History of Morris Dancing ************************* No one knows for certain the origins of English traditional Morris Dancing. It may well have its roots in rites celebrating fertility and the coming of spring, but it may not... One train of thought suggests the dancing came from Spain and was brought back by John of Gaunt, second son of Edward III around 1387, when his army returned from the Spanish wars. The first record of a Morusk dance is at Lanherne Cornwall in 1468. At Betley in Staffordshire in an old house there is a painted glass window dating from 1470. It shows a Morris side with their musician, a fool, hobby horse, and two Robin Hood characters, possibly Maid Marian and Friar Tuck. In the middle is a Maypole. It is also possible that the word Morris is derived from the word 'Moorish' or 'morisco' (a derogatory term meaning 'little Moors'). Certainly in the very late middle ages, Morris dancers were sometimes referred to as morisco dancers. Dancers would blacken their faces with soot so they would not be recognised by the local priest, and attached bells to their legs, and thus would resemble "Moors". This gave rise to "Moorish Men" or "Moorish dauncers" and hence to Morris. It is pretty certain that, whatever the origin of the word, there is no evidence that the dance came from the Moors or entered the country with the armies of John o' Gaunt or anything of that sort. Neither is there proof of any connection between Moorish dancing and Morris dancing. Origins ******* When people recorded these customs in the 1890s, they were obsessed with seeking out ancient beginnings. In the seventeenth century there had been suggestions of a connection with Moorish dancing and it was adopted as a convenient theory. It fitted in, for example, because some dancers blacked up their faces it was believed to be something to do with North Africa. Similarly, there is little evidence that Morris dancing has any connection with pagan festivals other than that many societies across the world celebrate calendar events with dance customs. What we do know though is that Morris dancing has a long recorded history in this country, the earliest reference being from 1448, when the Goldsmiths of London paid 7 shillings for "Moryssh dancers" and then later in 1458 Alice Wetenhale left a gilded cup in her will, describing it as having been engraved with "morris dancers"... Another origin of this form of dance probably originated in the European courts of the fifteenth century. Around then, a form of dance typically called by names like "moreys daunce" was common as royal court entertainment; this may have been the dance form going by names like "morisco" on the continent. The dancers wore colourful, fairly elaborate costumes with pendant sleeves and attached bells. Very little is known about the dances per se, though there seem to have been two types: a solo dance, and a dance in a circle around a "maiden" (who could have been a man in women's clothing) for whose favours the dancers compete. The church influences ********************* Over time the dances were assimilated by the established church, and by the 1500s Morris was being performed for Easter, Whitsuntide, and saint's days. By the early 16th century morris dancing had become a fixture of Church festivals. In medieval and Renaissance England, the churches brewed and sold ales, including wassail. These ales were sold for many occasions, both seasonal and sacramental and there were christening ales, bride's ales, clerk, wake and Whitsun ales - and were an important means of fund-raising for churches. In fact Morris dancing became so much an accepted institution that medieval churchwarden's accounts show that accessories were provided by parish funds. St Lawrence Church Reading, accounts show "Moreys Dawncers" perfomed on Dedication Day 1513 and were given 3d for ale. In 1509 "six peyre of shone for Mors daunsers". In 1530 12d was paid for "a grosse of bells for the Morece dawnsers". At St Thomas Sarum in 1557, they decorated "the endes of the banners with bells" the Church procession jingled forth like the Morris. William Shakespeare includes Morris in both Midsummer Nights Dream and Henry VI. Later in the century the morris became attached to village fetes, and the May Day revels; Shakespeare says "as fit as a morris for May Day" and "a Whitsun morris dance. One William Kemp danced a solo morris from London to Norwich in 1600. Morris Dancing was popular in Tudor times. However under Cromwell it fell out of favour and was actively discouraged by many Puritans. The ales were suppressed by the Puritan authorities in the seventeenth century and, when some reappeared in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, they usually had associated dancing. The people take over ******************** By the mid 18th century in the South Midlands region, morris dancing was a fixture of the Whitsun ales. Morris Dancing was now in the hands of common folk who couldn't afford the fancy costumes of a couple centuries earlier, and they were resorting to ordinary clothing decorated with ribbons and flowers. There was a separate variety of morris, called bedlam morris, being done in a swath from the Welsh border counties through Warwickshire and Northamptonshire down to Buckinghamshire; the bedlam morris seems to have been mainly or exclusively done with sticks. Whether this 'bedlam' morris had an alternative origin we cannot say. In the Forest of Dean there was a procession headed by