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Of Morris And Men
Esme’s excellent post here is very relevant indeed and it contains some fascinating photographs of Inn signs. I hadn’t really noticed Inn signs until Esme started her series of posts about them, but now I’m hooked. They are yet another of our traditions that embody so much of our history. I know that Esme knows the origin of the Morris dancing traditions of our country, but for our readers who might not know, here goes a very brief explanation.
In late 1492 King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castille succeeded in driving the Muslims from Spain and unifying the old Roman province of Iberia into a single country. In celebration of this a pageant known as a 'Moresca' was invented and staged throughout the newly re-formed Spain which those monarchs forged.
That pageant can still be seen in many places in Spain to this very day. A native Spanish dance - the 'Paloteao' - was taken into the pageant. That dance can still be seen in many of the rural the villages of Aragon, and sometimes elsewhere in Spain.
The original dance in the ´Moresca´ was a sword dance and the sticks used in Morris dancing in England are echoes of the swords in the 'Moresca'. Some authorities venture the idea that the Scottish Highland Sword Dance comes from the same source - the 'Moresca'.
I think that this whole idea might be the wrong way round and that sword dancing predated the 'Moresca' all over Europe but became linked to the European victory over the forces of Islamic darkness in Ferdinand's and Isabella’s time simply because it was an astoundingly important event for Europe. Sword dances are mentioned by Abbot Walter Bowyer of the Augustinian Abbey on Inchcolm(1) in his Scotichronicon of 1440 (there's an original copy in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh) and they are mentioned, also, in his predecessor's (Father John of Fordoun) work, the Chronica Gentis Scotorum, which Bowyer was commissioned(2) to finish and which became his (Bowyer’s) Scotichronicon, which the aforementioned National Library of Scotland has described as "probably the most important mediaeval account of early Scottish history" and as providing both a strong expression of [Scottish] national identity, and a window into the world view of mediaeval commentators. It’s certainly a very important medieval document and provides many insights into the attitudes of those times.
Whatever the case might be, Morris dancing in its present form most certainly commemorates the Spanish victory over the reactionary and dead hand of Islam in 1492. We should all support our local Morris men and their sides (teams) for they embody in their traditions and their dancing the very victory that we all devoutly hope for today. They symbolise the very freedoms which we at this site seek to defend.
Dance on brave Morris men, dance on!
Notes:
(1) The same Abbey which lends its name to the 14th. Century manuscript referred to as the ‘Inchcolm Antiphoner’ that has in its pages one of the few remaining examples of Celtic Plainchant. The Antiphoner can be accessed online here at Edinburgh University's site.
(2) Abbot Bowyer was commissioned by Sir David Stewart (third) of Rosyth who died in 1483. Both he and the Abbot were political players in the Scotland of those years and the Scotichronicron reflects their political prejudices.
