
How did medieval people dance? (2013) - gpvos
https://www.medievalists.net/2013/09/how-did-medieval-people-dance/
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jandrese
I like the detail about how the most detailed accounts came from old people
writing about how kids these days are going straight to hell. Some things
never change.

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yesbabyyes
Indeed--as Socrates is famously quoted, around 2400 years ago:

 _“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of
exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They
no longer rise when elders enter the room.”_

On the other hand, he did enjoy dancing, considering:

 _“Music and dance are two arts that complement each other and form the beauty
and power that are the basis of happiness.”_

[http://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/wonderful-advice-from-
so...](http://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/wonderful-advice-from-socrates-and-
nietzsche-dance-dance-alone/)

~~~
kenjackson
I believe that quote is incorrectly attributed to Socrates. See:
[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-
childre...](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-
ancient-times/)

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yesbabyyes
That's great--it felt out of character anyway, though it's funny. Thanks for
the correction!

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monatron
I think the most interesting thing about this article was how they handled
ads/micropayments. It detected my ad blocker and asked, "Hey, we see you have
an ad blocker, disable your ad blocker or each article is 10c, we'll spot you
a dollar, are you cool with that?" Yes, yes I am. That's totally reasonable.

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mesozoic
Yeah wow. I just deleted the element blocking my view but that's strange. Ad
blockers will just easily stop this countermeasure.

(Not that its unreasonable but I just want to scan the page for a few seconds
to see if it's interesting or just has a clickbait title and I'm not paying 10
cents for every clickbait title on the internet.

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Loughla
That sounds a lot like modern country line-dancing. There's a simplified step
that anyone can learn in just a minute or two. It's repeated. It's usually
accompanied by singing from the dancers (in my experience).

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bilbo0s
I don't think it's as much like line dancing as it is like a dance that was
popular up here in Wisconsin in my youth. (Which was a VERY long time ago.)

Anyway, it was called dancing the maypole. It was _slightly_ different. But it
sounds extremely similar to the "Carole" described in the article. Maybe there
is some kind of connection to the maypole there? My understanding was that the
maypole came to us via the connection of farming to solstice to harvest
celebrations. But the old people might have been filling me full of nonsense.
Because this "Carole" sounds _WAY_ to similar for it to be coincidence.

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woodruffw
We have maypole dances in New York! I have fond memories of doing them as a
kid (I'm in my early 20s).

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the Carole was related to the Maypole,
particularly versions that use Morris dancing[1] (as ours did).

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_dance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_dance)

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minikomi
Funny how different cultures have "go around something and dance in sync"
dances. Bon odori is the one I know in Japan, which originated in the
14~1500s, and is still fun to do today.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e7SoUIKWkqc](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e7SoUIKWkqc)

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brian-armstrong
This article doesnt seem to be accessible on mobile. It's just an
interstitial.

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ivankelly
Sounds very like Sardana [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardana)

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TheJoYo
A Carole?
[https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=MAmpBFA988k](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=MAmpBFA988k)

