The Dance of Death

In 1525 a similar dance was painted at Anneberg in Saxony, which Fabricius seems alone to have noticed. He also mentions another in 1534, at the palace of Duke George at Dresden.67 This is described in a German work written on the subject generally, by Paul Christian Hilscher, and published at Dresden, 1705, 8vo. and again at Bautzen, 1721, 8vo. It consisted of a long frieze sculptured in stone on the front of the building, containing twenty-seven figures. A view of this very curious structure, with the Dance itself, and also on a separate print, on a larger scale, varying considerably from the usual mode of representing the Macaber Dance, is given in Anthony Wecken’s Chronicle of Dresden, printed in German at Dresden 1680, folio. It is said to have been removed in 1721 to the church-yard of Old Dresden.

Nicolai Karamsin has given a very brief, but ludicrous, account of a Dance of Death in the cross aisle of the Orphan House at Erfurth;68 but Peignot places it in the convent of the Augustins, and seems to say that it was painted on the panels between the windows of the cell inhabited by Luther.69 In all probability the same place is intended by both these writers.

There is some reason to suppose that there was a Dance of Death at Nuremberg. Misson, describing a wedding in that city, states that the bridegroom and his company sat down on one side of the church and the bride on the other. Over each of their heads was a figure of Death upon the wall. This would seem very like a Dance of Death, if the circumstance of the figure being on both sides of the church did not excite a doubt on the subject.

Whether there ever was a Macaber Dance at Berne of equal antiquity with that of Basle has not been ascertained: but Sandrart, in his article for Nicolas Manuel Deutch, a celebrated painter at Berne, in the beginning of the 16th century, has recorded a Dance of Death painted by him in oil, and regrets that a work materially contributing to the celebrity of that city had been so extremely neglected that he had only been able to lay before the readers the following German rhymes which had been inscribed on it:

Manuel aller welt figur,Hastu gemahlt uf diese murNu must sterben da, hilft kun fund:Bist nit sicher minut noch stund.

Which he thus translates:

Cunctorum in muris pictis ex arte figuris.Tu quoque decedes; etsi hoc vix tempore credes.

Then Manuel’s answer:

Kilf eineger Heiland! dru ich dich bitt:Dann hic ist gar kein Bleibens nitSo mir der Tod mein red wird stellenSo bhut euch Gott, mein liebe Gsellen.

That is, in Latin:

En tibi me credo, Deus, hoc dum sorte recedoMors rapiat me, te, reliquos sociosque, valete!

To which account M. Fuseli adds, that this painting, equally remarkable for invention and character, was retouched in 1553; and in 1560, to render the street in which it was placed more spacious, entirely demolished. There were, however, two copies of it preserved at Berne, both in water colours, one by Albrech Kauw, the other a copy from that by Wilhelm Stettler, a painter of Berne, and pupil of Conrad Meyer of Zurich. The painting is here said to have been in fresco on the wall of the Dominican cemetery.70

The verses that accompanied this painting have been mentioned as containing sarcastical freedoms against the clergy; and as Manuel had himself undergone some persecutions on the score of religion at the time of the Reformation, this is by no means improbable. There is even a tradition that he introduced portraits of some of his friends, who assisted in bringing about that event.

In 1832, lithographic copies of the Berne painting, after the drawings of Stettler, were published at Berne, with a portrait of Manuel; and a set of very beautiful drawings in colours, made by some artist at Berne, either after those by Stettler or Kauw, in the public library, are in the possession of the writer of this essay. They, as well as the lithographic prints, exhibit Manuel’s likeness in the subject of the painter.

One of the bridges at Lucerne was covered with a Macaber Dance, executed by a painter named Meglinger, but at what time we are not informed. It is said to have been very well painted, but injured greatly by injudicious retouchings; yet there seems to be a difference of opinion as to the merit of the paintings, which are or were thirty-six in number, and supposed to have been copied from the Basle dance. Lucerne has also another of the same kind in the burial ground of the parish church of Im-hof. One of the subjects placed over the tomb of some canon, the founder of a musical society, is Death playing on the violin, and summoning the canon to follow him, who, not in the least terrified, marks the place in the book he was reading, and appears quite disposed to obey. This Dance is probably more modern than the other.71 The subject of Death performing on the above instrument to some person or other is by no means uncommon among the old painters.

