The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon Depictions of Dance Martha Bayless

The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance martha bayless

ABSTRACT The scattered nature of references to dance and the ambiguity of its vocabulary have obscured Anglo-Saxon dance practices, but evidence suggests that dance was a significant cultural phenomenon. The earlier centuries of the Anglo-Saxon period saw the depiction of weapon dances, and later sources also allow us a glimpse of lively secular dance. Performance traditions may have included dance combined with satirical songs, as well as possible secular ritual dance. Finally, scripture provided examples of both holy dance and lascivious female dance. Contemporary iconography of these dance practices, combined with continued associations between dance and music, allow us to understand the conventions in the depiction of dance, and in turn these suggest that the figure of ‘Hearing’ on the Fuller Brooch, traditionally regarded as running, is in fact dancing. The images on the Fuller Brooch, an Anglo-Saxon silver and niello disc depicting five human figures in its centre, have long been the focus of scholarly attention. E. T. Leeds first identified the iconographic scheme of the figures in a 1949 letter to R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford: I had already on the Wallingford sword detected the four symbols of the evangelists, and wondered if the disc could yield some similar interpretation. But the figures round the centre had an almost too jaunty look to be biblical. They seemed to belong to civil life. And yet they are symbolic enough; for I have no doubt whatever that they can, with the central figure, be interpreted as the five senses, read as follows

Taste Smell Sight Hearing Touch1 In an 1952 exposition of the brooch’s iconography, Bruce-Mitford elabo- rates on Leeds’ interpretation, commenting: ‘They do however fit the roles of the Senses satisfactorily, if HEARING, that which shows a running figure with a hand raised towards the ear, may be taken as representing a man responding

1 Quoted in R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, ‘Late Saxon Disc-Brooches’, Dark Age Britain, ed. D. B. Harden (London, 1956), pp. 171–201, at 184. 183

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 30 Sep 2021 at 14:10:54, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263675100080261

9781108419253book.indd 183 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless to a call.’2 Bruce-Mitford reiterated this interpretation in other descriptions, for instance in a longer exposition of the figure: ‘Hearing is somewhat cramped for space, but one hand is raised towards the ear, while the figure is shown running. He can be regarded as having heard a cry and shown moving in answer to it.’3 The understanding that the figure of Hearing is running has remained undis- puted ever since. I would like to propose, however, that the figure representing Hearing on the Fuller Brooch is not running but dancing. In this it conforms to other Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance and to iconography which depicts dancing and sound as intimately connected. Unlike depictions of running, which are quite rare, a number of depictions of dancing survive from Anglo- Saxon England and the early medieval world. To establish the iconography of dance, and the actual dance traditions that influenced the iconography, it will be helpful to lay out the evidence for dance from the Anglo-Saxon period. The Vocabulary of Dance The traditional starting-point of many fields of enquiry, vocabulary, has little to offer scholars in the field of Anglo-Saxon dance. Neither Latin nor Old English provides unambiguous terms for dance. Terms found in Latin, particularly in the Vulgate, include saltare (‘to dance, leap’) salire (‘to dance, jump’), subsilire (‘to dance, jump’), transilire (‘to dance, jump across’), psaltrice/saltrice/saltatrice (‘female dancer’) and chorus (‘group/dance/architectural choir’).4 The non-biblical term psaltria (‘music-girl/erotic dancer’) will be taken up below. A particularly problematic Latin term is tripudium, which in the Classical period denoted a dance, particularly a solemn religious dance, but which had expanded in later eras to signify any form of solemn rejoicing. The term thus at first seems to promise descriptions of dance, but in fact this meaning had apparently died out by the time it was employed in Anglo-Saxon England. The word appears, for instance, in a letter of Aldhelm: ‘natalis Domini sollemnitatem ibidem in consortio fratrum trepudians . . .’, but this is overwhelmingly likely to denote rejoicing rather than dance.5 We see this meaning again in Lantfred’s account

2 R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, ‘The Fuller Brooch’, Brit. Museum Quarterly 17 (1952), 75–6, at 76. 3 Bruce-Mitford’s exposition on the iconography of the Fuller Brooch was published three times. It first appeared in Bruce-Mitford, ‘Late Saxon Disc-Brooches’, with this passage at p. 186 (and similarly on the figure in the same article, ‘One is shown running, with a hand raised to his ear . . .’ (p. 177)). It was also printed as Appendix B in D. M. Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork, 700–1100, in the British Museum (London, 1964), pp. 91–8; and again as ‘Late Saxon Disc-Brooches’, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology: Sutton Hoo and Other Discoveries, ed. R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford (London, 1974), pp. 303–45, at 317–25. 4 On these terms, see E. Stanley, ‘Dance, Dancers and Dancing in Anglo-Saxon England’, Dance Research 9 (1991), 18–31. 5 Aldhelm, Epistola 1, ed. Ehwald, MGH, Auct. Antiq., pp. 475–8; the passage has been translated as ‘to celebrate joyfully in the same place the approaching feast of our Lord’s 184

9781108419253book.indd 184 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance of the miracles of St Swithun, where a hunchback is instructed: ‘quiesce paulu- lum et sic utriusque sanitatis tripudium percipies sempiternum . . .’, ‘lie down a little while . . . and you shall thereby receive the eternal joy of well-being in either life . . .’6 Clearly tripudium here refers to ethereal joy rather than to physi- cal dancing. Further confirmation that Anglo-Saxon usage of the term refers to rejoicing is suggested in the gloss in Aldhelm’s De Virginitate: tripudio .i. gaudio, feowunge;7 other glossaries have similar equivalencies such as tripudium: gefea and tripudiare: laetare et exultare.8 By contrast, no Anglo-Saxon glossary defines tripudium as dance. From these and other examples it is clear that an Anglo- Saxon text with the term tripudium cannot be taken to be describing dancing; and no text in which the term is used, and which provides an indubitable and informative actual description of dancing, is known to me. The imprecision of the Latin terms is paralleled by Old English terms for dance, which included forms of hleapan (‘to dance/leap’), tumbian (‘to dance/ caper/tumble [gymnastically]’) and hoppian (‘to hop/dance’).9 These seem to have no practical distinction, although one glossary item may suggest that dancers performed for spectators: this is the implication of a definition in Ælfric’s Glossary, reading histrio: tumbere oððe gligman (‘performer: dancer or minstrel’), suggesting that a performer might be someone who danced.10 The great majority of these terms appear in biblical passages, and thus provide no direct testimony for Anglo-Saxon dance. As a whole, the conclusion of one scholar summarizes the value of surviving dance vocabulary succinctly: ‘The words that might mean dancing, or might be connected with dancing, in the texts in which they survive, provide no little measure of textual and semantic difficulty, but hardly any firm information about dance, dancers and dancing in Anglo-Saxon England.’11

longed-for birth, in the company of the brethren’: Aldhelm: the Prose Works, trans. M. Lapidge and M. Herren (Cambridge, 1979), p. 152. 6 Lantfred’s Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni is edited and translated in M. Lapidge, The Cult of St Swithun (Oxford, 2003) with this passage at pp. 268–9. 7 A. S. Napier, Old English Glosses (Oxford, 1900; repr. Hildesheim, 1969), p. 31. See also L. Goossens, The Old English Glosses of MS. Brussels, Royal Library 1650 (Brussels, 1974), l. 44. 8 The Antwerp–London Glossaries, ed. D. W. Porter (Toronto, 2011), p. 111, l. 2296; similarly J. H. Hessels, An Eighth-Century Latin–Anglo-Saxon Glossary (Cambridge, 1890), section 18 l. 241, with Tripudium: uictoriae gaudium at 18.257 (p. 116), Tripudiantes: exultantes at 18.262 (p. 111) and Tripudiare: uincere at 18.265 (p. 116). 9 These terms are also discussed by Stanley, ‘Dance’. In addition, the term saltingum appears once, in the phrase ‘mid saltingum and tumbincgum . . .’ from the Old English translation of the Rule of Chrodegang; The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang together with the Latin Original. . ., ed. A. S. Napier, EETS, os 150 (London, 1916), 78–9. 10 J. Zupitza, Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, 3rd ed., with introduction by H. Gneuss (Hildesheim, 2001), p. 35. 11 Stanley, ‘Dance’, p. 29. 185

9781108419253book.indd 185 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless Warrior Dances Information on Anglo-Saxon dance must rely, then, on other kinds of evidence, most especially on the evidence of images. The earliest and possibly most problematic of these are those images that depict dancing warriors, occurring on a variety of objects of the period up to the seventh century. These Anglo-Saxon depictions form part of a larger corpus, a network of images with related motifs and themes from Germanic contexts of the early period. In these, warriors assume particular postures, some of which may represent a weapon dance or ritual involving movement, the difference between a dance and a ritual being negligible for these purposes. Perhaps the most prominent example appears on one of the plates of the Sutton Hoo helmet: the image features two warriors in symmetrical positions, clutching downward-pointing spears with their outer hands and upward-pointing swords with their inner hands, with both warriors facing the viewer rather than each other (Fig. 17). Crossed spears form the background.12 The warriors are wearing tunics and horned helmets; the fact that they might be dancing is suggested by the position of the soles of the feet of their outer legs, turned upwards, away from the ground.13

Figure 17: The figures on the Sutton Hoo helmet (British Museum). Drawing by Debby Banham.

