The danse on the wall of Cimetière des Innocents in Paris is the oldest datable dance of death. In comparison, the dance in Basel is approximately from 1440, and is probably based on an earlier version with 24 people as in Heidelberg's block book, which in turn is based on a series of monologues like the CPG 314, which in turn is based on a Latin original. But we do not know when the dance in Basel was painted - it's only a guess - and we do not have these earlier manuscripts.(1)
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In contrast, we have no previous versions of Danse Macabre. For all we know it might have originated in its finished form, complete with authority, 30 dancers and the dead king. And we know exactly when this happened. In a chronicle we read the following entry from 1425:
Item, l'an 1424. fut faite la Dance maratre [sic]
aux Innocens, & fut commencée environ le moys d'Aoust, & achevée en Karesme ensuivant.
(Memoires pour servir à l'histoire de France et de Bourgogne, 1729, page 103)
The work was begun in August 1424 and was finished at Lent the following year. And if one wants to argue that this "Dance Maratre" might not have been a painting, but maybe a "live" (if you'll pardon the expression) performance (that lasted half a year!), then the chronicle has another entry from the cemetery a few years later, in 1429:
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Item, […]
un Cordelier nommé frere Richart, […]
commença le Sabmedy seiziesme jour d'Avril 1429. à Sainte
Genevieve, & le Dimenche ensuivant & la sepmaine ensuivant; c'est
assavoir le Lundi, le Mardy, le Mercredy, le Jeudy, le Vendredy, le
Sabmedy, le Dimanche aux Innocens, & commençoit son Sermon environ
cinq heures au matin, & duroit jusques entre dix & onze,
& y avoit toujours quelques cinq ou six mille personnes à son
Sermon, & estoit monté quant il preschoit, sur ung hault eschaffault qui
estoit près de toise & demie de hault, le dos tourné vers les Charniers
encontre la Charronnerie à l'endroit de la Dance macabre.
(Memoires pour servir à l'histoire de France et de Bourgogne, 1729, pages 119-120)
The chronicler tells us that people showed up at 5 o'clock in the morning, for eight days in a row, to listen to the good Franciscan monk for 5-6 hours every day, and that brother Richart held his sermon for 5-6,000 people without megaphone (twice as many as the Peter the Apostle was able to speak to in Jerusalem just after having received the Holy Spirit).
This incredibly positive story ends by telling that he stood with his back turned toward the ossuaries against la Charronnerie (the street that 100 years later was called La Ferronnerie), and that this took place at La Danse Macabre.
We also have a source from 1434, namely the historian Guillebert de Metz, who while describing the old Paris comes to St. Innocents: »Illec sont paintures notables de la danse macabre et autres avec escriptures pour émouvoir les gens à dévocion« ("On this place are notable paintings of the danse macabre and others, with inscriptions to move people to devotion").(2)
Furthermore the painting is mentioned in a novel:
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& sur tout on les voit par bandes & regimens, comme estourneaux, se promenans
aux Cloistres sainct Innocent à Paris auec
les trespassez & secretaires des chambrieres visitans
la dance Marcade, Poëte Parisien, que ce
sauant et belliqueux Roy Charles le quint y fit
peindre, où sont representees au vif les effigies
des hommes de marque de ce temps là, & qui
dansent en la main de la Mort.
(Noël du Fail, Les Contes et Discours d'Eutrapel, 1585(3))
The last quote is not quite as convincing as the others. Partly because it's newer, partly because the words are spoken by a fictitious person, partly because it says »la danse Marcade«, and partly because it says that the painting was commissioned under Charles V, even though he died in 1380. Nevertheless, the message is clear enough: La Danse Macabre was neither a play nor a sculpture, but a painting.
The painting was completed in the Lent of 1425. We are not told whether the dance started along with the carnival antics, or whether the skinny cadavers were presented during the Lent.
This was a relatively quiet period during the 100-year war, and both text and images are filled with satire and slapstick. The chubby abbot is told that the fattest is the first to rot, »Le plus gras est premier pourry«. Death makes eyes(!) at the knight and tugs the urineglass-carrying physician by his crotch.
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When it comes to the destruction of the painting, the situation is again the opposite of that in Basel, but this time reversed. In Basel we know the exact date of the demolition, we have several (imaginative) images of the action, "Dessinée d'après nature", by the very people who participated. We have detailed descriptions of who took what number of boards and bricks. We know who took the 23 fragments, 19 of which still exist.
