Is Dodendantz older than Des dodes dantz?

Summary: The book Dodendantz from 1520 is an extract of Des dodes dantz from 1489 (and not the other way around).

Des dodes dantz was printed in Lübeck in 1489 and consists of 1686 lines. Dodendantz was printed 1520 by the same printery and consists of 424 lines, two thirds of which are taken more or less verbatim from Des dodes dantz. The same pictures are used - except that Death-with-an-arrow seems to have disappeared.

Dodendantz 1520, Title page.

Therefore it's natural to think of Dodendantz as an abbreviation of Des dodes dantz. Hermann Baethcke in the book Des dodes danz from 1876 mentions Dodendantz in passing as "Ein ziemlich ungeschickter auszug aus unserem texte" (=a rather clumsy extract of our text).

Apparently this simple fact is too simple for some art historians - among these Meyer and Seelmann.(1) They suggest that it is actually the other way around: Maybe the copy of Dodendantz from 1520 is simply a late re-print? Maybe it was originally published in 1487, and maybe Des dodes dantz is really an expansion of Dodendantz and the picture of Death with an arrow is an addition?

These unfounded speculations are then parroted by other writers: James M. Clark writes as if it were an undisputed fact, "This second Dance of Death is a new edition of a lost work printed between 1487 and 1489" And likewise Léonard P. Kurtz, "In fact it [Dodendantz] lay before the composer and the printer of the Dance of 1489 who borrowed many verses from it and used its wood blocks".

To support this strange claim, there are basically only two arguments. The one is that in Dodendantz each verse is precisely 6 lines - as if the text had stood under a painting - whereas the verses in Des Dodes Dantz are much longer and of varying length.

The other argument is that both books quote a third book named Zwiegespräches zwischen dem Leben und dem Tode from 1484, and Dodendantz in particular quotes this book very closely:

As one can see, the quotes in Dodendantz (1520) are longer and more verbatim than they are in Des Dodes Dantz (1489), and therefore (the argument goes) Dodendantz cannot be a copy of Des Dodes Dantz. But there's nothing to have prevented the author of Dodendantz (1520) to have obtained a copy of Zwiegespräch himself.

Those were the arguments, and it's evident that the people behind this theory have never held a facsimile copy of Dodendantz in their hands.(2) There's much to be said against the theory:

Des dodes dantz, title page.

• Des dodes dantz is the manuscript that is closest to the painting - both regarding the order of persons and the individual speeches(3).
• In both Des dodes dantz and the painting, the participants are alternating clergy and laity. There's no such alternation in Dodendantz.
• Dodendantz adds 3 new persons, namely official, priest and fool. These new participants do not get a wall-and-hilly-landscape illustration.
• In both the painting and Des dodes dantz, the humans speak first and Death answers, whereas in Dodendantz it's the other way around.
• The books present the same pictures with Death looking to the left and the humans to the right. This means that in Dodendantz, one must first read Death's speech on the right page and then the human's answer on the left page. Rather awkward!
• When speaking to the empress, Death forgets this strange order.
• Dodendantz has only 3 different pictures of Death since the picture of Death-with-an-arrow seems to have disappeared. This has presented the printer with some great challenges (in order to see why, you must try to make your own dance of death).

Let us finish with two places in Dodendantz where Death speaks some very strange lines. The first one is when Death greets the canon by saying:

The Canon

This makes little sense and the sentence gets curiouser and curiouser in Copenhagen's Dance of Death where the translator has replaced "you" with "it" (this error has been corrected in Dødedantz):

The explanation is found in Des dodes dantz where the canon (who speaks before Death) says:

... to which Death answers brutally:

So the "new" thing was that Death should have overlooked somebody. The sentence makes no sense in the two other books, proving that Des dodes dantz is the original.

The other weird expression is when Death tells the knight that the bread is up.

Further information

• Meyer's introduction is available in the Danish version of this site.
• Des Dodes Dantz
• Dodendantz
• Other dance of death printed books.
• Make your own dance of death (and find out, why Dodendantz is so jumbled)
• The sequence of dancers
• The bread is up until the tip (see the footnote)

Footnotes: (1) (2) (3)

Dansk Dances of death Lübeck Books Is Dodendantz older than Des dodes dantz?