12 It is even possible that the background of crossed spears indicates that these warriors were dancing among the spears laid on the ground. I owe this suggestion to Gale Owen-Crocker. 13 This position as a key indication of dancing was suggested by Bruce-Mitford, ‘Sutton Hoo’, p. 208. 186

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Figure 18: The figure from Gamla Uppsala, eastern mound. Drawing by Debby Banham.

These figures are closely comparable to several images found elsewhere. One such comes from the eastern mound at Gamla Uppsala in Sweden: here a fragment of stamped bronze foil depicts part of a figure so similar to the Sutton Hoo example that the die may have been cut by the same craftsman (Fig. 18).14 In the Uppsala fragment, a warrior clad in a tunic holds two downward-facing spears. Only one leg survives, but the foot is off the ground with the sole facing upwards in the same position which may be taken to be characteristic of depictions of dance. A similar figure was found amongst fragments from an Anglo-Saxon tumulus in Caenby, Lincolnshire, although the lower part of the Caenby figure is missing and so the position of the legs is not recoverable.15 Another likeness is found on the helmet from Valsgärde burial mound 7, near Gamla Uppsala. The helmet features six decorative panels, all of the types of motifs known from other examples; one of these panels depicts two warriors with horned helmets and in tunics.16 As in the Sutton Hoo example, the warriors hold in their outer hands two downward-pointing spears each, and in their inner hands two upward-pointing swords; their outer feet are turned up,

14 S. Lindqvist, Uppsala Högar och Ottarshögen (Stockholm, 1936), pp. 171, 341 and fig. 89a; R. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, 3 vols (London, 1975–83) II, 208 and fig. 155. 15 Bruce-Mitford, Aspects, pl. 54b; Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, II, 189, 207 and fig. 153. 16 On the helmet generally, see G. Arwidsson, Valsgärde 7, Die Gräberfunde von Valsgärde III (Uppsala, 1977), pp 21–33. 187

9781108419253book.indd 187 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless with soles away from the ground, in the characteristic fashion.17 The number of weapons each is holding suggests that the warriors are enacting some kind of dance or ritual rather than taking part in a battle. Two other scenes from the Valsgärde helmet feature warriors in procession, one pair with bird helmets, the other with boar helmets.18 Whether they are meant to be processing to battle or taking part in some other ritual is unclear. Processing warriors seem also to have been a widespread motif, occurring likewise on the Sutton Hoo helmet and the Finglesham belt buckle, on depictions of warriors from Vendel grave 14 and Välsgarde 7, and on one of the Torslunda dies.19 Those on the Finglesham buckle, Vendel 14, and Välsgarde 7 merely have their feet turned sideways, but an analogue to the Sutton Hoo figure, with the rear foot raised and the sole upward, is found on the Torslunda die. These Torslunda dies consist of four small bronze plates from Torslunda, Öland, Sweden, designed for making bronze sheets to be mounted on helmets, and most likely dating from the fifth or sixth century.20 What has been des- ignated Die D has generally been interpreted as a warrior dancing: the man holds a spear in each hand, one spear pointing up and the other down, has a baldric holding a sword and scabbard around his neck; the rest of his garb consists of a belt and a large horned helmet (Fig. 19). There is the possibility that the warrior is naked, like the man on the Finglesham buckle; the only visible garb consists of a belt and baldric. Most importantly, his knees are bent in a position that can only suggest either running or dancing, and the position of his weapons suggests that dancing is the more likely activity. He is accompanied by a human figure with a wolf’s head, armed with a sheathed sword and holding a downward-pointing spear, who appears to be walking rather than dancing. It has been suggested that the dancer is Odin, based on the assertion that he may have only a single eye, a feature which is difficult to make out.21

17 Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, II, 217, fig. 164c. 18 Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, II, 217, fig. 164e and 164f. 19 The Finglesham belt buckle depicts a single warrior, apparently naked, with a horned helmet and an upward-pointing spear in each hand, with knees bent as if processing or walking, feet flat on the ground but pointed toward the viewer’s left. See S. C. Hawkes, H. R. Ellis Davidson and C. Hawkes, ‘The Finglesham Man’, Antiquity 39 (1965), 17–34. The motif from Vendel grave 7 (Uppland, Sweden) is reproduced in Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, II, 196, fig. 147a; and that from Valsgärde grave 7 (Uppland, Sweden), ibid. p. 217, fig. 164e and 164f; both are also reproduced in N. Adams, ‘Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour’, Intelligible Beauty: Recent Research on Byzantine Jewelry (London, 2010), pp. 83–112, at 97, pl. 22. 20 On the find, see R. Bruce-Mitford, ‘Fresh Observations on the Torslunda Plates’,Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (London, 1974), pp. 214–22, with D and C on p. 59. The dies are fig. 156 in Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, II, 209. 21 E.g. Bruce-Mitford, ‘The Sutton Hoo Helmet – a New Reconstruction’, Aspects, pp. 198–209, at 208. On similar artifacts which may bear a motif of a single eye, see N. Price and 188

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Figure 19: The figures on Torslunda die D, after Stockholm, Statens Historiska Museet. s. v or vi?. Drawing by Debby Banham.

The horned warrior with spears also appears on an Anglo-Saxon copper-alloy fragment from Ayton in Berwickshire, although the figure is missing below the waist and therefore the position of the legs is unknown; it seems clear, nevertheless, that the figure shares in a widespread iconographical tradition.22 A possible parallel to the wolf figure is found on a seventh-century die of copper alloy found in Fen Drayton, Cambridgeshire, which shows a humanoid figure with a wolf mask or head, holding an upward-pointing spear in its right hand, with both feet pointing to its right, possibly to indicate that the figure is processing.23 Related motifs appear in several contexts. One of these is the Gutenstein foil, from a burial in Gutenstein in what is now Austria. The foil appears on a fragmentary seventh-century sword, but it has been suggested that the image was originally intended to decorate a helmet.24 The foil features an

P. Mortimer, ‘An Eye for Odin? Divine Role-Playing in the Age of Sutton Hoo’, European Jnl of Archaeol. 17 (2014), 517–36. 22 A. Blackwell, ‘An Anglo-Saxon Figure-Decorated Plaque from Ayton (Scottish Borders), its Parallels and Implications’, MA 51 (2007), 165–72. 23 ‘Medieval Britain and Ireland in 2005’, MA 50 (2006), 271–400, at 279–80 with the figure at 278(c). The die is Portable Antiquities database no. NLM-468D41. 24 M. Bertram, ‘Das Schwert von Gutenstein. Bemerkungen aus Anlass seiner Wiederauffindung’, Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica 42 (2010), 173–81, with photo at 177. 189

9781108419253book.indd 189 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless anthropomorphic figure, heavily garbed or armoured, with human feet, wearing a horse’s mask or head, holding a sword in one hand and spear in the other. The figure’s feet are depicted sideways, perhaps suggesting that he is processing, and the overall aspect of the image is reminiscent of the Torslunda dies. It has been suggested that the foil originally also included images of dancing warriors with raised feet, like those on the Sutton Hoo helmet, but if this is true, effectively no trace of these remains.25 The presence of these figures in animal masks does suggest, however, that the images depict a ceremony rather than an actual battle, when wearing animal masks would have been impractical and dangerous. Similar images appear on three fragments of helmet foils from the Staffordshire Hoard.26 The hoard as a whole dates from between the late sixth and the early eighth centuries. The first of the foil fragments depicts a warrior wearing a sword, in what has been called a ‘kneeling’ position, with one knee bent and the corresponding foot on the ground, the other knee apparently on the ground with the corresponding foot held out behind. The second fragment, a larger piece, depicts two warriors, again wearing swords and holding shields and upward-pointing spears in front of them, in the same position. The last and largest of the fragments depicts two warriors with swords, shields and spears in the same position, and a fragment of a third warrior; these warriors are unusual in that they are looking upwards. It is not clear whether the warriors on these fragments are engaged in some sort of ceremony, one in which dancing may form a part, whether they are praying, or whether they are doing something else entirely; what is clear is that they are part of a recurring and widespread iconographic scheme of warrior elements which has not been fully explicated. A number of further images of warriors with horned helmets survive from the Continent, many of them in positions which may suggest dance or other elements of ritual warrior iconography. Such, for example, are two amulets from Ekhammar, Sweden, each depicting a horned-helmeted warrior holding weapons with one knee bent.27 Similar is a pendant from Birka, on the island of Björkö, Sweden, which again depicts a warrior with weapons and a horned helmet, and with feet apparently sideways in a manner that may indicate that the warrior is processing rather than stationary. Another example comes from

25 See K. Hauck, ‘Alemannische Denkmäler der vorchristlichen Adelskultur’, Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte 16 (1957), 1–40 and Bertram, ‘Schwert’, pp. 178–9. 26 On the Staffordshire hoard, see S. Dean, D. Hooke and A. Jones, ‘The “Staffordshire Hoard”: The Fieldwork’, AntJ 90 (2010), 139–52; K. Leahy and R. Bland, The Staffordshire Hoard,rev. ed. (London, 2014). The items are StH 1432, StH 1529 and StH 1556. 27 One of the amulets from Ekhammar, and the Birka pendant, are reproduced in T. Gunnell, The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia (Cambridge, 1995), p. 65, figs. 40 and 41. 190