In contrast, nobody knows when the painting in Paris disappeared. Sophie Oosterwijk (see external link) writes »sources disagree« and then proceeds to sum up the confusion in a footnote:
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For example, G. Kaiser (ed.), Der tanzende Tod. Mittelalterliche Totentänze (Frankfurt am Main,
1983), p. 71, claims it happened as early as 1529. Instead, B. and H. Utzinger, Itinéraires des danses
macabres (n.pl., 1996), p. 83, and J.M. Clark, The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance (Glasgow, 1950), p. 24, state that the mural was lost in 1669 when the charnel-houses on
the south side were demolished in order to widen the rue de la Ferronnerie, which R. Hammerstein,
Tanz und Musik des Todes: die mittelalterlichen Totentänze und ihr Nachleben (Bern/Munich, 1980),
p. 167, claims to have happened in 1634. I. le Masne de Chermont, 'La danse macabre du cimetière des
Innocents', in Fleury and Leproux, Les Saints-Innocents, pp. 84-109, at p. 101, confirms 1669 as the
date. […]
(Sophie Oosterwijk, 'Depicte ones on a walle': the Danse Macabre in late-medieval Paris, page 88, footnote 20)
1529, 1634 or 1669? Let's take the years in reverse order:
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It is as certain as anything can be that the cemetery wall on the Rue de la Ferronnerie was demolished in 1669 when a lot of small houses, shops and stalls were torn down in order to broaden the road. Here is the beginning of the very long and detailed royal ordinance of Louis XIV:
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Le Roy, en son Conseil, ayant aucunement esgard aux requestes
qui lui ont esté présentées par les doyens, chanoines et chappitre de
Saint Germain l'Auxerrois , a ordonné et ordonne que, suivant leurs
offres, ils feront travailler incessamment, à leurs dépens, à l'ouverture
et eslargissement de la rue de la Ferronnerie en toute sa longueur, et
à la construction des maisons qui termineront ladite rue du costé du
cimetière des Saincts Innocents, et pour cet effet, ordonne Sadite
Majesté, que ladite rue sera eslargie et conduite en droit alignement,
depuis l'extrémité et encoignure de ladite rue de la Lingerie jusqu'à
l'autre extrémité du costé de la rue Saint Denis, à chacune desquelles
extrémitez aura ladite rue trente pieds (9 m 75) de largeur, et pour ce
faire seront démolies les petites maisons, boutiques et échoppes qui
sont en ladite rue de la Ferronnerie, adossées contre les murs du charnier dudit cimetière.
[…]
Ordonne Sa Majesté,
que les ossemens, tombeaux, monumens, épitaphes et inscriptions,
qui sont aprésent dans lesdits charniers, seront transférés et
restablis sous les autres charniers du costé des rues de la Lingerie(4)
et
aux Fevres, suivant les consentemens qui en ont esté donnez par les
particuliers qui ont leurs sépultures ausdits charniers.
[…]
Seguier. Colbert.
Le 18 octobre 1669.
{Archives nationales, E. 424.)
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Rue de la Ferronnerie was too narrow for carriages. Already on May 14, 1554, King Henri II had ordered that the street should be broadened, but this never happened. By the irony of fate this led to the assassination of King Henri IV on May 14, 1610, while his wagon was stuck in traffic. The failure of one King Henri led to another King Henri's death on the same date.
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As Oosterwijk notes, Hammerstein claims that the broadening of the street and the destruction of the wall happened already in 1634. Hammerstein writes: »Das Fresko wurde 1634 anläßlich einer Straßen verbreiterung zusammen mit der ganzen südlichen Galerie beseitigt«.(5) Patrick Layet says the same: »zwischen August 1424 und Ostern 1425 gemalt und 1634 zerstört«, and so does Stefanie Knöll: »um 1424/1425 entstandenen […] im Jahre 1634 zerstört«.(6)
Valentin Dufour can always be counted on to add confusion, and he doesn't let us down this time either:
In Dufour's book from 1874 he quotes from the abovementioned ordinance of Louis XIV from 1669 — the year 1634 does not appear in this book. He also quotes the historian Henri Sauval as a witness to the mural still being in existence and legible in the middle of the 17th century.
In Dufour's book from the year after, 1875, it is however the year 1669 (and Sauval) that has disappeared, and instead we read: »ces monuments qui, de fait, ne disparurent qu'en 1634, lors de la démolition du vieux charnier de la rue de la Féronnerie« (page 9).
Even though Dufour has moved the destruction from 1669 to 1634, he at same time assures the reader that the scribe of Clairambault's manuscript was able to see the painting in the XVIIIth century: »Le copiste des manuscrits Clairambault les avait vues au XVIIIe siècle et pouvait les voir, puisqu'elles subsistèrent jusqu'à la démolition de la galerie méridionale du charnier des Innocents en 1634« (page 12).
In 1891 Dufour once again prefers Louis XIV's ordinance from the year 1669, and there is no mention of 1634: »L'ordonnance de Louis XIV, prescrivant l'élargissement de la rue de la Féronnerie, du 18 octobre 1669, plus de cent cinquante ans après l'assassinat d'Henri IV, amena la destruction des peintures de la Dance Macabre« (pages 10-11).
