those chapels which had continued in the possession of the Christians throughout the Moorish occupation, and decreed that all new and all reconsecrated churches should use the Roman liturgy."[1]
In a.d. 589 the Third Council of Toledo[2] "forbade the people dancing through the vigils of saints' days, and in 590 the Council of Auxerre forbade secular dances in churches. In 1209 the Council of Avignon passed a similar decree. In 1212 processions danced round the churches in Paris, and women danced in the cemeteries. As late as the seventeenth century the apprentices and servants of York used to dance in the nave of the minster on Shrove Tuesday; on one occasion Dean Lake was almost killed when he tried to prevent their entering the sacred building for this purpose. By a curious tenure in Wiltshire the inhabitants of Wishford and Batford went up annually in a dance to Salisbury Cathedral; and, till the destruction of the cathedral at Liege by the French revolutionary soldiers, the inhabitants of Verviers, in Belgium, used to go thither annually on Whit Tuesday and dance under the corona in the nave, headed by a cross. The deputation consisted of certain magistrates and clergy.
To this day a dancing procession chanting a curious carol takes place at Echternach, in Luxemburg, on Tuesday in Whitsun-week; it is called the procession of the Jumping Saints (Springende Heiligen). It consists of a long train of pilgrims dancing three paces forward and then backward. The pilgrims are headed by the clergy, all dancing. They dance from the bridge over the Saur to the church, round the altar, and they separate at the cross in the cemetery. It is to this day a very popular pilgrimage; in 1869, there were 8,000 persons in the procession."
A religious dance is still executed at certain seasons before the high altar of the cathedral at Seville, viz. on the feast of the Blessed Virgin and its octave, at the festival of the Corpus Domini, and eight days afterwards; it also sometimes takes place on the three days of the Carnival, which in Spain is held on the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before Ash- Wednesday. The dancing begins immediately after vespers.
- ↑ Callcott's History of Spain, vol. i. p. 296.
- ↑ See preface to Chope's Christmas Carols, by Rev. S. Baring Gould.