9781108419253book.indd 190 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance Ribe in Denmark: a lead mould used for making brooches, featuring a head with a horned helmet.28 An unusual object which may provide testimony to the widespread nature of the iconography of weapon dances is a terracotta tile from Grésin in France, tentatively dated to the fifth century.29 The tile appears to present Christ as a weapon dancer, armed with spear, sword and other gear, knees bent and feet sideways as if processing or dancing, and treading on a snake. Although the iconography is distinct from that of the Germanic tradition found on the other items, this may be evidence of widespread early medieval practice of weapon dances, and suggests one way in which even martial dance could express a Christian ethos. There are, in sum, a number of motifs that circulate on certain kinds of martial or masculine objects from Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia, in various combinations: warriors in horned helmets; warriors who appear to be dancing; warriors wearing animal masks or guise; warriors who may be naked; warriors kneeling on one knee; and similar motifs. Although the precise mean- ings of these things are elusive, several features suggest that these are depictions of ritual or performance.30 Among these are the positions of the warriors, the wearing of masks, and, presumably, the nakedness of some of the figures. It is unfortunate that so little textual evidence of such activity survives, but the images suggest a continuing motif of some kind of ceremony, a procession or dance involving weapons, which in turn implies that such a ceremony may have been current, though it is absent from the early medieval textual record. Recent scholarly findings affirm that synchronous movement, whether in the form of warrior dances or, much later in history, military drills, fosters and sustains social cohesion and leads to greater effectiveness in warfare, so it is unsurprising that such ceremonies may have formed part of warrior culture in the period.31 With the decline in the practice of including grave goods in burials, the

28 S. Jensen, The Vikings of Ribe (Ribe, 1991), pp. 33, 34 and 50, identified as Odin because the ‘horns’ are interpreted as ravens. 29 F. Vallet and G. Querre, ‘Authenticité de la plaque paléochrétienne de terre-cuite dite de Grésin (Commune du Broc, Puy-de-Dôme)’, Antiquités Nationales 21 (1989), 75–81; R. Lantier, ‘Plaque funéraire de terre-cuite mérovingienne’, Jahrbuch des Römisch-germanischen Zentralsmuseums Mainz 1 (1954), 237–44. 30 Among those who have discussed these motifs, not always persuasively but with a useful survey of examples, are W. Holmqvist, ‘The Dancing Gods’, Acta Archaeologica 31 (1960), 101–27, and A. M. Arent, ‘The Heroic Pattern: Old Germanic Helmets, Beowulf, and Grettis saga’, Old Norse Literature and Mythology, ed. E. C. Polomé (Austin, TX, 1969), pp. 130–99. 31 On this emerging field of study, see W. H. McNeill, Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History (Cambridge, MA, 1997), esp. pp. 37–66 and 101–50. 191

9781108419253book.indd 191 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless evidence for weapon dances dwindles after the seventh century. One piece of evidence serves to suggest that the iconographical tradition continued into later centuries, raising the possibility that the traditions implied by the images continued as well. The object in question is the Cottingham vat or tank, a lead container which may have served as a baptismal font, or alternately to hold wine or ale.32 The exterior of the vat is decorated with eight triangular reliefs, comprised of two designs, each repeated four times. One of these designs consists of multiple animals; the second design depicts a warrior standing above or on top of a quadruped of uncertain identity. The warrior has a sword at his waist, apparently attached by some means, as his hand is not on the hilt. Instead his left hand is lowered so that his fingers have come in contact with the blade of the sword, and his right hand is raised up to ear level (Fig. 22a). The feet are sideways, both pointing to the viewer’s left, possibly to suggest that the figure is processing to the left. The vat has been dated to the ninth century, perhaps to late in the century, and thus the image was created a full two centuries later than other images in the warrior tradition. It is therefore fitting that, apart from the feet both pointed to the viewer’s left, this image does not share in the particular iconographical motifs of the earlier images – horned helmet, animal mask, multiple spears, or any of the gestures demonstrated by the earlier examples. Instead it resembles a range of images in which a figure has the right arm raised and the left arm lowered, as will be discussed in greater detail below. If the position does suggest that the warrior on the Cottingham vat is performing a dance, this ninth-century image would be the latest extant depiction of a weapon dance from Anglo- Saxon England. Only two textual suggestions of Germanic weapon dances survive, both of them far afield from Anglo-Saxon England. One of these occurs in Tacitus’ Germania, in which he describes an early Germanic practice: ‘Genus spectacu- lorum unum atque in omni coetu idem: nudi iuvenes, quibus id ludicrum est, inter gladios se atque infestas frameas saltu iaciunt. Exercitatio artem paravit, ars decorem, non in quaestum tamen aut mercedem: quamvis audacis lasciviae pretium est voluptas spectantium.’33 The nakedness described is reminiscent of figures such as that on the Finglesham buckle, and if these are truly the same

32 The Cottingham vat is in the possession of the Auckland Castle Museum. It is Portable Antiquities database no. WAW-A4D8D4. 33 ‘They have a single type of public show at every gathering: naked youths, for whom this is a performance, fling themselves, dancing, amongst swords and threatening spears. Practice makes for skill, and skill, grace; but they are not out for profit or pay; however daring their sport, their only reward is the enjoyment of the spectators.’ De origine et situ germanorum liber, in P. Cornelii Taciti Libri qui Supersunt, tom. II Fasc. 2, ed. A. Önnerfors (Stuttgart, 1983), pp. 16–17 (cap. 24). My translation. 192

9781108419253book.indd 192 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance tradition, this may represent a continuing aspect of one version of war dancing. The majority of images from the period after the seventh century, however, clearly depict clothed warriors; moreover, in later images it is the warriors who are armed, not those who are performing with them, and so Tacitus’ account is not consonant with what can be seen of later practice. The second of these textual examples is a highly problematic piece of testimony from Constantine Porphyrogennetos’ Book of Ceremonies, of c. 953, describing ceremonies of the Byzantine court. The text gives an account of the gothikon, or ‘Gothic game’, enacted as part of the post-Christmas ceremonies in Constantinople. The day’s entertainment seems to have begun with jugglers, and after they performed, representatives of two factions, likely the competing factions known as the Blues and the Greens, filed in, each accompanied by two Goths wearing furs turned inside out, as well as masks, and carrying staffs and shields. The Goths ran in, struck their shields with their staffs, cried ‘Toul toul!’ (or possibly ioul!), and processed or danced in a circular formation. The ritual was followed by Gothic chants accompanied by music from the panduri, a lyre-like instrument.34 Whether these rituals qualify as war dances is arguable, as is the identity of the ‘Goths’ (Γóτθοι). The Varangian Guard of the day was made up principally of Scandinavians and Russians, and it has been argued that possibly these ‘Goths’ were Scandinavians from the island of Gotland, or from Västergötland or Östergötland in Sweden; most intriguingly, a fourteenth-century witness to a lost manuscript seems to report that the Guards spoke English.35 At the least, this is evidence of the fact that ceremonial displays of martial prowess were widespread, and that the appearance of such ceremonies in Anglo-Saxon England should not be surprising. Because descriptions of war dance are absent from the surviving Anglo-Saxon literature, it is unclear how long the idea survived. In the later Anglo-Saxon period depictions of war dances are eclipsed by testimony of a different kind of dance: dance as described in Scripture. Dance and Scripture Scripture provided several opportunities to depict dancing, most usually devout and celebratory. The parting of the Red Sea provided cause for jubilation, as depicted in Ex XV.20: ‘sumpsit ergo Maria prophetis soror Aaron tympanum

34 The original and translation are found in Constantine Porphyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies, trans. A. Moffatt and M. Tall, 2 vols. (Canberra, 2012) I, 381–2 (bk I, cap. 83). 35 For arguments that the Guard was Scandinavian, see Gunnell, Origins, pp. 72–5; for the later manuscript, see N. Sjöberg, ‘En germansk julfest I Konstantinopel på 900-talet’, Fataburen [no vol. no.] (1907), 31–5, at 35, as noted by N. Price, The Viking Way, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2016), p. 373, where he provides a translation of the relevant passage. 193

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Figure 20: London, British Library, Claudius B. iv, 92v (s. xi2/4). Jubilation at the parting of the Red Sea. © The British Library Board.

in manu egressaeque sunt omnes mulieres post eam cum tympanis et choris’.36 The occasion was illustrated in the Old English Hexateuch found in London, British Library, Cotton Claudius B. iv (s. xi2/4), 92v, which provides an image of the Israelites exulting with their hands upraised (Fig. 20). The two figures at the right of the image each have one foot raised off the ground, suggesting that the scene depicts spontaneous joyful dancing.37 The biblical story of David provided several further occasions to depict dance. After he had triumphed in the war against the Philistines, as described in 2 Samuel XI.5, ‘David autem et omnis Israel ludebant coram Domino in omnibus lignis fabrefactis, et citharis et lyris et tympanis et sistris et cymbalis.’38 Although the passage itself does not specifically mention dancing, medieval images of the scene often depicted both musicians and dancing, as if dancing was an intrinsic accompaniment to or emblem of music. The scene is most prominently represented in the Vespasian Psalter, which shows David playing the psaltery accompanied by musicians, with two central figures dancing (Fig. 21).39 Both figures have knees bent, one foot off the ground, hands clapping. In a subsequent passage, David himself dances: the Ark of the Covenant is brought in ‘et David saltabat totis viribus ante Dominum’

36 ‘Then Miriam the sister of Aaron, the prophetess, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dancing.’ 37 London, British Library, Cotton Claudius B. iv (xi2/4), 92v; H. Gneuss and M. Lapidge, Anglo- Saxon Manuscripts [GL] (Toronto, 2014), no. 315. The image is available in The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch: British Museum Cotton Claudius B.IV, ed. C. R. Dodwell and P. Clemoes, EEMF 18 (Copenhagen, 1974), 92v. 38 ‘David and all Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of wood, on harps and lutes and timbrels and cornets and cymbals.’ 39 London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian A. I (s. viii2/4): GL no. 381. The image of the dancers is on 30v. 194

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Figure 21: Two figures dancing as depicted in the Vespasian Psalter (London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian A. i), 30v (s. viii2/4). ‘David and all Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of wood, on harps and lutes and timbrels and cornets and cymbals.’ The Scriptural passage does not mention dancing, but dancing was apparently regarded as a natural accompaniment to music and celebration. Drawing by Debby Banham after the Vespasian Psalter.

