Editing Danse Macabre (section)

==Paintings==
[[File:Charnier at Saints Innocents Cemetery.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Charnel house]] at [[Holy Innocents' Cemetery]], Paris, with mural of a ''Danse Macabre'' (1424–25)]]

What is often considered to be the earliest recorded visual example is the lost mural on the south wall of the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents in [[Paris]]. It was painted in 1424–25 during the regency of [[John, Duke of Bedford]]. It features an emphatic inclusion of a dead crowned king at a time when France did not have a crowned king. The mural may well have had a political subtext.<ref>Oosterwijk (2008).</ref> However, some have argued that 14th century Triumph of Death paintings such as the fresco by [[Francesco Traini]] are also examples of danse macabre.<ref>Norman Tanner's The Church in the Later Middle Ages: The I.B. Tauris History of the Christian Church, pg 128.</ref>

There were also painted schemes in [[Basel]] (the earliest dating from {{circa|1440}}); a series of paintings on canvas by [[Bernt Notke]] (1440–1509) in [[Lübeck]] (1463); the initial fragment of the original Bernt Notke painting ''[[Danse Macabre (Notke)|Danse Macabre]]'' (accomplished at the end of the 15th century) in the [[St. Nicholas' Church, Tallinn|St Nicholas' Church]], [[Tallinn]], [[Estonia]]; the painting at the back wall of the chapel of Sv. Marija na Škrilinama in the [[Istria]]n town of Beram (1474), painted by Vincent of [[Kastav]]; the painting in the [[Holy Trinity Church (Hrastovlje)|Holy Trinity Church]] of [[Hrastovlje]], Istria by [[John of Kastav]] (1490).

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{{Wide image|Bernt Notke Danse Macabre.jpg|1000|align-cap=center|Bernt Notke: ''Surmatants'' (''Totentanz'') from [[St. Nicholas' Church, Tallinn]], end of 15th century}}

[[File:Danse Macabre - Guyot Marchand9 (Abbot and Bailiff).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|An [[abbot]] and a [[bailiff]], dancing the Dance Macabre, miniature from a 1486 book, printed by [[Guy Marchant]] in Paris]]

A notable example was painted on the cemetery walls of the Dominican Abbey, in [[Bern]], by [[Niklaus Manuel Deutsch]] (1484–1530) in 1516/7. This work of art was destroyed when the wall was torn down in 1660, but a 1649 copy by [[Albrecht Kauw]] (1621–1681) is extant. There was also a ''Dance of Death'' painted around 1430 and displayed on the walls of Pardon Churchyard at Old [[St Paul's Cathedral]], London, with texts by [[John Lydgate]] (1370–1451) known as the 'Dance of (St) Poulys', which was destroyed in 1549.

The deathly [[crisis of the Late Middle Ages|horrors of the 14th century]] such as recurring [[famine]]s, the [[Hundred Years' War]] in France, and, most of all, the [[Black Death]], were culturally assimilated throughout Europe. The omnipresent possibility of sudden and painful death increased the religious desire for [[penance]], but it also evoked a hysterical desire for amusement while still possible; a last dance as cold comfort. The ''Danse Macabre'' combines both desires: in many ways similar to the medieval [[mystery play]]s, the dance-with-death allegory was originally a [[didacticism|didactic]] dialogue poem to remind people of the inevitability of death and to advise them strongly to be prepared at all times for death (see ''[[memento mori]]'' and {{lang|la|[[Ars moriendi]]}}).

Short verse dialogues between Death and each of its victims, which could have been performed as plays, can be found in the direct aftermath of the Black Death in Germany and in Spain (where it was known as the ''Totentanz'' and ''la Danza de la Muerte'', respectively).

The French term ''Danse Macabre'' may derive from the Latin ''Chorea Machabæorum'', literally "dance of the Maccabees."<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/233217?rskey=m8A5At&result=1&isAdvanced=false#| title = OED.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/macabre| title = Dictionary.reference.com}}</ref> In [[2 Maccabees]], a [[deuterocanonical books|deuterocanonical book]] of the Bible, the grim [[martyr]]dom of a [[woman with seven sons|mother and her seven sons]] is described and was a well-known medieval subject. It is possible that the Maccabean Martyrs were commemorated in some early French plays, or that people just associated the book's vivid descriptions of the martyrdom with the interaction between Death and its prey.

An alternative explanation is that the term entered France via Spain, the {{langx |ar|مقابر}}, ''maqabir'' (pl., "cemeteries") being the root of the word. Both the dialogues and the evolving paintings were ostensive penitential lessons that even illiterate people (who were the overwhelming majority) could understand.