M. Maurice Rivoire, in his very excellent description of the cathedral of Amiens, mentions the cloister of the Machabees, originally called, says he, the cloister of Macabré, and, as he supposes, from the name of the author of the verses. He gives some lines that were on one of the walls, in which the Almighty commands Death to bring all mortals before him.72 This cloister was destroyed about the year 1817, but not before the present writer had seen some vestiges of the painting that remained on one of the sides of the building.

M. Peignot has a very probable conjecture that the church-yard of Saint Maclou, at Rouen, had a Macaber Dance, from a border or frieze that contains several emblematical subjects of mortality. The place had more than once been destroyed.73 On the pillars of the church at Fescamp, in Normandy, the Dance of Death was sculptured in stone, and it is in evidence that the castle of Blois had formerly this subject represented in some part of it.

In the course of some recent alterations in the new church of the Protestants at Strasburg, formerly a Dominican convent, the workmen accidentally uncovered a Dance of Death that had been whitewashed, either for the purpose of obliteration or concealment. This painting seems to differ from the usual Macaber Dance, not always confined like that to two figures only, but having occasionally several grouped together. M. Peignot has given some more curious particulars relating to it, extracted from a literary journal by M. Schweighæuser, of Strasburg.74 It is to be hoped that engravings of it will be given.

Chorier has mentioned the mills of Macabrey, and also a piece of land with the same appellation, which he says was given to the chapter of St. Maurice at Vienne in Dauphiné, by one Marc Apvril, a citizen of that place. He adds, that he is well aware of the Dance of Macabre. Is it not, therefore, probable, that the latter might have existed at Vienne, and have led to the corruption of the above citizen’s name by the common people.75

Misson has noticed a Dance of Death in St. Mary’s church at Berlin, and obscurely referred to another in some church at Nuremberg.

Bruckmann, in his Epistolæ Itinerariæ, vol. v. Epist. xxxii. describes several churches and other religious buildings at Vienna, and among them the monastery of the Augustinians, where, he says, there is a painting of a house with Death entering one of the windows by a ladder.

In the same letter he describes a chapel of Death in the above monastery, which had been decorated with moral paintings by Father Abraham à St. Clara, one of the monks. Among these were, 1. Death demolishing a student. 2. Death attacking a hunter who had just killed a stag. 3. Death in an apothecary’s shop, breaking the phials and medicine boxes. 4. Death playing at draughts with a nobleman. 5. Harlequin making grimaces at Death. A description of this chapel, and its painting was published after the good father’s decease. Nuremberg, 1710, 8vo.

The only specimen of it in Holland that has occurred on the present occasion is in the celebrated Orange-Salle, which constitutes the grand apartment of the country seat belonging to the Prince of Orange in the wood adjacent to the Hague. In three of its compartments, Death is represented by skeletons darting their arrows against a host of opponents.76

Nor has Italy furnished any materials for the present essay. Blainville has, indeed, described a singular and whimsical representation of Death in the church of St. Peter the Martyr, at Naples, in the following words. “At the entrance on the left is a marble with a representation of Death in a grotesque form. He has two crowns on his head, with a hawk on his fist, as ready for hunting. Under his feet are extended a great number of persons of both sexes and of every age. He addresses them in these lines:

Eo sò la morte che caccioSopera voi jente mondana,La malata e la sana,Di, e notte la percaccio;Non fugge, vessuna intanaPer scampare dal mio laczioChe tutto il mondo abbraczio,E tutta la jente humanaPerchè nessuno se conforta,Ma prenda spaventoCh’eo per comandamentoDi prender à chi viene la sorte.Sia vi per gastigamentoQuesta figura di morte,E pensa vie di fare forteTu via di salvamento.

Opposite to the figure of Death is that of a man dressed like a tradesman or merchant, who throws a bag of money on a table, and speaks thus:

Tutti ti volio dareSe mi lasci scampare.

To which Death answers:

Se mi potesti dareQuanto si pote dimandareNon te pote scampare la morteSe te viene la sorte.77

It can hardly be supposed that this subject was not known in Spain, though nothing relating to it seems to have been recorded, if we except the poem that has been mentioned in p. 25, but no Spanish painting has been specified that can be called a regular Macaber Dance. There are grounds, however, for believing that there was such a painting in the cathedral of Burgos, as a gentleman known to the author saw there the remains of a skeleton figure on a whitewashed wall.

CHAPTER IV

Macaber Dance in England. – St. Paul’s. – Salisbury. – Wortley Hall. – Hexham. – Croydon. – Tower of London. – Lines in Pierce Plowman’s Vision supposed to refer to it.