(2 Samuel XI.14).40 This passage is also likely the subject of the image on the upright section of a stone cross of the late eighth or early ninth century at Codford St Peter, as suggested by Rosemary Cramp.41 Two further depictions of dancing appear in the Harley Psalter (London, British Library, Harley 603), in parts a close copy of the Utrecht Psalter.42 One image, on 24v, accompanies Psalm XLI, perhaps illustrating verse XLI.5, ‘ingrediar in locum tabernaculi ad mirabilis usque ad domum dei in uoce exulta- tionis et confessionis sonus epulantis’.43 The image shows a group of five musicians playing instruments, while on one side a man and a woman dance facing each other. The man has one arm raised and the other down; the woman has hands raised in the air and the woman’s gown flung up to her knees with the motion, while to the other side a second woman dances (Fig. 22b). A further

40 ‘and David danced before the Lord with all his might’. 41 R. Cramp, The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, VII: South-West England (Oxford, 2006), pp. 209–11, with images nos. 425 and 426. 42 The Harley Psalter dates from the first half of the eleventh century. The Utrecht Psalter is Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I Nr 32, and dates from the early or mid-ninth century. 43 ‘I shall go into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God, with the voice of jubilation and praise, the sound of feasting.’ 195

9781108419253book.indd 195 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless instance of dancing appears on 27v, as an accompaniment to Psalm XLVII.12, ‘Laetetur mons Sion, exultent filiae Iudae propter iudicia tua.’44 In this image the daughters of Judah are shown from afar, holding hands in what appears to be a round dance, engaged in a kind of pious gambolling. Dancing in a state of holy joyfulness is depicted as the province of either of the sexes: of men, as in the images at David’s court, or of women, as in the images of Miriam and of the daughters of Judah. But one motif appears as the exclusive province of women: lustful dancing. This aspect was given scriptural force by the description of the daughter of Herod (identified in later tradition as Salome), who performs a dance and as a reward asks for the head of John the Baptist, as described in Matthew XIV.6: ‘Die autem natalis Herodis saltavit fila Herodiadis in medio et placuit Herodi.’45 No images of Salome dancing are known from Anglo-Saxon England, but a related tradition was the subject of interest in several manuscripts: images of the sin of Luxuria, or Lust, typically depicted as female, in accordance with both the grammatical gender of Luxuria and cultural convention that lust arose from the eroticism of women. Three images of the sin of Lust dancing appear in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of the Psychomachia: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 23 (s. xex, possibly written at Christ Church, Canterbury), 19v; London, British Library, Add. 24199 (s. xex, place of origin unknown), 18r; and London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra C. viii (s. x/xi, written at Christ Church, Canterbury), 19v.46 These images of dancing Lust are derived from one or more continental protoypes, manuscripts of the Psychomachia brought to south- ern England, most likely from France, in the late ninth or early tenth century. The presence of multiple exemplars is suggested by differences between images of different versions of the same scene in the three English manuscripts. In the case of Lust, however, the images in the three manuscripts are closely related: all depict a figure dancing in bare feet, one knee raised, right arm in the air and the left away from the body, and the end of the figure’s shawl or scarf thrown into the air by movement (Fig. 22c).47 Two musicians stand to the side, and the dancer has an audience of three male onlookers. The theme of the sinful dancing girl is reflected in other textual traditions founded on scripture. The Old English Martyrology, for instance, recorded the

44 ‘Let mount Sion rejoice and the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgements.’ 45 ‘On Herod’s birthday, Herod’s daughter danced in the midst of them, and pleased Herod.’ 46 CCCC 23 is GL 38; BL Add. 24199 is GL 285; Cleopatra C. viii is GL 324. On the tradition of the Psychomachia illustrations, see G. R. Wieland, ‘The Origin and Development of the Anglo-Saxon Psychomachia Illustrations’, ASE 26 (1997), 169–86. 47 The three images are reproduced in R. Stettiner, Die illustrierten Prudentiushandschriften: Tafelband (Berlin, 1905), plate 58, no. 4 (CCCC 23); no. 10 (BL Add. 24199); and no. 16 (Cleopatra C. viii). 196

9781108419253book.indd 196 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance feast of St John the Baptist on 29 August with a description of the episode: ‘. . . ond þæt heafod het beran on disce ond sellan anre sealticgan hire plegan to mede . . . he wæs heafde becorfen for scandfulra wife bene, ond for geglisces mægdenes plegan . . .’48 Ælfric referred to the same episode in his homilies, describing ‘þa unstæðþigan hleapunge þæs mædenes’ and the reward given to the ‘lyðran hoppestran’.49 This dramatic episode also appears in the Tituli Historiarum or Dittochaeon of Prudentius, of which nine manuscripts survive from Anglo-Saxon England.50 The passage about Salome reads: PASSIO IOHANNIS Praemia saltatrix poscit funebria uirgo Iohannis caput abscisum quod lance reportet incestae ad gremium matris. Fert regia donum psaltria respersis manibus de sanguine iusto.51 A key word in the passage is psaltria, a term that originally meant a female lyrist or lutist, but that was expanded to denote a female performer who might dance – a ‘music-girl’ – and from there became the term for a female performer known for erotic dances, a meaning in use as early as Terence’s Adelphoe (160 BC) and found in Late Latin authors such as Macrobius.52 The concept of the dancing temptress, the psaltria, was incorporated into hagiographical literature in the Vita of Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester (c. 1008–95). The Vita was written by Coleman, Wulfstan’s chaplain and chancellor, after Wulfstan’s death, and now survives only in a Latin version by William of Malmesbury. In the text, Wulfstan, then an innocent youth, is approached by a shameless young woman who tries to ensnare him in sin by acting as a psaltria: ‘. . . puellae predictae quae propter astaret infudit animo ut accurreret. Illa non segnis

48 ‘. . .and he ordered the head to be brought in on a dish and given to a dancer as a reward for her entertainment . . . he was beheaded at the request of scandalous women and for the playing of a lascivious girl . . .’ My translation. In place of sealticgan, ‘dancing girl, female dancer’, MS C (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 196) has hleapestran, with the same meaning. The Old English Martyrology, ed. and trans. C. Rauer (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 170–1. 49 ‘the giddy dancing of the maiden’, ‘evil dancing-girl’. P. A. M. Clemoes, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: the First Series, Text, EETS ss 17 (Oxford, 1997), 454, 455. 50 On the popularity of Prudentius and the Dittochaeon in Anglo-Saxon England, see Wieland, ‘Psychomachia Illustrations’; A. Orchard, The Poetic Art of Aldhelm (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 172–3, listing five manuscripts of the Dittochaeon; and E. V. Thornbury, Becoming a Poet in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 2014), who alludes to nine manuscripts and one fragment of the text on p. 47. 51 ‘A dancing-girl demands a fatal prize, the head of John, hewn off so she may carry it back with a plate to the lap of her unholy mother; the royal music-girl carries the gift with hands spattered with the blood of the just.’ Prudentius, Tituli Historiarum (Dittochaeon), 133–6 (no. XXXIV), Aurelii Prudentii Clementis Carmina, ed. M. P. Cunningham (Turnholt, 1966), pp. 396–7. 52 Terence, Adelphoe 842; Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.1. 197

9781108419253book.indd 197 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless gestibus impudicis, motibus inuerecundis, plausabilem psaltriam agit, id ut amasii sui seruiret oculis.’53 As expected, Wulfstan refuses to fall victim to the wiles of the dancing temptress. The episode uses dancing to represent a sinful sexuality, but it is notable that the motif appears to be derived from textual sources rather than from attested practice. In actuality, clerical condemnation of secular dancing appears repeatedly on the Continent, but is comparatively rare in Anglo-Saxon sources. Dance and the Church Early medieval ecclesiastical authorities did object to dancing in several contexts, most especially when practised as part of clerical dissipation, but also in some instances only peripherally connected to religious matters. In particular there were continuing objections to what appears to be a long-standing tradition of dancing near churches. These condemnations survive in abundance from the Continent, appearing as early as the fifth century, when Caesarius of Arles condemned those who danced in church precincts, a practice which he connects with the singing of profane songs: Ante omnia, ubicumque fueritis, sive in domo, sive in itinere, sive in convivio, sive in concessu, verba turpia et luxuriosa nolite ex ore proferre: sed magis vicinos et proxi- mos vestros iugiter admonete, ut semper quod bonum est et honestum loqui studeant; ne forte detrahendo, male loquendo, et in sanctis festivitatibus choros ducendo, cantica luxuriosa et turpia proferendo, de lingua sua, unde deberent deum laudare, inde sibi vulnera videantur infligere. Isti enim infelices et miseri, qui ballationes et saltationes ante ipsas basilicas sanctorum exercere nec metuunt nec erubescunt, et si christiani ad ecclesiam veniunt, pagani de ecclesia revertuntur; quia ista consuetudo ballandi de paganorum observatione remansit.54 Complaints about those who juxtaposed dance and the holy had a long lifespan. Childbert’s Edict of 554 condemned bansatrices, women who danced

