses- 

 sion of the religious houses, and pouring forth 

 imprecations against the priests. The mania spread 

 to Cologne, Metz, and Strasburg, giving rise to 

 grave disorders, impostures, and profligacy. These 

 countries were generally in a miserable condition ; 

 and arbitrary rule, corruption of morals, supersti- 

 tion, and insecurity of property, had already pre- 

 pared the wretched people, debilitated by disease 

 and bad food, to seek relief in the intoxication of 

 an artiticial delirium. Exorcism had been found an 

 efficacious remedy at the commencement of the out- 

 break ; and in the beginning of the 16th century, 

 Paracelsus, that great reformer of medicine, applied 

 immersion in cold water with great success. At the 

 beginning of the 17th century it was already on 

 the decline ; and we now hear of it only in single 

 cases as a sort of nervous affection. See CHOREA, 

 CONVULSIONARIES, VlTUS ( St ), and Becker's Epi- 

 demics of the Middle Ages (Eng. trans. 3d. ed. 

 1859). 



Dancourt, FLORENT CARTON, a French drama- 

 tist, born in 1661. At one time an actor and a 

 favourite of Louis XIV., he became devout in his 

 old age, which he spent in retirement in the country. 

 He died in 1725. He was a prolific author, and 

 excelled in depicting the stupidity of the peasantry 

 and the follies of the bourgeoisie. Of his plays the 

 best are Les Bourgeoisies de Qualite, Le Chevalier 

 d la Mode, Le Galant Jardinier, and Les Trois 

 Cousines. 



Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale, formerly 

 Leontodon Taraxacum] is a ligulifloral composite, 

 common in several varieties or sub-species through- 

 out Britain and the whole of Europe, in pastures 

 and by waysides, and now also so perfectly natu- 

 ralised in many parts of North America as to be 

 there one of the most familiar spring-flowers. The 

 names Dandelion and Leontodon (Fr. and Gr., 

 ' lion's tooth ' ) both have reference to the form of 

 the leaves. The whole plant abounds in a milky 

 juice, containing a peculiar crystalline principle 

 called Taraxacin ; has a bitter taste, and valuable 

 medicinal properties. Roasted and ground, dande- 

 lion-root is sometimes used as a substitute for coffee. 

 Dandelion Coffee, however, is usually a mixture of 

 ordinary coffee and the powder or extract of dande- 

 lion-root ; and Dandelion Chocolate is composed of 