We are next to examine this subject in relation to its existence in our own country. On the authority of the work ascribed to Walter de Mapes, already noticed in p. 24, it is not unreasonable to infer that paintings of the Macaber Dance were coeval with that writer, though no specimens of it that now remain will warrant the conclusion. We know that it existed at Old Saint Paul’s. Stowe informs us that there was a great cloister on the north side of the church, environing a plot of ground, of old time called Pardon church-yard. He then states, that “about this cloyster was artificially and richly painted the Dance of Machabray, or Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul’s: the like whereof was painted about St. Innocent’s cloyster at Paris: the meters or poesie of this dance were translated out of French into English, by John Lidgate, Monke of Bury, the picture of Death leading all estates; at the dispence of Jenken Carpenter in the reigne of Henry the Sixt.”78 Lydgate’s verses were first printed at the end of Tottell’s edition of the translation of his Fall of Princes, from Boccaccio, 1554, folio, and afterwards, in Sir W. Dugdale’s History of St. Paul’s cathedral.79 In another place Stowe records that “on the 10th April, 1549, the cloister of St. Paul’s church, called Pardon church-yard, with the Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul’s, about the same cloister, costly and cunningly wrought, and the chappel in the midst of the same church-yard, were all begun to be pulled down.”80 This spoliation was made by the Protector Somerset, in order to obtain materials for building his palace in the Strand.81

The single figure that remained in the Hungerford chapel at Salisbury cathedral, previously to its demolition, was formerly known by the title of “Death and the Young Man,” and was, undoubtedly, a portion of the Macaber Dance, as there was close to it another compartment belonging to the same subject. In 1748, a print of these figures was published, accompanied with the following inscription, which differs from that in Lydgate. The young man says:

Alasse Dethe alasse a blesful thyng thou wereYf thou woldyst spare us yn ouwre lustynesse.And cum to wretches that bethe of hevy chereWhene thay ye clepe to slake their dystresseBut owte alasse thyne own sely selfwyldnesseCrewelly werneth me that seygh wayle and wepeTo close there then that after ye doth clepe.

Death answers:

Grosless galante in all thy luste and prydeRemembyr that thou schalle onys dyeDeth schall fro thy body thy sowle devydeThou mayst him not escape certaynlyTo the dede bodyes cast down thyne yeBeholde thayme well consydere and seeFor such as thay ar such shalt thou be.

This painting was made about the year 1460, and from the remaining specimen its destruction is extremely to be regretted, as, judging from that of the young gallant, the dresses of the time would be correctly exhibited.

In the chapel at Wortley Hall, in Gloucestershire, there was inscribed, and most likely painted, “an history and Daunce of Deathe of all estatts and degrees.” This inscribed history was the same as Lydgate’s, with some additional characters.82 From a manuscript note by John Stowe, in his copy of Leland’s Itinerary, it appears that there was a Dance of Death in the church of Stratford upon Avon: and the conjecture that Shakespeare, in a passage in Measure for Measure, might have remembered it, will not, perhaps, be deemed very extravagant. He there alludes to Death and the fool, a subject always introduced into the paintings in question.83

On the upper part of the great screen which closes the entrance to the choir of the church at Hexham, in Northumberland, are the painted remains of a Dance of Death.84 These consist of the figures of a pope, a cardinal, and a king, which were copied by the ingenious John Carter, of well-deserved antiquarian memory.

Vestiges of a Macaber Dance were not long since to be traced on the walls of the hall of the Archiepiscopal palace at Croydon, but so much obscured by time and neglect that no particular compartment could be ascertained.

The tapestries that decorated the walls of palaces, and other dwelling places, were sometimes applied in extension of this moral subject. In the tower of London, the original and most ancient seat of our monarchs, there was some tapestry with the Macaber Dance.85

The following lines in that admirable satire, the Vision of Pierce Plowman, written about the year 1350, have evidently an allusion to the Dance, unless they might be thought to apply rather to the celebrated triumph of Death by Petrarch, of which some very early paintings, and many engravings, still exist; or they may even refer to some of the ancient representations of the infernal regions that follow Death on the Pale horse of the Revelations, and in which is seen a grotesque intermixture of all classes of people.86

Death came driving after, and all to dust pashedKynges and Kaysers, Knightes and Popes,Learned and lewde: he ne let no man standeThat he hitte even, he never stode after.Many a lovely ladie and lemmans of knightesSwouned and swelted for sorrowe of Deathes dyntes.