53 ‘He [the devil] filled the mind of the aforesaid girl, who stood nearby, so that she ran up. She was not slow to use immodest gestures and shameless movements, acting like a rhythmi- cal erotic dancer in a way that would appeal to the eyes of her lover.’ My translation. Vita Wulfstani, i.I.6–7; William of Malmesbury: Saints’ Lives, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson (Oxford, 2002), p. 18. 54 ‘Above all things, wherever you are, whether at home or on a journey or at a banquet or in a gathering, do not offer forth disgraceful and scandalous words, but rather continually admonish your neighbours and nearest to take care to say what is good and upright, lest by slandering, evil speaking, and leading the rounds at holy festivals, offering forth scandalous and disgraceful songs which should be praising God, they may be seen to inflict wounds on themselves by means of their mouths. These unhappy and wretched ones, who do not fear nor blush to practise dances and leapings before the very churches of the saints – even if they go to church as Christians, they come back as pagans, for this practice of dancing remains from the usage of the pagans.’ D. G. Morin, Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones, CCSL 103 (Turnhout, 1953), Sermo XIII.4 (p. 67). 198

9781108419253book.indd 198 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance through the villages on holy feast days.55 Reccared’s council in 589 was followed by an ordinance forbidding saltationes and bawdy songs on saints’ feast days.56 The Council of Chalon-sur-Saône, convened from 647 to 653, urged priests to exclude women who might profane church precincts on solemn occasions with improper singing and dancing.57 The idea that dancing in conjunction with religion was a pagan custom was passed along for centuries after memories of pagan customs had most likely receded, as it provided a simple shorthand to express the objectionable qualities of the practice. The Penitential of Theodore, a Frankish compilation of the early eighth century, condemned the merrymaking of the secular clergy, admonishing: ‘Jocationes, et saltationes, et circum, vel cantica turpia et luxuriosa, vel lusa diabolica, nec ad ipsas aecclesias, nec in domibus, nec in plateis, nec in ullo loco alio facere praesumant; quia hoc de paganorum consuetudine remansit.’58 In the eighth century, Pirmin of Reichenau warned Christians against dancing, whether in the churches, in homes, or in the streets, with similar admonitions.59 The Rule of Chrodegang, originating in 762 in Metz, also appeared in an Old English translation, warning that priests should keep their distance from celebrations such as weddings where profane singing and dancing took place: ‘. . . ne . . . wogerlice leoð 7 tællice singe, oððe þær lichamana beoð fracodlice gebæru mid saltingum and tumbincgum . . .‘60 Continental writers were also concerned about the practice of dancing at wakes, condemned in particular in the late ninth and early tenth centuries by Regino of Prüm and Burchard of Worms.61 Church authorities also issued continuing prohibitions against the practice of dressing up as stags or in other

55 MGH, Cap. Reg. Fr. 1:2–3. On this phenomenon also, see R. Foatelli, Les danses réligieuses dans le Christianisme (Paris, 1947) and J. Chailley, ‘La danse religieuse au Moyen Âge’, Arts libéraux et philosophie au Moyen Âge (Montreal and Paris, 1969), pp. 357–80. 56 Concilium Toletanum III, 23, Concilios Visigóticos e Hispano-Romanos, ed. J. Vives with T. M. Martínez and G. Martínez Díez (Barcelona and Madrid, 1963), p. 133. 57 Concilia Galliae A. 511–A. 685, ed. C. de Clercq, CCSL 148A (Turnhout, 1963), p. 307. 58 ‘They should not presume to fool around, or indulge in dancing or racing, or dissolute and sensual songs, or devilish games, neither in the churches, nor in dwellings, nor in the streets, nor in any other place; for this remains from the practice of the pagans.’ The Latin is quoted from B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (London, 1840), cap. 38, p. 46. 59 Dicta Pirmini, ed. G. Jecker, Die Heimat des hl. Pirmin (Münster i. W.,1927), 28: 188–9 and 22: 176. 60 ‘. . . nor should he sing songs amorously and shamefully, or where bodily movements are presented shamelessly with dancing and capering . . .’ The Old English translates ‘neque . . . amatoria et turpia cantantur, aut ubi obsceni motus corporum choris et saltationibus efferuntur . . .’ The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang, ed. A. S. Napier, pp. 78–9. 61 ‘Nullus ibi praesumat diabolica carmina cantare, non ioca et saltationes facere, quae pagani diabolo docente adinvenerunt.’ Regino of Prüm, Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis I.398, in Das Sendhandbuch des Regino von Prüm, ed. W. Hartmann (Darmstadt, 2004), p. 200. 199

9781108419253book.indd 199 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless guises at the New Year; Caesarius of Arles, for instance, warned against mas- querading as annicula vel cervulo, though whether this masquerade was in conjunction with the dancing is not clear.62 Regino of Prüm prescribed penance for the same practice, adding the usual association with pagansim: ‘Fecisti aliquid, quod pagani faciunt in Kalendis Ianuariis in cervulo vel vegula [sic]? Tres annos poenitas.’63 In Anglo-Saxon England this censorious ecclesiastical attitude was evident in the description of the events of Judgement Day in the Old English Judgement Day II: Þonne deriende gedwinað heonone þysse worulde gefean, gewitað mid ealle. Þonne druncennes gedwineð mid wistum, and hleahter and plega hleapað ætsomne, and wrænnes eac gewiteð heonone . . .64 Here dance appears solely as a metaphor, but its context demonstrates its position in the moral universe: to the stern author of the poem, dance is aligned closely with impious laughter and play, and allied to lust and wantonness. The sin inherent in frivolous dancing was greater, of course, if clerics themselves indulged in it. In the third quarter of the tenth century, King Edgar lamented the degree to which clerics ‘. . . diffluant in comessationibus et ebrieta- tibus, in cubilibus et impudicitiis; ut jam domus clericorum putentur prostibula meretricum, conciliabulum histrionum. Ibi aleae, ibi saltus et cantus, ibi usque ad medium noctis spatium protractae in clamore et horrore vigiliae . . .’65 An additional apparent witness is represented by an episode recounted in the Vitae S. Edithae, written in England sometime between 1078 and 1087 by

62 Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones, ed. D. G. Morin, Sermo XIII.4 (p. 67). On this lengthy tradition, beginning in the fourth century, see R. Arbesmann, ‘The “Cervuli” and “Anniculae” in Caesarius of Arles’, Traditio 35 (1979), 89–119. 63 ‘Have you performed any of the practices that the pagans do on the first of January, dressed as a stag or a vegula? Three years’ penance.’ Libros duos, I.CCCIV; Hartmann, Sendhandbuch, p. 164. On the meaning of vegula, see Arbesmann, ‘Cervuli’; on the practice, see also S. M. Barillari, ‘Le maschere cornute nella tradizione europea (storia, onomastica, morfologia)’, Sentieri della memoria, ed. D. Porporato and G. Fassino (Bra, 2015), pp. 529–48. 64 ‘Then the unwholesome joys of this world will fade away and depart from here altogether; then drunkenness will fade away with feasting, and laughter and play dance away together, and lust too will go hence . . .’ My translation. The Old English Poem ‘Judgement Day II’, ed. G. D. Caie (Cambridge, 2000), p. 98, ll. 233–7. 65 ‘. . . dissipate themselves in feasts and times of drunkenness, in beds and carnalities; so that now the houses of clerics are considered brothels of prostitutes, meeting-places of performers. There is gaming, there dancing and singing, there is staying awake until the middle of the night with uproar and scandalous behaviour . . .’ The Latin is from W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 3 vols. (London, 1885–93) III, 573. 200

9781108419253book.indd 200 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance Goscelin of Saint-Bertin. In the text, one Theodoric recounts the story of a malediction levied on him by a priest who saw him and his companions profan- ing a churchyard by dancing in its precincts on Christmas eve. As Theodoric describes it, the dance in question appears to be either a round dance or a chain dance (one in which the dancers join hands and dance, processing, in a line): ‘Conserimus manus et chorollam confusionis in atrio ordinamus.’66 In response to the curse, the dancers are supernaturally compelled to continue dancing for an entire year without respite and without being able to detach from one another. At the end of a year they are freed, but the survivors are afflicted by a continual dancing palsy which suggests something of the character of the dance: ‘Nos, licet ab inuicem essemus dissoluti, tamen eosdem saltus et rotatus quod simul feceramus fecimus singuli, atque ita singuli iactu membrorum uidebamur tumultuari.’67 Despite the English provenance of Theodoric’s story, this account cannot be taken as reliable evidence of the form of dance in contemporary England, or even of an English practice or condemnation of dancing in churchyards. The story is not actually English in origin, but a folktale of continental origin that reached wide circulation in this period; it is known to folklorists as the ‘Dancers of Kolbeck’ (or ‘Kölbigk’) or the ‘Sacrilegious Choristers’.68 On the Continent, Lambert of Hersfeld mentioned the story in his De institucione Herveldensis aecclesiae, written around 1074, in recounting healing miracles effected by certain holy men.69 Among these miracles was the cure of one of the dancers, a man

