Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 | Page 7

Morall Playe."
On the title-page of an edition printed in 1500, only one copy of which exists, is a very rude wood-cut, in which an individual, who is labelled "Every Man," is startled at the sight of Death standing at the door of a church and summoning him. In this Moral Play, Fellowship, Good Deeds, Worldly Goods, Knowledge, Beauty, Strength, Discretion, and Five Wittes are characters; and they cannot interpose between Every Man and the summons of Death, nor will any of them, except Good Deeds, go with him. The representation of this play was a kind of Dance of Death, and from the acting of "Every Man" to the execution of that Dance was but a short step.
But the Dance of Death had been performed before "Every Man" was written; and dances in churches and churchyards were of yet greater antiquity. For, by an order of a Roman council under Pope Pius II. in the tenth century, priests were directed "to admonish men and women not to dance and sing in the churches on feast-days, like Pagans." The evil increased, however, until, according to the old chroniclers, a terrible punishment fell upon a party of dancers. One of them, Ubert, tells the story. It was on Christmas Eve, in the time of the Emperor Henry II., who assumed the imperial diadem in the year 1002, that a company of eighteen men and women amused themselves by dancing and singing in the churchyard of St. Magnus, in the diocese of Magdeburg, to the annoyance of a priest who was saying mass in the church. He ordered them to desist; but they danced on in reckless mirth. The holy father then invoked God and St. Magnus to keep them dancing for a whole year; and not in vain. For twelve months they danced in spite of themselves. Neither dew nor rain fell upon them; and their shoes and their clothes were not worn away, although by their dancing they buried themselves waist-high. Yet, fatigued and famished beyond human endurance, they danced on, unable to stop an instant for rest or food. The priest's own daughter was among the dancers; and, unable to undo what the Saint had done, he sent his son to drag her out of the dance. But when her brother pulls her by the arm it comes off in his hand, and he in horror takes it to his father. No blood flows from the wound. The priest buries the arm, and the next morning he finds it upon the top of the grave. He repeats the burial, and with the same result. He makes a third attempt, and the grave casts out the limb with violence before his eyes. Meanwhile the girl and her companions continue dancing, and the Emperor, having heard of this strange occurrence, travels from Rome to see so sad a sight. He orders carpenters to inclose the dancers in a building, but in vain; for that which is built in the day falls down in the night. The dancers have neither rest nor mitigation of their curse until the expiration of the year, when they all rush into the church and fall before the altar in a swoon, from which they are not recovered for three days. Then they immediately flee each other's faces, and wander solitary through the world, still dancing at times in spite of themselves. In the olden time this was believed to be the origin of St. Vitus's dance; but we can now see that the dance is the origin of the story.
The Dance of Death was performed by a large company dressed in the costumes of various classes of society, which were then very marked in their difference. One by one the dancers suddenly and silently slipped off, thus typifying the departure of all mankind at Death's summons. That this Dance was performed, not only with the consent, but by the procurement of the clergy, is made certain by the discovery, in the archives of the Cathedral of Besan?on, of the account of the payment of four measures of wine by the seneschal to those persons who performed the Dance Macabre on the 10th of July, 1453.
The moral lesson conveyed by this strange pastime or ceremony seems hardly calculated to secure for it a noteworthy popularity in any age; but for a long time it was, either as a ceremony or as a picture, very popular throughout Europe. We know of forty-four places in which it was painted or sculptured in some large public building, the oldest example being that at Little Bale, which was painted in 1312. This, like that in Great Bale, and most of the others, has been destroyed by time or violence. The Dance was made the ornament of books of devotion, and the subject