La danse macabre des femmes, 1491
Four musicians
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Guy Marchant had printed the women's dance already in 1486 in Miroer Salutaire,
but in 1491 he published a more finished and thoroughly illustrated edition.
Just like Miroer Salutaire,
the 1491-edition was printed in several parts.
The first part had the same contents as Miroer Salutaire and it
ended with the colophon:
»Cy finit la danse macabre historiee et augmentee de
plusieurs nouueaulx personnaiges et beaux dis.
tant en latin que en francoys nouuellement
ainsi composee et imprimee par guyot marchant
demourant a paris ou grant hostel du college de nauarre
en champ gaillart.
Lan de grace mil quatre cens quatre vingz et dix. le xx iour de ianuier«.
Thus the dance of the men was printed 20th January 1490 and since the French calendar at that time started in March,
the year would be 1491 according to our calendar.
The third volume also contained the Hermit's Vision
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The second part contains the women's dance,
three ballads and a woodcut of
Death on a pale horse riding out of the Hell-mouth.
The sections ends:
»Lan de grace mil quatre cens quatre vingz et vnze Le second iour de may«,
i.e. 2nd May 1491.
The third volume contains The legend of the three living and three dead,
The hermit's vision (picture to the right)
and other texts from Miroer Salutaire such as
"the discussion between the body and the soul" and "the lament of the damned soul".
Third and last part ends:
»Lan mil quatre cens quatre vingz et vnze le derrinier iour de Auril«.
This last part was then printed on "the last day of April 1491" and thus slightly older than the second part.
The library in Rouen has a copy of the first part, the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris has the two last parts.
The Dance of the Women
The Authority
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What was new about this publication was in particular the women's dance.
Like all of the other texts it was not created by Guy Marchant himself.
We know the dance from a handful of manuscripts,
one of which is from 1470-80, while another manuscript claims
that the author was named Martial d'Auvergne.
The dance of the women follows the same structure as that of the men:
First an introduction by an authority,
then a series of dialogues, where each verse has 8 lines,
and the eighth line usually is an aphorism.
Towards the end one more authority
gets the final word and finishes off the story with a moral.
In contrast to the men's dance, which for all we know appeared fully formed
with its 30 dancing couples, the women's dance has evolved more organically.
An old manuscript from 1482 has only 30 dancing couples
and the spinster maid appears very early in the dance.
In the two next manuscripts
the danse has been expanded by an old woman
(who replaces the former old woman, who from now on is called the woman with crutches)
and a witch.
When in 1486 Guy Marchant published the printed version,
Miroer Salutaire,
he "harmonized" the text so it was more in line with
the men's dance. The authority at the beginning got two verses instead of a single one,
and Marchant added four musicians.
The dance was expanded with
abbess
and prioress,
which Marchant might have composed himself.
Finally Marchant added the dead queen
as a counterpart to the dead king.
However, there was a copious amount of recycling: The authority, the four musicians and the dead queen
were allotted the same woodcuts as in the men's dance.
Only one single woodcut was produced
for Miroer Salutaire, viz.: the queen and duchess.
In the 1491-edition, Marchant had produced woodcuts for all the dancing couples
and added two more women: bigot woman and fool.
There was also made special woodcuts for the four musicians and the authority,
namely those two images that can be seen at the top of this page.
However, the image of the dead queen was still the same one as the dead king.
The woodcuts were made by Pierre Le Rouge,
the same man, who had produced the wooduts for the men's dance
(and for Marchant's competitor, Vérard).
At any rate it is obvious that they are not nearly of the same quality
and it is also assumed that Pierre has been busy with other works
and has delegated the task to his son, Guillaume, and nephew, Nicolas.
Personally I think that there are at least two different hands:
One (to the left), where the figures are ugly and jagged, but dynamic,
and another (to the right), where they are more rounded and cartoony, but static.
All of the cadavers (including the four musicians) have long flowing hair,
to show that this is the dance of the women.
External links
Further Information
Dances of death
Danse macabre
Femmes