For some reason Dufour claims that there were more than 150 years, »plus de cent cinquante ans«, from the assassination of Henry IV in 1610 to the demolition of the wall in 1669.
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As Oosterwijk notes, Gert Kaiser claims that the painting perished already in 1529. Kaiser writes: »Im Jahre 1529 wird der Totentanz zerstört«(7).
But this is not something that Kaiser has made up himself. A long row of authors are standing in line to deliver the same information, and among these are experts like Hellmut Rosenfeld: »Paris, Beinhaus des Minoritenklosters Aux Saints Innocents (1424), zerstört 1529, Buchausgaben seit 1485«, Brigitte Schulte: »Bereits im Jahre 1529 wurde das Gemälde wieder zerstört« and Peter Walther: »Gemälde vom Pariser Franziskaner-Friedhof »Aux Saints Innocents«, das 1424-25 entstand und bereits 1529 wieder zerstört wurde«.
We just quoted Hammerstein for the fact that the destruction happened in 1634, but we can also quote him for saying that it happened in 1529: »[…] der 1424/25 in Paris in den Arkaden des Beinhauses von Saints Innocents entstandene Totentanz, der bereits 1529 zerstört wurde«.(8)
The number of scholars that agree is large, but two things shine through: one is that nobody are able give any sources for their claim and the second is that almost all of them are German. A quick and very unscientific count of these quotes in Google renders 14 German (including the five just quoted), 2 Spanish, 2 French and 1 Norwegian.
One must agree with Oosterwijk: »sources disagree«. Let us try to evaluate these three dates:
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1669: There can be no doubt at all that it was this year (or shortly after) that the southern wall was demolished.
Obviously the dance might have perished long before that.
1634: When the wall was torn down in 1669, it can't have been torn down in 1634 too. And even if one were to suggest that the ordinance of Louis XIV had been ignored, just like the ordinance Henri II had been earlier, it doesn't change anything. The very existence of Louis XIV's ordinance shows that the wall was still intact in 1669.
Of course the dance might have perished in 1634 due to some other circumstances at that time, but that is not what the quoted sources say. They state that the ossuaries were demolished because of a broadening of the road in 1634. And this cannot be correct.
1529: If this was a democratic vote, this would year probably win, with all the (German) researchers backing it up.
But the date is too early. At the top of this page we saw how "la danse Marcade" appeared in a novel from 1585. We also have an painting of the dance (to the right) from around 1570.(9)
We also have a later and better witness: the manuscript by Clairambault that Dufour mentioned. This book gives us a description (the only one) of the mural and obviously discusses an existing painting on an existing wall.
The problem is that this book is more confusing than all of the other sources on this page put together, so how do we date this manuscript? Sophie Oosterwijk (page 61) dates it to 1663, but a few pages before the description of la Danse Macabre (page 227) there's a description of an epitaph (in another church) from 1693. This entry is presumably a good deal newer than the epitaph itself and the manuscript should be thought of as a compendium of several working documents, but we are on safe ground if we assume that the description of La Danse Macabre is considerably newer than 1529.
Conclusion: The claims that the painting disappeared in 1529 or that the wall was demolished in 1634 don't make sense. Furthermore the witness of the Clairambault manuscript and the historian Henri Sauval makes it clear that the mural remained on the wall until it was demolished in 1669.
Footnotes: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)
La danse Macabre was placed in Charnier des Lingères, which in spite of the name did not run along Rue de la Lingerie.
Reinhold Hammerstein: Tanz und Musik des Todes: die mittelalterlichen Totentänze und ihr Nachleben, 1980, page 167.
Layet: »Das Pariser Gemälde wurde unter den südlichen Arkaden des Friedhofs zwischen August 1424 und Ostern 1425 gemalt und 1634 zerstört. Der begleitende Text ist uns in mehreren Handschriften des 15. Jahrhunderts überliefert«.
Patrick Layet: "Ihr müßt alle nach meiner Pfeife tanzen", 2002, page 28.
Knöll: »Bereits im frühesten bekannten monumentalen Totentanz, dem um 1424/1425 entstandenen Pariser Gemälde, war das Kind Teil der langen Reihe von Personen unterschiedlichster Lebensumstände, die der Tod mit sich nimmt. Obwohl dieser Totentanz im Jahre 1634 zerstört wurde, haben wir durch die 1485 publizierten Holzschnitte von Guyot Marchant […]«.
Stefanie Knöll: Rheinische Hebammengeschichte im Kontext, 1980, page 285
Gert Kaiser, Der tanzende Tod: mittelalterliche Totentänze, 1983, page 71.
(Reinhold Hammerstein: Schriften: Musik und Bild, 2000, page 206)
A previous owner, Alfred Bonnardot, estimated it to be from "around 1570" based on the costumes.
Dances of death
Danse macabre
Rise and fall