Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Pastimes/Music and Dancing

Music and dance were an important part of seventeenth-century life, and an area in which people demonstrated their place in society. The most fashionable dances were imported from the Continent: the coranto came from Italy, the bransle from France. These dances were typically couple dances and involved elaborate steps, highly formalized posture, and complex floor patterns.

Dances in the native English tradition were known as country dances, most often danced by sets of two to four couples in a square or rectangular formation. Couples in rings or in lines did these dances, with the men facing the women. There was something of a “folk” revival in the period, with people of the upper classes taking an interest in traditional popular song and dance, and adopting them for their own uses. Entertaining large groups put a strain on middle-class homes, many of which were not large or elaborate enough to accommodate extensive guest lists and provide the standard of hospitality that polite society had come to expect. Assemblies and balls solved this problem neatly, permitting large, mixed-sex groups to dance, gossip, and play their favourite games in comfort.

Across societies, musical ability was a common social skill. Only upper level classes could afford to hire professional musicians on a regular basis, most people had to make it themselves. In noblemen’s houses and courtly schools, there was a lot of stress laid on music, singing, and dancing. Educated men and women were expected to be able to read music. For everyone else, musical literacy was less common, but musical competency was widespread. Vocal and instrumental music was a common feature of social occasions, and most people would be able to join in on a chorus, a round, or the melody line of a song. Popular rural instruments included the fiddle, bagpipes, and pipe and tabor.

There was a significant music industry in Stuart England, based on the broadside ballad. These were lyrics set to familiar melodies, printed on a sheet of paper with one or more woodcut images. The themes for these included folktales, current events, satire, and biblical stories. Broadsides were printed out in large numbers every year, and could be found in places where people gathered socially, providing material for sing-alongs. Religious themed music was also part of the musical tradition, as everyone was familiar with the psalms from Sunday service.