Medieval Manuscripts: The Dancing Book of Margaret of Austria
Courtiers in fifteenth-century Europe loved to move their feet to the rhythm graceful music. And when they forgot the choreography, they consulted an elegant booklet written in gold and silver on dark black vellum.
Ecstatic Dance: Medieval Dansomania and the Love Parade in Berlin, 1996
While dancing they are oblivious to their surroundings, they shriek, scream, and rave – note the use of ‘rave’ in its older meaning of manic behaviour – and they have visions which ‘according as the religious notions of the age were strangely and variously reflected in their imaginations.
How did medieval people dance?
A book by Robert Mullally is answering a part of this question, detailing one of the most popular dances of the Middle Ages.