The earliest mention of Morris dance in England dates from 1448, when a tapestry depicting Morris dancers was recorded in an inventory of Caister Castle. That same year, a troupe of Morris dancers were paid seven shillings by the Goldsmiths Guild for a St. Dunstan Dayperformance. There are several other records of Morris dancers appearing on objects, and being paid for performances throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.¹ In 1924, members of the Cambridge Morris Men (as the Travelling Morrice) toured some of the villages where Sharp had collected morris dances. They danced in these villages and met many old dancers, who taught them more dances, tunes and steps. In subsequent years more tours were made through the area, resulting in additional morris dance material being collected. Additionally, the name "Moorish" was a fashionable appendage to any art considered even a little bit foreign. New music, dances, and clothing styles were labeled as "Moorish," relationship to Middle Eastern culture or not. It seems most likely to this historian that the name "Morris" was given to the dance at a later date, perhaps as a way to further distance the dance from its pagan origins. The bell pads are bright red braid, in four vertical strips with long horizontal strips top and bottom to join the vertical strips and act as leg ties. There are additional vertical strips of palited braid down each outer edge. Each pad has 20 small crotal bells in a 5x4 pattern along the vertical strips of braid. All the bells are the same size. [See the separate discussion of morris bells and other examples in the Museum.] [1895.46.1.3] Waistcoat It would be remiss of this historian to write about Morris dance but not talk about the live music that often accompanies the dancers. Morris bands utilize traditional instruments ( concertina, fiddle, melodian, accordion, pipes, tabor) and are percussion driven. Bands can range in size from a single musician to tens of people, depending on the style of dance and the preference of the side. Musicians often dress to match the dancers and are an integral part of the performance.

It will be worthwhile travelling to see many of Englands traditional customs. The origins of many are long forgotten, but they all add to the rich tapestry of our cultural heritage. With the Morris Musicians Other forms include Molly dance from Cambridgeshire. Molly dance, which is associated with Plough Monday, is a parodic form danced in work boots and with at least one Molly man dressed as a woman. The largest Molly Dance event is the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival, established in 1980, held at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire in January.The role of the squire varies. In some sides the squire is the leader, who speaks for the side in public, usually leads or calls the dances, and often decides the programme for a performance. In other sides the squire is more an administrator, with the foreman taking the lead, and the dances called by any experienced dancer. Carnival morris dancing shares a parallel history with North West morris dancing but began to evolve independently from around the 1940s onwards. It remains extremely popular with upwards of 8000 current dancers. [52] The trousers are well made in a style already old-fashioned by the second half of the nineteenth century (the double front flies had largely been replaced by a centre fly by the middle of the century). Many morris teams wore breeches but these were supplanted by trousers as the nineteenth century progressed. The dance may have given name to the board games three men's morris, six men's morris and nine men's morris.

Listen to four Morris tunes from Joan Sharpe The apparent simplicity of the three hole pipe and tabor belies a very complex musical instrument .... Joe Trafford was a dancer with the Headington Quarry Dancers from at the latest 1847 (i.e. as a young boy) to about 1880, and 'foreman' (leading dancer) of the side for part of that period. Trafford is pictured in the photograph of the team taken c.1875 [ Oxfordshire Photographic Archive/National Monuments Record negative CC71/70] , the leftmost figure seated on the ground.

