Editing Country dance (section)

==History==
[[File:Country dance, performed by villagers. Engraving by Abraham Wellcome V0049745.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|left|Village country dance; engraving by [[Abraham Bosse]], 1633]]
Country dances began to influence courtly dance in the 15th century<ref>{{cite book|last=Kirstein|first=Lincoln|author-link=Lincoln Kirstein|title=Dance|publisher=Dance Horizons|location=New York|year=1969|page=119}}</ref> and became particularly popular at the court of [[Elizabeth I of England]]. Many references to country dancing and titles shared with known 17th-century dances appear from this time, though few of these can be shown to refer to English country dance. While some early features resemble the [[morris dance]] and other early styles, the influence of the courtly dances of Continental Europe, especially those of [[Italian Renaissance|Renaissance Italy]], may also be seen, and it is probable that English country dance was affected by these at an early date.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wood|first=Melusine|title=Some Notes on the English Country Dance before Playford|journal=[[Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society]]|date=December 1937|volume=3|issue=2|pages=93–99}}</ref> Little is known of these dances before the mid-17th century.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Cunningham|first=J. P.|title=The Country Dance: Early References|journal=[[Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society]]|date=December 1962|volume=9|issue=3|pages=148–154}}</ref>

[[John Playford]]'s ''[[The English Dancing Master]]'' (1651) listed over a hundred tunes, each with its own figures. This was enormously popular, reprinted constantly for 80 years and much enlarged. Playford and his successors had a practical monopoly on the publication of dance manuals until 1711, and ceased publishing around 1728. During this period English country dances took a variety of forms including finite sets for two, three and four couples as well as circles and squares.

[[File:Andre Lorin.jpg|thumb|Lorin's contradanse choreography, one of the earliest western dance notations]]

The country dance was introduced to the court of [[Louis XIV]] of France, where it became known as ''contredanse'', and later to Germany and Italy. André Lorin, who visited the English court in the late 17th century, presented a manuscript of dances in the English manner to Louis XIV on his return to France. In 1706 [[Raoul Auger Feuillet]] published his ''Recüeil de Contredances'', a collection of "''contredanses anglaises''" presented in a simplified form of [[Beauchamp-Feuillet notation]] and including some dances invented by the author as well as authentic English dances. This was subsequently translated into English by [[John Essex]] and published in England as ''For the Further Improvement of Dancing''.<ref>Copies of these books may be found online:[http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/musdibib:@field(NUMBER+@band(musdi+070)) Recüeil de Contredances] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016065943/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem%2Fmusdibib%3A%40field%28NUMBER+%40band%28musdi+070%29%29 |date=2015-10-16 }} (1706) by Raoul Auger Feuillet, and [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/musdibib:@field(NUMBER+@band(musdi+069)) For the further Improvement of Dancing] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150320124136/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem%2Fmusdibib%3A%40field%28NUMBER+%40band%28musdi+069%29%29 |date=2015-03-20 }} (1710) by John Essex</ref>

By the 1720s the term ''contradanse'' had come to refer to longways sets divided into groups of three or two couples, which would remain normative until English country dance's eclipse.<ref name="Thurston 29–35">{{cite journal|last=Thurston|first=Hugh|title=The Development of the Country Dance as Revealed in Printed Sources|journal=[[Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society]]|date=December 1952|volume=7|issue=1|pages=29–35}}</ref> The earliest French works refer only to the longways form as ''contradanse'',<ref>{{cite book|last=Sharp|first=Cecil|title=The Dance: An Historical Survey of Dancing in Europe|year=1924}}</ref> which allowed the false etymology of "a dance in which lines dance opposite one another".<ref name="Percy A. Scholes 1970"/> The square-set type also had its vogue in France and spread to much of Europe, Russia and North America during the later 18th century as the [[quadrille]]{{sfn|Kirstein|1969|p=212}} and the [[cotillion]]. These usually require a group of eight people, a couple along each side. "[[Les Lanciers]]", a descendant of the ''quadrille'', and the "Eightsome Reel" are examples of this kind of dance. Dancing in square sets still survives in Ireland, under the name [[Irish set dancing|"set dancing"]] or "figure dancing".

For some time English publishers issued annual collections of these dances in popular pocket-books. [[Jane Austen]], [[Charles Dickens]] and [[Thomas Hardy]] all loved country dancing and put detailed descriptions into their novels. But the vogue for the [[waltz]] and the quadrille ousted the country dance from English ballrooms in the early 19th century, though [[Scottish country dance]] remained popular.<ref name="Percy A. Scholes 1970"/><ref name="Thurston 29–35"/>