66 ‘We join hands and set in motion our tumultuous dance.’ The Latin is edited by A. Wilmart, ‘La légende de Ste. Edithe en pros et vers par le moine Goscelin’, AB 56 (1938), 5–101, 265–307 with this passage at p. 288. Wilmart used as the basis of his edition Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C 938 (s. xiii); a variant manuscript, Cardiff, Public Library, I. 381 (s. xiiin), which is thought to represent Goscelin’s revision, serves as the base text for the translation by M. Wright and K. Loncar, ‘Goscelin’s Legend of Edith’, Writing the Wilton Women: Goscelin’s Legend of Edith and Liber confortatorius, ed. S. Hollis (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 23–93. This ‘Theodoric version’ of the tale circulated widely and makes its appearance in Orderic Vitalis; on its dissemination, see M. Chestnutt, ‘The Colbeck Legend in English Tradition of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Folkore Studies in the Twentieth Century, ed. V. J. Newall (Woodbridge, 1980), pp. 158–66. 67 ‘We, although we had been disengaged from one another, nevertheless made the same hops and spins by ourselves that we had made together, and so by the wild movements of our limbs we each seemed to be in a frenzy.’ My translation. The Latin is at Wilmart, ‘La légende’, p. 291. 68 Motifs C51.1.5, ‘Tabu: dancing in churchyard’ and C94.1.1 ‘The cursed dancers’ (S. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, rev. ed. (Bloomington, Indiana, 1955–8)); ATU 779E*, ‘The Dancers of Kolbeck’ (H.-J. Uther, The Types of International Folktales, FF Communications 284 (Helsinki, 2005), pp. 436–7); Tubach 1419, ‘Dancers, accursed’ (F. C. Tubach, Index Exemplorum, FF Communications 204 (Helsinki, 1969), p. 113). 69 The literature on the history, versions and implications of the tale is voluminous. On the history, see E. Schröder, ‘Die Tänzer von Kölbigk: Ein Mirakel von 11. Jahrhunderts’, 201

9781108419253book.indd 201 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless who was still afflicted with the palsy as a token of the accursed dance: ‘Inter sanatos advenit unus ex illis qui in Colebecce . . . coream illam famosam duxer- ant, tremulus per annos iam viginti tres . . .’70 Lambert assigns the cure a date of 1038, setting the original curse of the dancers around 1015. The story seems to have been circulating this early, as Pilgrim, archbishop of Cologne from 1021 to 1036, allegedly heard the story first-hand from another of the dancers, one Otbert. At some point Otbert’s tale was written down; this circulated widely and came to the attention of William of Malmesbury, who repeated the story in the Gesta regum Anglorum (a. 1125), locating the tale in Saxony and reporting Otbert’s description of the dancing: ‘Ego in cimiterio cum sodalibus octo- decim, uiris quindecim feminis tribus, choreas ducens et cantilenas seculares perstrepens . . .’71 Various similar versions were disseminated widely, and the tale finally found its most famous form in Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne, of the early fourteenth century, which borrowed its account from the Vita S. Edithae.72 The tale is unique in the number of informants who claimed to have

Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 17 (1897), 94–164; K.-H. Borck, ‘Der Tanz zu Kölbigk’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 76 (1954–5), 241–320; G. Baesecke, ‘Der Kölbigker Tanz’, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 78 (1941), 1–36; E. E. Metzner, Zur frühesten Geschichte der europäischen Balladendichtung. Der Tanz in Kölbigk: Legendarische Nachrichten, gesellschaftlicher Hintergrund, historische Voraussetzungen (Frankfurt, 1972). There is scholarly consensus that the story originated in Saxony; some versions later became relocal- ized to various parts of Britain in the later Middle Ages. There is also considerable literature on the implications of the line of song quoted in some of the versions, and on the possibility that the tale reflects a genuine historical case of a compulsion to dance. This last seems implausi- ble, underestimating the power of maladies and monuments to generate fictional backstories, and in any case is irrelevant to the questions considered here. This latter strand of scholarship is represented by H. Kleinschmidt, Perception and Action in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 2005), esp. pp. 41–55, and G. Rohmann, ‘“In circuitu impii ambulant”: Goscelin von Canterbury, Petrus Damiani und das Tanzmirakel von Kölbigk’, Historische Anthropologie 19 (2011), 245–72 and his Tanzwut: Kosmos, Kirche und Mensch in der Bedeutungsgeschichte eines mittelalterlichen Krankheitskonzepts (Göttingen, 2012). 70 ‘Among those restored to health came one of those who, in Colbek . . . led the notorious dance, having been shaky at that time for twenty-three years.’ The Latin is from De institucione Herveldensis aecclesiae, in Lamperti Monachi Hersfeldensis Opera, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS (1894), p. 351. 71 ‘I myself was in the cemetery with eighteen companions, fifteen men and three women, dancing and bellowing out worldly songs.’ William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum: the History of the English Kings, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors with R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998–9) I, 196 (ii.175.2). (My translation.) This is the ‘Otbert version’, which circulated widely through its use by Vincent of Beauvais in his Speculum historiale, of the mid-thirteenth century. 72 Robert Mannyng of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, ed. I. Sullens (Binghamton, NY, 1983), l. 9011, p. 225. Handlyng Synne borrowed liberally from the Anglo-Norman Manuel des Pechiez, which took the ‘Dancers of Kolbeck’ episode from William of Malmesbury, but Mannyng appears to have based the ‘Dancers of Kolbeck’ account on the Vita Edithae; on this, see Sullens, Handlyng Synne, p. xliv, n. 26. 202

9781108419253book.indd 202 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance been first-hand participants in the accursed dance itself, and later to have been healed of their resulting palsy. It may be that the narrative came to form an explanatory backstory for people afflicted with palsy, the motions of which could, as the story suggests, be understood as a miraculous consequence of an accursed dance. The legend of the accursed dancers also served as an origin story for certain landscape features. Three such tales have been collected in an English manuscript of the early twelfth century. The stories are set in Brittany, England and an unnamed location, each explaining a stone circle in that location. Although the accounts differ in details, in each a group of women are dancing despite the warnings of a cleric, and the story ends with the dancers turned to stone.73 In the manuscript the stories are accompanied by an image which combines the details of all three tales. It is significant, then, that when a backstory was desired to account for stone circles, the shape of the circles called round dances most clearly to mind. This association was endorsed by two further instances: Geoffrey of Monmouth described the stone circle that became Stonehenge as chorea gigantum, ‘round dance of the giants’, and in turn Wace called it carole as gaianz, ‘round dance of the giants’.74 The multitude of early medieval condemnations of dancing in churchyards, then, are continental in origin, and evidence for the tradition in Britain apparently does not occur until the twelfth century. At that point Gerald of Wales condemned the practice in the Gemma Ecclesiastica, citing the condemnation of the Council of Toledo as preface to a disapproving tale. In the story, a priest of Worcester overhears a secular song sung by a group of people dancing in the churchyard: ‘Exemplum de sacerdote, qui in Anglia Wigorniae finibus his nostris diebus interjectam quandam cantilenae particulam, ad quam saepius redire consueverant, quam refectoriam seu refractoriam vocant, ex reliquiis cogitationum . . . quia tota id nocte in choreis circiter ecclesiam ductis audierat . . .’75 Having listened to the song repeatedly, when it comes to the part of the mass in which the priest is supposed to say ‘Dominus vobiscum’, instead

73 On this, see M. Jones, The Secret Middle Ages (Stroud, 2002), pp. 188–9. The manuscript is Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 614, with the image at 51v. On the story and image, see also A. J. Ford, Marvel and Artefact. The ‘Wonders of the East’ in its Manuscript Contexts (Leiden, 2016), pp. 119–20. 74 Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, ed. M. D. Reeve, trans. N. Wright (Woodbridge, 2007), Book VIII (pp. 172–3); J. Weiss, Wace’s Roman de Brut: a History of the British. Text and Translation, rev. ed. (Exeter, 2002), line 8373 (p. 210). On petrification legends, see also S. P. Menefee, ‘The “Merry Maidens” and the “Noce de Pierre”’, Folklore 85 (1974), 23–42. 75 ‘There is the story of a priest in the region of Worcester in England in our days, who heard, the whole night long, from people dancing around the outside of the church, a certain section of a song, which they call the replenishment or the refrain, which they used to return to again 203