It is probable that many cathedrals and other edifices, civil as well as ecclesiastical, in France, Germany, England, and probably other European countries, were ornamented with paintings and sculpture of this extremely popular subject.

CHAPTER V

List of editions of the Macaber Dance. – Printed Horæ that contain it. – Manuscript Horæ. – Other Manuscripts in which it occurs. – Various articles with letter-press, not being single prints, but connected with it.

It remains only, so far as regards the Macaber Dance, to present the reader with a list of the several printed editions of that celebrated work, and which, with many corrections and additions, has been chiefly extracted from M. Peignot’s “Recherches historiques et litteraires sur les Danses des Morts,” Paris et Dijon, 1826, 8vo.

The article that should stand at the head of this list, if any reliance could be had on a supposed date, is the German edition, intitled, “Der Dotendantz mit figuren. Clage und Antwort Schon von allen staten der welt,” small folio. This is mentioned in Braun Notitia de libris in Bibliotheca Monasterii ad SS. Udalricum et Afram Augustæ, vol. ii. 62. The learned librarian expresses his doubts as to the date, which he supposes may be between 1480 and 1500. He rejects a marginal note by the illuminator of the letters, indicating the date of 1459. Every page of this volume is divided into two columns, and accompanied with German verses, which may be either the original text, or a translation from the French verses in some early edition of the Macaber Dance in that language. It consists of twenty-two leaves, with wood-cuts of the Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, Abbot, &c. &c. accompanied by figures of Death.

1. “La Danse Macabre imprimée par ung nommé Guy Marchand, &c. Paris, 1485,” small folio. Mons. Champollion Figeac has given a very minute description of this extremely rare, and perhaps unique, volume, the only known copy of which is in the public library of Grenoble. This account is to be found in Millin’s Magazin Encyclopedique, 1811, vol. vi. p. 355, and thence by M. Peignot, in his Recherches, &c.

2. “Ce present livre est appelle Miroer salutaire pour toutes gens, et de tous estatz, et est de grant utilité et recreation pour pleuseurs ensegnemens tant en Latin comme en Francoys lesquels il contient ainsi compose pour ceulx qui desirent acquerir leur salut: et qui le voudront avoir. La Danse Macabre nouvelle.” At the end, “Cy finit la Danse Macabre hystoriee augmentee de pleuseurs nouveaux pârsonnages (six) et beaux dis. et les trois mors et trois vif ensemble. Nouvellement ainsi composee et imprimee par Guyot Marchant demorant a Paris au grant hostel du college de Navarre en champ Gaillart lan de grace, 1486, le septieme jour de juing.” A small folio of fifteen leaves, or thirty pages, twenty-four of which belong to the Danse Macabre, and six to the Trois morts et les trois vifs.

On the authority of the above expression, “composée,” and also on that of La Croix du Maine, Marchant has been made the author as well as the printer of the work; but M. De la Monnoye is not of that opinion, nor indeed is there any other metrical composition by this printer known to exist.

3. “La Danse Macabre des femmes, &c. Paris, par Guyot Marchant, 1486, le septieme jour de Juillet,” small folio, of fifteen leaves only. This is the first edition of the Macaber Dance of females; and though thirty-two of them are described, the Queen and Duchess only are engraved. See No. 6 for the rest. This and the preceding edition are also particularly described by Messrs. Champollion Figeac and Peignot.

4. “Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemanicis edita, et a Petro Desrey emendata. Parisiis per magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godeffrido de Marnef. 1490,” folio. Papillon thought the cuts were in the manner of the French artist Jollat, but without foundation, for they are much superior to any work by that artist, and of considerable merit.

5. “La nouvelle Danse Macabre des hommes dicte miroer salutaire de toutes gens et de touts etats, &c. Paris, Guyot Marchant. 1490.” folio.

6. “La Danse Macabre des femmes, toute hystoriée et augmentée de nouveaulx personnages, &c. Paris, Guyot Marchant, le 2 Mai, 1491,” folio. This edition, the second of the Dance of females, has all the cuts with other additions. The list of the figures is in Peignot, but with some doubts on the accuracy of his description.

7. An edition in the Low German dialect was printed at Lubeck, 1496, according to Vonder Hagen in his Deutschen Poesie, p. 459, who likewise mentions a Low German edition in prose, at the beginning of the 15th (he must mean 16th) century. He adds, that he has copied one page with cuts from Kindeling’s Remains, but he does not say in what work.

