Scottish Dancing before the 19th century

e.ferguson

March 7, 2006, 1:27 a.m. (Message 44519)

Dear All,

While looking around on Internet for a quite different topic, I came across 
this charming excerpt that many of you may like.  It was found on

http://www.standingstones.com/scotdanc.html

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Dancing was disliked by the Church of Scotland. In 1649 the General 
Assembly passed an act prohibiting so-called 'promiscuous dancing' (i.e. in 
which men danced with women), and this act was reaffirmed in 1701. As a 
result there was almost no public dancing of any kind in Scotland in the 
seventeenth century; it had to be done surreptitiously, if at all.  [Note 1 
Of course this statement does not apply to the Highlands, which was still 
mainly Catholic at this period, and so not governed by the views of the 
Church of Scotland]   

Celtic ornament.   Towards the end of the seventeenth century, however, 
dancing came out into the open again in Edinburgh as an upper-class 
recreation, stimulated by the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York in 
1680. New dances came into vogue at this time: these were the Country-
dance, an English type not hitherto known in Scotland, and the Minuet 
(pronounced 'minaway' in the French manner). The church objected, 
predictably; pulpit-thumping sermons equating dancing with sexual 
permissiveness were frequently to be heard in Edinburgh churches during the 
first ten years of the eighteenth century. But times had changed, and the 
ladies of Edinburgh defied the church and danced on: a popular dance tune 
at the time was called 'The de'il stick the minister'. In 1723 an Assembly, 
or aristocratic dancing-club, was opened in Edinburgh which was to continue 
until nearly the end of the century.

The Edinburgh Assembly was in theory open to the general public, in 
practice confined to 'Persons of Quality, and others of Note'. But 
assemblies also opened in provincial Scottish towns, and dancing-masters 
set up teaching practices in areas remote from the capital. Topham remarked 
in 1775 how dancing-masters earned a good living by teaching large classes 
of pupils at small individual fees: it is probable that dancing lessons 
became cheaper as the eighteenth century progressed, so encouraging the 
spread of dancing downwards socially into the lower middle classes. 
Certainly there was a vast increase in the amount of dancing done in 
Scotland, until by the 1770s it had become a major national pastime.

The Penny Wedding    The Country-dances which had been imported from 
England soon became acclimatized. New dances of this type, designed to go 
with Scots folk-tunes, were invented, and experimented with at aristocratic 
country-house parties; indeed, it is likely that many of the great houses 
had their individual dancing traditions between 1730 and 1780. Instructions 
for forty-eight new, native country-dances are preserved in a manuscript 
written by David Young in Edinburgh in 1740, which is entitled 'A 
Collection of the newest Countrey Danced Perform'd in Scotland'.  

The Reel also flourished during this period; and a new type of slow reel, 
the Strathspey, originating presumably from the Spey valley in Inverness-
shire, appeared in the Lowlands during the 1760s and caught on very 
quickly.

From:
David Johnson
Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century
Oxford University Press, 1972   pp. 120-121

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Could some Lady from Edinburgh tell us if the popular dance tune mentioned 
is still in existence?  

Perhaps the Minister on the Loch would like to comment?  (;-))

Greetings,

Eric
-- 
Eric T. Ferguson, 
van Reenenweg 3, 3702 SB  ZEIST  Netherlands
tel: (+31)(0) 30-2673638    
e-mail: x.xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xx