Rapper Sword Dancing

Some composers have taken the traditional tunes and made arrangements from them. Percy Graingers adaptations of Country Gardens and Shepherds Hey would be good examples. Fools & Beasts The bagman is traditionally the keeper of the bag—that is to say, the side's funds and equipment. In some sides today, the bagman acts as secretary (particularly bookings secretary) and there is often a separate treasurer. Molly dance from Cambridgeshire. Traditionally danced on Plough Monday, they were Feast dances that were danced to collect money during harsh winters. One of the dancers would be dressed as a woman, hence the name. Joseph Needham identified two separate families of Molly dances, one from three villages in the Cambridge area and one from two in the Ely area. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, morris and sword clubs were being formed throughout England. In 1934 six of these sides came together to form the Morris Ring, the oldest morris organisation in England. The founding sides came from Cambridge, East Surrey, Greensleeves, Letchworth, Oxford University and Thaxted. In November 1947 Princess Elizabeth (now the Queen) and Prince Philip honeymooned in the USA, and in 1951 they had a State visit to Canada. They were photographed square dancing. This, along with the Festival of Britain celebrations and the Queens Coronation, led indirectly to a further interest in folk and morris dancing, and more sides were formed. The popularity of morris has continued with new sides still being formed today. Morris Sides and Styles It is unclear how the dance came to be referred to as Moorish, "unless in reference to fantastic dancing or costumes", i.e. the deliberately "exotic" flavour of the performance. [15] The English dance thus apparently arose as part of a wider 15th-century European fashion for supposedly "Moorish" spectacle, which also left traces in Spanish and Italian folk dance. The means and chronology of the transmission of this fashion is now difficult to trace; the London Chronicle recorded "spangled Spanish dancers" performed an energetic dance before King Henry VII at Christmas in 1494, but Heron's accounts also mention "pleying of the mourice dance" four days earlier, and the attestation of the English term from the mid-15th century establishes that there was a "Moorish dance" performed in England decades prior to 1494. [16] [17]

Morris dance may have been lost to time had it not been carefully documented by the ethnochoreologist and ethnomusicologist Cecil Sharp. Sharp traveled England collecting folk dances and published several works on the subject. Sharp's books revived interest in Morris dance, and Morris began to be taught (and tested) in some English schools. The Morris Ring, 2004 and the above Photograph authors; however you are welcome print a copy from this web version, and if you are travelling to Dutch, French, German or Spanish speaking lands then why not take some copies of the booklet translations. Although the costume came into the Museum in 1895, it apparently lay unexamined for many years. The costume was kept in a wooden box with 'Oxfsh. B.I.53' (the original accession number) and an attribution to Headington Quarry written on the outside. The box was opened circa 1952 by Bill Brice, who was cataloguing and sorting an overflow from the Museum which had been moved for storage to a cellar of the Examination Schools in High Street shortly before the Second World War. It was returned to the main Museum and examined by Brice and Jim Phillips, the then leader of the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers, but no record of that examination survives. [Letter, Bill Brice to Mike Heaney, 26 August 1987] Often the costume will include a Rag Coat, (a coat which has tatters, small pieces of cloth, sewn on it), or sometimes a formal tail coat. Like Molly dancers, they will disguise their faces; some modern sides will go further and wear masks. the first description of such dances was John Playford's The English Dancing Master, published in 1651.Garland, Mike; Maher, John. "The Magic of the Morris". The Morris Ring. Archived from the original on 8 October 2011 . Retrieved 15 September 2011. Clare Sponsler, 'Morris Dance and Theatre History', Thomas Postlewait, Representing the Past: Essays in Performance Historiography (Iowa, 2010), p. 96: John Gough Nichols, Diary of Henry Machyn (London: Camden Society, 1848), p. 13 Throughout its history in England, morris dancing has been through many manifestations. Five hundred years ago it was a dance for one or two; today it is for four or more. Accounts of morris dancing can be found throughout England, making it a nationwide phenomenon. Most Cotswold dances alternate common figures (or just figures) with a distinctive figure (or chorus). The common figures are common to all (or some) dances in the tradition; the distinctive figure distinguishes that dance from others in the same tradition. Sometimes (particularly in corner dances) the choruses are not identical, but have their own sequence specific to the tradition. Nevertheless, something about the way the chorus is danced distinguishes that dance from others. Several traditions often have essentially the same dance, where the name, tune, and distinctive figure are the same or similar, but each tradition employs its common figures and style.