a man carrying a long pole with white flag and the 2 front dancers carried swords used for very complicated movements. In other villages, there was a King and Queen, or a sword bearer with a sword with a tin impaled on it containing currant cake. A fool with a short stick tied to a calf's tail or pigs bladder might be used and so on and so on. The 19c decline *************** During the nineteenth century Morris Dancing declined rapidly. It had died out in village after village, new forms of entertainment, rapid social change and its association with an older unfashionable culture were all contributing factors. There must have been just enough vestiges left to interest Cecil Sharp and Herbert MacIlwaine. These two souls almost single handedly went around the villages and wrote down in 1906 a book of what was known of the tradition and in particular a description of the Headington, Ilmington and Tideswell dances. These 3 villages are typical of the description of Sharp and MacIlwaine in that all had in fact stopped Morris Dancing before they arrived to document it. At Headington it seems that every year there were dances up until 1887 but then there was break until 1899 and then stopped again. The knowledge here came from one man who danced as a lad of 18 in 1868 and was foreman of the side for 15 years. He used to sing the melodies to his son in a cradle and so the link was carried on - just. At Ilmington the side disbanded when their pipe and tabor player died in 1867, got going again briefly in 1887 and 2 members described the dances to Sharp and MacIlwaine. And at Tideswell, one processional dance was all that either existed or remained. For various reasons, church ales and Whitsun ales survived quite late in the south-west Midlands. Most of the Cotswold Morris tradition comes from this region and many of the Cotswold Morris sides gave dances to Cecil Sharp and other collectors which formed the basis for the dance revival in the early twentieth century. Various regional versions of the the morris survived long enough to be collected. These included 'Border Morris' from the Welsh border counties of Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, North West from Lancashire and Cheshire, and Molly dancing from East Anglia. In the north of England long sword dancing was collected from Yorkshire and Rapper sword from the North East. It was widely believed that other regional varieties of the dance had been forgotten and lost. New evidence is often unearthed of 'lost morris' in other areas of the country. When Sharp got to Adderbury, he found one man, aged 83, a Mr Walton. He had danced as a youth and then became its leader and danced for 20 years until it disbanded. Probably, Sharp managed to record the movements well enough, but he notes that owing to Mr Walton's great age the steps had to be based on common sense and other traditions that Sharp already knew. The dancers wore white shirts, no hats, double baldricks of 3 inch ribbons of red and blue plus 10 red white and blue rosettes. More ribbons tied around elbows and wrists, plus bells on the shins completed the picture. 5 dances were written down - Constant Billy, Lads a Buncham, Sweet Jenny Jones, the Buffoon and the Black Joke. Then in the 1950's and 1960's Lionel Bacon with help from Roy Dommett in particular dug back into the old manuscripts and identified 19 dances. Since then others have been invented in the same style, and Wickham Morris dance 3 of the original dances, plus several others and the style though still clearly Adderbury has been modified and adapted to suit the side. The 20c revival *************** Today and for several decades, Morris Dancing is still flourishing. There are sides all over England, hundreds on the Internet, thriving outposts in Holland, the eastern USA and California and no doubt many other places too. In the 1970's and 1980's there were many debates about whether or not women should be allowed to dance and following on from this whether mixed sides as against men's or women's sides were traditional. However today, there are fewer sides who are not either mixed, or happy to associate with women's or mixed sides. Also over the last few decades, sides have branched out inventing dances, inventing traditions, deciding to specialise in a particular tradition or dipping into a variety. In particular there are more and more sides dancing the Border tradition which was almost ignored in the revival around the turn of the twentieth century. The Music ********* All Morris sides have their own musicians. We know that some four hundred years ago the common instruments were the pipe and tabor, but now these have been joined by the fiddle, concertina, melodeon and accordion. While the Cotswold and sword dances are usually accompanied by one musician, the border and North West teams will often have a band. In the North West this may even be the local brass band, but even if there is not a full complement of instruments there will nearly always be a bass drum and a side drum. The tunes are drawn from many sources. Some of the Cotswold tunes are very old - for example 'Trunkles', while others come from the music hall era ('Getting Upstairs' and 'Old Black Joe'). It is probably true to say that they were generally popular tunes of the day adapted to fit the dances. The North West dances use many march tunes. Sources: "The Morris Book" by Cecil J. Sharp, 1907 www.rattlejagmorris.org.uk www.sarummorris.co.uk www.wickham-morris.org.uk