8. “La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes hystorice et augmentée de beaulx dits en Latin, &c. &c. Le tout composé en ryme Francoise et accompagné de figures. Lyon, le xviii jour de Fevrier, l’an 1499,” folio. This is supposed to be the first edition that contains both the men and the women.

9. There is a very singular work, intitled “Icy est le compost et kalendrier des Bergeres, &c. Imprimè à Paris en lostel de beauregart en la rue Cloppin à lenseigne du roy Prestre Jhan. ou quel lieu sont à vendre, ou au lyon dargent en la rue Sainct Jaques.” At the end, “Imprimè à Paris par Guy Marchant maistre es ars ou lieu susdit. Le xvii iour daoust mil cccciiiixx·xix.” This extremely rare volume is in the British Museum, and is mentioned by Dr. Dibdin, in vol. ii. p. 530 of his edition of Ames’s typographical antiquities, and probably nowhere else. It is embellished with the same fine cuts that relate to the females in the edition of the Macaber Dance, Nos. 4 and 11. The work begins with the words “Deux jeunes Bergeres seulettes,” and appears to have been composed for females only, differing very materially from the well-known “Kalendrier des Bergers,” though including matter common to both.

10. “Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemanicis edita et à Petro Desrey Trecacio quodam oratore nuper emendata. Parisiis per Magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godeffrido Marnef. 15 Octob. 1499,” folio, with cuts.

11. “La Danse Macabre, &c. Ant. Verard, no date, but about 1500,” small folio. A vellum copy of this rare edition is described by M. Van Praet in his catalogue of vellum books in the royal library at Paris. A copy is in the Archb. Cant. library at Lambeth.

12. “La Danse Macabre, &c. Ant. Verard, no date, but about 1500,” folio. Some variations from No. 9 are pointed out by M. Van Praet. This magnificent volume on vellum, and bound in velvet, came from the library at Blois. It is a very large and thin folio, consisting of three or four leaves only, printed on pasteboard, with four pages or compartments on each leaf. The cuts are illuminated in the usual manner of Verard’s books. In the beginning it is marked “Marolles, No. 1601.” It is probably imperfect, the fool not being among the figures, and all the females are wanting, though, perhaps, not originally in this edition. It is in the royal library at Paris, where there is another copy of the work printed by Verard, with coloured prints, but differing materially from the other in the press-work. It is a common-sized folio, and was purchased at the sale of the Count Macarthy’s books.87

13. “La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Imprimèe à Troyes par Nicolas Le Rouge demourant en la grant rue à l’enseigne de Venise auprès la belle croix.” No date, folio. With very clever wood-cuts, probably the same as in the edition of 1490; and if so, they differ much from the manner of Jollat, and have not his well-known mark.

14. “La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Rouen, Guillaume de la Mare.” No date, 4to. with cuts, and in the Roman letter.

15. “La grande Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, ou est démonstré tous humains de tous estats estre du bransle de la Mort. Lyon, Olivier Arnoulet.” No date, 4to.

16. “La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Lyon, Nourry, 1501,” 4to. cuts.

17. “La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Imprimé à Genesve, 1503,” 4to. cuts.

18. “La grant Danse Macabre, &c. Paris, Nicole de la Barre, 1523,” 4to. with very indifferent cuts, and the omission of some of the characters in preceding editions. This has been privately reprinted, 1820, by Mr. Dobree, from a copy in the British Museum.

19. “La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes. Troyes, Le Rouge, 1531,” folio, cuts.

20. “La grand Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes. Paris, Denys Janot. 1533,” 8vo. cuts.

21. “La grand Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, tant en Latin qu’en Francoys. Paris, par Estienne Groulleau libraire juré en la rue neuve Nostre Dame à l’enseigne S. Jean Baptiste.” No date, 16mo. cuts. The first edition of this size, and differing in some respects from the preceding.

22. “La grand Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Paris, Estienne Groulleau, 1550,” 16mo. cuts.

23. “La grande Danse des Morts, &c. Rouen, Morron.” No date, 8vo. cuts.

24. “Les lxviii huictains ci-devant appellés la Danse Machabrey, par lesquels les Chrestiens de tous estats tout stimulés et invités de penser à la mort. Paris, Jacques Varangue, 1589,” 8vo. In Roman letter, without cuts.