9781108419253book.indd 203 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless he mistakenly repeats the refrain of the song, ‘Swete lamman, dhin are’, ‘Sweet lover, thy mercy’. Although Gerald takes this story in earnest, the tale actually bears the hallmarks of a type of joke often found in later medieval jestbooks. However misplaced Gerald’s objections are, his story bears witness to the fact that churchyard dancing was apparently considered commonplace. A second example appears in the Itinerarium Kambriae, in which Gerald mentions churchyard dancing without expressing disapproval, as the point of this particular description is the praise of the miraculous. This comes as Gerald describes the wondrous healings that take place at the Welsh church of St Eluned on the saint’s feast day. There people appear, ‘homines seu puellas’, who are apparently afflicted with madness, so that they uselessly act out their daily occupations, now inside the church, now in the churchyard, ‘nunc in chorea quae circa coemiterium cum cantilena circumfertur’, but finally are healed of their madness or trances at the altar.76 Thus although no condemnations of churchyard dancing seem to survive from early English sources, the evidence for such dancing appears in many locales on both the Continent and, in these two tales, in Wales and England. This suggests that churchyard dancing was a pan-European practice, perhaps associated with festivities on holy days, perhaps sometimes simply because the churchyard was a large open space suitable for round dances or chain dances on any occasion. Thus, as may be clear, not all ecclesiastical associations with dance were condemnatory, and indeed one description of holy dance had an Anglo-Saxon origin. In the Vita S. Dunstani, the saint peers into the church and has a vision of holy virgins dancing a round dance, accompanied by song with a lead and chorus: Cumque ad hanc propinquando psallendoque uenisset, forte ex insperato noctis euentu audierat insolitas sonoritatum uoces subtili modulamine in hac eadem basilica concrepantes. At ille continuo per quendam patuli foraminis hiatum inspiciens uidit prelocutam aecclesiam omni esse fulgida luce perfusam, et uirgineas turmas in choro gyranti hymnum hunc poetae Sedulii cursitando cantantes: ‘Cantemus, socii, Domino’ et cetera. Itemque perpendit easdem post uersum et uersum uoce reciproca, quasi in circumitionis suae concentu, primum uersiculum eiusdem ymniculi more humanarum uirginum repsallere . . .77

and again from the rest of the piece . . .’ Gemma Ecclesiastica I.XLIII, Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock and G. F. Warner, 8 vols. (London, 1861–91) II, 120. 76 ‘men or girls . . . now in the dance which is led around in a circle in the churchyard with a song’ (my translation). Itinerarium Kambriae, lib. I, cap. II, Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. Brewer et al., VI, p. 32. 77 ‘He hastened to look in through an opening, to find the church all bathed in brilliant light; bands of virgins were wheeling around in a dance, singing as they moved the hymn of 204

9781108419253book.indd 204 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance The vision suggests both a devout version of contemporary practice and an echo of the pious dance practised by Miriam and the daughters of Judah. Later parallels suggest that Dunstan’s vision may be part of a continuing motif in which a man gazes at supernatural women engaged in dance. The motif turns up in less pious circumstances in Walter Map’s De nugis curialium, of the late twelfth century. Map relates four instances. The most extensive tells the story of the fairy wife of the Anglo-Saxon nobleman Eadric Wild; the story is thus set around the time of the Conquest, although naturally that does not mean that the motif of the dancing women necessarily became attached to Eadric at this early date.78 In the story, Eadric, returning at midnight from hunting, comes upon a large drinking-house at the edge of the forest, and peers in to see a band of supernatural maidens dancing and singing. Their dance is clearly a round dance: ‘Circuibant leui motu gestuque iocundo, et castigata uoce, reuerendo concentu sonus audiebatur exilis . . .’79 Eadric falls in love with the most beautiful of the women and eventually marries her, with unfortunate consequences. In another tale recounted by Map, one Gwestin Gwestiniog observes a group of women dancing in an oat field by moonlight; the women are confirmed as supernatural when they disappear into a lake.80 Similarly, William the Bastard marries a supernatural maiden who had been dancing by night in a company of women.81 In yet another report, an unnamed man sees his dead wife dancing with a company of maidens and recovers her.82 The only

Sedulius that begins: “Let us sing, friends, to the Lord”, and what follows. He also noticed that after each verse they alternately repeated, as mortal girls might have done, and as though in harmony with their circling dance, the first couplet of the hymn . . .’ Edition and translation from M. Winterbottom and M. Lapidge, The Early Lives of St Dunstan (Oxford, 2012), pp. 100–1 (cap. 36). The Vita S. Dunstani was composed in the late 990s by one ‘B’. A variant of this episode in found in Byrhtferth’s Vita S. Oswaldi, in which Dunstan hears miraculous voices singing Sedulius’ ‘Cantemus, socii, Domino’, but the voices belong to those buried in the church, and there is no dancing. (Byrhtferth of Ramsey: the Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine, ed. and trans. M. Lapidge (Oxford, 2009), Vita S. Oswaldi 5.7, pp. 162–4.) The implications for the history of the carol are discussed by C. Page, ‘The Carol in Anglo-Saxon Canterbury?’, Essays on the History of English Music in honour of John Caldwell: Sources, Style, Performance, Historiography, ed. E. Hornby and D. Maw (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 259–69. 78 Eadric Wild, also known as Eadric Cild, was active around the time of the Conquest, as witnessed by the account of his rebellion and movements in 1067 in the D version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which, naturally, says nothing of any legends of a fairy wife. 79 ‘They were circling with lithe motion and merry gesture and with restrained voices, and from their stately harmony a soft sound could be heard . . .’ Walter Map, De nugis curialium: Courtiers’ Trifles, ed. and trans. M. R. James, C. N. L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983), II.12 (p. 154). (My translation.) 80 Map, De nugis II.11, pp. 148–9. 81 Map, De nugis IV.10, p. 348. 82 Map, De nugis II.13, pp. 160–1. 205

9781108419253book.indd 205 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless one of these episodes in which the dance is described is that of Eadric Wild, where it is clear that what is described is a round dance, like that of Dunstan’s vision. This form of round dance, accompanied by a song with a refrain, became known as a carol, and these are early instances of a form that evinced great popularity in the later medieval period.83 Further Varieties of Dance These attestations of dance depict it as variously pious, merry or unseemly, but one further phrase from Edgar’s condemnations may be evidence of an additional dimension to dance. Edgar charged that the practices of the clergy were so corrupt that they were the subject of widespread condemnation: ‘Haec milites clamant, plebs submurmurat, mimi cantant et saltant.’84 This suggests some type of satirical dance, a concept that has Scandinavian parallels. As one example, satirical dance appears in Sturla Þórðarson’s Íslendinga saga, composed perhaps c. 1280 though preserved in fourteenth-century manuscripts. In one instance, the text reports, a man named Loftr is ridiculed with dansa, satirical verses accompanied by dance: ‘Ok hér með færðu Breiðbælingar Loft í flimtan ok gerðu um hann dansa marga ok margs konar spott annat.’85 If this forms a parallel to the practice noted by Edgar, then, we may be able to glimpse a similar Anglo-Saxon tradition of using satirical songs accompanied by dance to lampoon malefactors. Among the examples detailed above are few indications of secular ritual dance, apart from the suggestions of warrior dances from the early period. There remains one further set of evidence of secular dance traditions: the reindeer antlers of the Abbots Bromley horn dance. This dance, still practised in the village of Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, has a number of traditional features dating back some hundreds of years, including a hobby horse, a Maid Marian, a fool, and the use of reindeer antlers. The hobby-horse was first

83 On this, see R. L. Greene, The Early English Carols, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1977); J. Stevens, Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 159–98; R. Mullally, The Carole: a Study of a Medieval Dance (Farnham, 2011). 84 ‘Soldiers shout these things, people mutter them, performers sing and dance about them.’ W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 3 vols. (London, 1885–9) III, 572–3. 85 ‘And with this the people of Breiðaból lampooned Loftr and made many dances about him and many other kinds of mockery.’ Íslendinga saga in Sturlunga saga, ed. J. Jóhannesson, M. Finnbogason and K. Eldjárn, 2 vols. (Reykjavík, 1946) I, 279 (ch. 39, concerning events in 1220–1). An example of the mocking verse of this type associated with dances appears later in the same chapter, on p. 284, beginning: ‘Loftr er í eyjum . . .’ Further references to dance of an unspecified character appear in other sagas of the Sturlunga saga compilation, such as Þorgils saga skarða Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, p. 197 (ch. 56, concerning events in 1255, on a dance held uncontroversially on a Sunday) and p. 218 (ch. 75, concerning events in 1258, on the choice of an evening’s entertainment, dance or saga-telling). On the phenomenon of dansa, see for instance S. A. Mitchell, Heroic Sagas and Ballads (Ithaca, NY, 1991), p. 140. 206

9781108419253book.indd 206 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance mentioned in a document of 1532, the antlers in Robert Plot’s 1686 Natural History of Staffordshire: At Abbots, or now rather Pagets Bromley, they had also within memory, a sort of sport which they celebrated at Christmas (on New-year, and Twelft-day) call’d the Hobby-horse dance, from a person that carryed the image of a horse between his legs . . . with this Man danced 6 others, carrying on their shoulders as many Rain deers heads, 3 of them painted white and 3 red, with the Armes of the cheif families (viz. of Paget, Bagot and Wells) depicted on the palms of them, with which they danced the Hays, and other Country dances . . .86 The dance was apparently quiescent at the time of writing but was subse- quently revived; it is now held not at Christmastime but on Wakes Monday in September, although there is some debate about whether it was not held more often in centuries past.87 The possible antiquity of the dance has long been of interest, and when, in 1976, a chip broke off antler no. 2, the opportunity was taken to have the chip radiocarbon dated.88 The chip hence underwent two radiocarbon assays at the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Birmingham. These yielded results which, when recalibrated using modern techniques, produce a date considerably earlier than the written sources had suggested. The results give a 95 per cent probability of a date of origin of between AD 998 and 1269, with a 68 per cent chance of a date between 1042 and 1210 and a median date of 1129.89 That the antlers date from this early period does not guarantee, of course, that they were used specifically in a dance at this period, and thus that any kind of dance with antlers, horns or similar, dates back to this period; but the evidence suggests that such a dance is plausi- ble. If they were used in a dance, moreover, there is nothing to indicate that the dance did not originate until these antlers were acquired; it is entirely possible that the dance predated the arrival of this particular set of antlers. The chances are therefore not insignificant that a dance employing antlers was practised in the Anglo-Saxon period. As the complaints of early medieval clerics attest, performances involving antlers, as well as dancers dressed as old women, were popular enough on the Continent to warrant multiple admonitions, and it is tempting to imagine something of a similar nature among the Anglo-Saxons.

