DANCE or DEATH (Lat. Chorea .Maehaberorum,Fr. La Dance _Macabre), a name given to a certain class of allegorical representations, illustrative of the universal power of death, and dating from the 14th century. When the introduction of Christianity first banished the ancient Germanic conception of a future state, a new description of death mythology arose, partly out of biblical sources, partly out of popular character itself, wherein the last enemy was represented under simple mid majestic images, such as that of a husbandman watering the ground with blood, plowing it with swords, rooting out weeds, plucking up flowers, or felling trees, sowing it with corpses; or of a monarch assembling his armies, making war, taking prisoners, inviting his subjects to a festival, or citing them to judgment. But with a gradual change in national manners came a change in the mode of treating the subject, and it was associated with every-day images, such as the confessional, chess-playing, and above all, with the adjuncts of a festival—viz., music and dancing. This tendency to familiarize the theme increased during- the confusion and turmoil of the 14th c., when the national mind alternated between fits of devotion and license, or blent both elements in satire and humor. Such a mood as this naturally occupied itself with personifying death, and adopted by prefer ence the most startling and grotesque images it could find—that of a musician playing to dancing-men, or a dancer leading them on; and as the dance and the drama were then intimately connected, and employed on religious occasions, this particular idea soon assumed a dramatic form.
This drama was most simply constructed, consisting of short dialogues between Death and four-and-twenty or more followers, and was undoubtedly enacted in or near churches by religious orders in Germany during the 14th c., and at a rather later period in France. It would appear that the seven brothers, whose martyrdom is recorded in the 7th chapter of the 2d book of Maccabees, either played an important part in the drama, or the first representation, which took place at Paris, in the Cloister aux Indo cents, fell upon their festival, and hence the origin of the ancient name, Chorea Macha• bteornin, or La anise Macabre. As early as 1400, the dramatic poem was imitated in Spain, and appears there in 79 strophes of S lines each (La Dania General de los Muer los), but it did not spread; while the French, having a love for pictorial representation, very early affixed an illustration to each strophe, and in 1425 painted the whole series on the church-yard wall of the Cloister of the Innocents, where the Dance of Death was habitually enacted. We find the subject treated in painting, sculpture, and tapestry, in the churches of Anjou, Amiens, Angers, Rouen, to say nothing of the numerous wood cuts and accompanying letter-press which succeeded the invention of printing. From Paris, both poem and pietures were transplanted to London .(1430), Salisbury (about 1400), Wortley hall iu Gloucestershire, Hexham, etc.
But nowhere was the subject so variously and strikingly treated as in Germany. A picture in one of the chapels of the Marienkirche, at Lubeck, still, in spite of repeated. repaintings, bearing the unmistakable impress of the 14th c., exhibits the very simplest: form of the drama, and has some genuine Low German verses attached to it. here we see 24 figures, partly clerical, partly lay, arranged in a descending scale, from the pope himself 'down to a little child, and between each of them a dancing-figure of Death, not in the form of a skeleton, but a shriveled corpse, the whole being linked in one chain, and dancing to the music of another Death. This representation is almost the same as a very ancient one at La Chaise-Dieu, in Auvergne, and points to the identity of the original dramatic spectacle in both countries.
The celebrated "Dance of Death" on the cloister walls of the Klingenthal, a convent in Basel, though painted probably not later than 1312, exhibited a departure from the simplest form—the number of persons exceeding the original 24, and the chain being broken up into separate couples. But both alike are only to be regarded as scenes from a drama, and cannot, therefore, be justly compared with a contemporary Italian paint ing., the " Triumph of Death," by Andrea Orcagna. And the acted drama enduring till the 15th c., we find that while there were varieties in the paintings, the poem, which was the most important feature, remained unchanged.
About the middle of the 15th c.. however, the drama being altogether laid aside, the pictures became the main point of interest, the verses merely subsidiary. Accordingly, we find from this time the same pictures repeated in different place. ' with different verses, or no verses at all, till at length both verses and pictures entirely change their original character. The "Dance of Death" being transferred from the quiet convent walls into public places. gave a new impulse to popular art. Duke George of Saxony had, in 1534, the front of his Dresden castle ornamented with a life-size bass-relief of the subject, and other representations are to be found at Strasburg and Bern. There was a "Dance of Death " painted round the cloister of old St. Paul's in London, in the reign of Henry VI.; and there is a sculptured one at Rouen, in the cemetery of St. Marlon. But Ilol bein lms the credit of availing himself most effectively of the original desig,n, and giv ing it a new and more artistic character. Departing from the idea of a dance. lie inns Wiled the subject by 53 distinct sketches for engravings, which he called "Imagines Mortis." The originals of these are at St. Petersburg, and impressions of them have been frequently repeated. under different names.
We may cite as authorities on this subject, Peignot's Ilecherdws sur les Danses des 3forts (Dijon and Paris, 1826); Massman's Baseler Todtentanze (Stuttgart, 1847); and Douce's The Dance of Death (Lond. 1833).