From: atterlep@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Cardinal Ximenez)
Subject: Re: Ages; Dance--Pavan
Organization: National Association for the Disorganized
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 16:11:23 GMT

justin@inmet.camb.inmet.COM (Justin du Coeur MKA Mark Waks) writes:

>Re: New/Middle/Old Guard

>I think that Tibor is basically on-target here: the *useful* meanings
>of new/middle/old guard have much more to do with attitude than with
>how long you've actually been around. Note a consequence of this: it's
>quite possible to change which "guard" you are in, in *either* direction.
>I've seen a fair number of old-time Carolingians, who had very much
>been part of the mostly-burned-out Old Guard, revive and get back into
>the swing of things, winding up once more in the broad Middle Guard.

>Personally, I aspire to keeping myself as new-guard as I reasonably
>can...


  This still doesn't help too much; my definitions of "new," "middle," and 
"old" are very different from yours.
  I have noticed that my definitions of "middle" and "old" change as I grow
older myself--after five years in the SCA (longer than at least two of the 
kingdom officers), I am pushing the time needed to be an "old" member farther
back.

>Re: Period Dance, Take Three -- Lines of Couples

>Del quotes a message from Richard that I haven't seen yet:
>>> On the question for dances "longwayes for as many as will",
>>> However, it is important to note that in none of our period sources from
>>> the 16th century, including Caroso, Negri and Arbeau.  Arbeau, in fact, 
>>> never explicitly mentions that a basse dance or pavan should be danced by
>>> a long line of couples.

>I have *always* heard the received wisdom that basse dances and pavans
>are processional dances, and have never seen them danced in any other
>way. But doing a quick dig through the two sources that I have on
>hand that pertain to it (Arbeau and the Brussels MS, one of the main
>basse dance sources), Richard's right -- it doesn't ever really say that
>these dances are processional.

>Balanced against this, we have a couple of sections in Arbeau that
>seem to imply that it is at least *sometimes* done processionally,
>to show off. First, he says (about the pavan),

>	"Our musicians play it when a damsel of good family is taken
>	 to Holy Church to be married or when musicians head a
>	 procession of the chaplains, master and brethren of some
>	 notable guild."

>A little further on, he says,

>	"... it is used by kings, princes, and great lords to display
>	 themselves... and then the queens, princesses and great ladies
>	 accompany them with the long trains of their dresses let down
>	 and trailing behind them, or sometimes carried by damsels.
>	 And these pavans, played by hautboys and sackbuts, are called
>	 the Grand Bal, and last until those who dance have circled
>	 two or three times round the room. These pavans are also used
>	 in a masquerade when there is a procession of triumphal
>	 chariots of gods and goddesses, emporers or kings resplendent
>	 with majesty."

>Put this all together, and what do you have? It sounds to me like
>Arbeau is describing a dance with a couple of different uses.

  Actually, the quotes don't indicate that these dances were "processional" in
the way we think of them at all.  There's no reason the "kings, princes, and
great lords" couldn't have processed into the hall one couple at a time, each
doing a section of the dance and then waiting for the next couple to go.  It
would take a long time, but only "great lords" and up do it--it can't be a very
large group.
  I'm not a dance specialist, so I may be missing something that everybody
knows, but I couldn't help but point that out.

		Alan Fairfax Aluricson, Fenris Herald
		Canton of the Riding of Hawkland Moor
		Barony of Northwoods, Midrealm
		atterlep@vela.acs.oakland.edu		**Magnitudo Vocis**
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