86 R. Plot, The Natural History of Staffordshire (1686), p. 434 (Book X, cap. 66). 87 For more views and sources, see M. A. Rice, Abbots Bromley (Shrewsbury, 1939), pp. 67–99 and I. Zachrisson, ‘Renhornen I Abbots Bromley – till England på vikingsköl?’, Vi får tacka Lamm, ed. B. Magnus, C. Orrling, M. Rasch and G. Tegnér (Stockholm, 2001), pp. 229–33. 88 T. Buckland, ‘The Reindeer Antlers of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance: a Re-examination’, Lore and Language 3 (1980), 1–8. 89 Buckland, ‘Reindeer Antlers’, with the radiocarbon dating results amended by calibration using IntCal13, the latest calibration available. I am grateful to John Hines for information on radiocarbon dating and for performing the recalibration. 207

9781108419253book.indd 207 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless Dances involving characters such as horses and deer often re-enact or celebrate the hunt in some way, but it is impossible to say what precise character or meaning such a dance would have had in the Anglo-Saxon period. The present Abbots Bromley horn dance is said to commemorate the granting of hunting rights to the villagers in Needwood Forest, but it has also been argued that it involves fertility or that it is supposed either to assure or to commemorate success in the hunt. Historically it is probably the case that this dance, like many others, after a certain point lost sight of its origins and became self- perpetuating. Whatever its origin or medieval meaning, the Abbots Bromley reindeer antlers may point to a stratum of English secular ceremonial dance which has otherwise vanished from the records of this early period. The evidence shows, then, a variety of types of dance performed in the Anglo-Saxon period, and the majority of these traditions demonstrate a clear association between dance and music, whether instrumental or sung. As noted above, the association between dance and music is so close that images of 2 Samuel XI.5, the celebrations of David’s triumph against the Philistines, depicted dancing even though the scriptural passage mentions only music. The illustration of Psalm XLI in the Harley Psalter also shows musicians accom- panying the dance. The images of dancing Lust in the Psychomachia are likewise accompanied by musicians. Many of the continental warnings against dance and frivolity, including the ‘Dancers of Kolbeck’ motif, associate dancing and singing, as does Edgar’s complaint about the frivolity of clerics: ‘ibi saltus et cantus’, and his description of the satire of performers, ‘mimi cantant et saltant’. Dunstan’s vision of the miraculous dancing maidens included singing, as did later reports of dancing supernatural maidens. From this array of examples it is clear that music for the dance might be provided by musicians or by the singing of the participants, or indeed by both. The two types of dance for which no evidence of music survives are weapon dances and dances of the type surviving at Abbots Bromley. The horn dance is now accompanied by music, but no evidence of the presence or absence of music survives from the early period. In those two instances, therefore, the record is dark; but in an abundance of other examples, the association between dance and music is clear, a finding which is unsurprising, as the practice of dance without some kind of musical or rhythmic accompaniment is effectively unknown.90 Accordingly, it would not be surprising that the creator of the Fuller Brooch

90 This point was noted as early as the eighteenth century, when Maurice de Saxe, Marshal of France, noted, ‘Everyone has seen people dancing all night. But take a man and make him dance for a quarter of an hour without music and see if he can bear it . . .’ Maurice de Saxe, Reveries on the Art of War, trans. T. R. Phillips (Harrisburg, PA, 1944), pp. 30–1, quoted in McNeill, Keeping Together, p. 9. 208

9781108419253book.indd 208 04/07/2017 12:08 The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance should indicate ‘Sound’ by means of an image of dancing; the image of a dancer was almost indubitably the clearest visual representation of someone hearing (as opposed to producing) sound in that period. On the brooch, the figure of Hearing has his right hand raised, apparently denoting that he is hearing something (Fig. 22d). The figure’s left foot appears to be at least partially on the ground, with the knee bent, while the right knee is bent so that the right foot is raised behind him. As we have seen, the depiction of bent knees often signals dancing in Anglo-Saxon and early medieval imagery. The position of a hand at the ear is not natural to running, and thus, if the ear is indicated, the image is semiotic rather than realistic, intended to indicate the presence of sound. Even so, the figure has his hand to his right ear, and yet he is facing to his left, which is not in accordance with the argument that he is running toward a call or sound: were that the case, he would surely have his hand to his ear on the same side toward which he is running. This is assuming that the hand is in fact meant to draw attention to the ear; it is notable that, like the image of ‘Hearing’ on the brooch, in the depictions of dancing Lust in the manuscripts of the Psychomachia, one hand is raised and the other is lowered, as is also the case with the male dancer in the Harley Psalter and on the Cottingham vat; and so this position may be conventional in dance of the period, even apart from any function it may have in drawing attention to the ear in illustration.

Figure 22a: The Cottingham vat. Auckland Castle Museum (s. ixex). By permission of the Zurbaran Trust, courtesy of the Auckland Castle Trust. 209

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Figure 22b: London, British Library, Harley 603, 24v (s. xi1/2). Three figures dance; the man dancing on the left has his left arm raised and the right one lower. © The British Library Board.

Figure 22c: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 23, 19v (s. xex). Lust dances to the accompaniment of musicians in the Psychomachia, one arm raised and one arm down. By permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Other aspects of the depiction of dancing also show an effective consensus. Dancers typically have one knee bent, one foot off the ground, and, when not holding hands with others, one or both arms in the air: these features can be seen in the images of dancing Lust (CCCC 23, BL, Add. 24199, and Cleopatra C.viii), in the rejoicing after the parting of the Red Sea in Cotton Claudius B. iv, and in the figures dancing before David in the Vespasian Psalter. Images 210

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Figure 22d: ‘Hearing’ from the Fuller Brooch (s. ixex). © The Trustees of the British Museum. of war dances also reflect a tradition in which the dancer has the sole of one foot raised upward, behind him: this is found on the Torslunda die and on the constellation of related images that include the dancing warrior fragment from Gamla Uppsala and the symmetrical warriors from the Sutton Hoo helmet. The foot with the sole upward is of course a distinctive feature of the Fuller Brooch figure, not as a copy of these early images, but simply an obvious signi- fier of the movements made during dancing. It has been argued that the images on the Fuller Brooch reflect a moral understanding of the world, and that this is why primacy is given to sight, which was associated with wisdom.91 There was no standard iconography of the Five Senses, however, either inherited from the classical world or current in the Anglo-Saxon period.92 It is natural that ecclesiastical edicts should provide instances of the clerical disapproval of dancing, but it is also clear that dancing had many associations with joy and even with the divine, as seen in examples

91 See D. Pratt, ‘Persuasion and Invention at the Court of King Alfred the Great’, Court Culture of the Early Middle Ages, ed. C. Cubitt (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 189–221. A further round-up of views is presented by C. D. Wright, ‘Why Sight Holds Flowers: an Apocryphal Source for the Iconography of the Alfred Jewel and Fuller Brooch’, Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 169–86. 92 On this, see Pratt, ‘Persuasion’, pp. 209–14. 211

9781108419253book.indd 211 04/07/2017 12:08 Martha Bayless ranging from the scriptural examples of Miriam and the court of David to contemporary examples such as the vision of Dunstan. Perhaps the main feature that has militated against the conclusion that the figure is dancing is the apparent expression on the figure’s face, with a mouth that in a modern image would be regarded as frowning. In truth, even in the most joyful dance the dancer’s expression is apt to be one of concentration rather than of delight. The exception to this is certain kinds of modern folk- dance performance, especially for television or theatre, which seem to require artificially broad smiles from the dancers. These provide a marked contrast to early medieval images of dancers, which generally show them with quite serious expressions; indeed, medieval images in general rarely show figures smiling. They are most commonly depicted with neutral expressions, which can come across as dispirited to the modern age. The rejoicing figures in the Vespasian psalter look glum by modern standards, and the images of Luxuria in the manuscripts of the Psychomachia show what would be by modern standards a stony-faced seductress. Thus the seeming ‘frown’ on the face of ‘Hearing’ on the Fuller Brooch should in no way suggest that the figure is not lighthearted enough to be dancing. In sum, the figure of ‘Hearing’ displays the characteristics of dance in multiple ways. The figure’s position, with one arm raised and the other lowered, conforms to those of other contemporary images of dancers. Dancing then, as now, was closely associated with sound, and so it would be natural and appropriate to use such an image to represent the presence of sound. Finally, images and other evidence of the period suggest a significant tradition of dancing of multiple varieties. It seems therefore fitting to propose – or indeed to conclude – that the Fuller Brooch provides one further example of Anglo- Saxon depictions of dance.93

93 I owe a debt of gratitude to Debby Banham for the drawings of artefacts and to Andrew Ferrara for his generosity in regards to the Cottingham Tank, as well as to Vicky Cribb, Katy Cubitt, John Hines and a wealth of commenters at the 2015 conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists. All mistakes that remain are entirely my own.

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