Editing Medieval dance (section)

===The Balkans===
[[Image:Bosniangraves bosniska gravar februari 2007 stecak stecci14.jpg|thumb|Stecak from Radimlja, Hercegovina showing linked figures]]

The present-day folk dances in the [[Balkans]] consist of dancers linked together in a hand or shoulder hold in an open or closed circle or a line. The basic round dance goes by many names in the various countries of the region: ''[[choros (dance)|choros]]'', ''kolo'', ''oro'', ''horo'' or ''hora''. The modern couple dance so common in western and northern Europe has only made a few inroads into the Balkan dance repertory.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lidster|first1=Miriam|last2=Tamburini|first2=Dorothy|title=Folk Dance Progressions|location=Belmont, CA|publisher=Wadsworth|year=1965|page=9}}</ref>

Chain dances of a similar type to these modern dance forms have been documented from the medieval Balkans. Tens of thousands of medieval tombstones called [[Stecak|"Stećci"]] are found in [[Bosnia and Hercegovina]] and neighboring areas in [[Montenegro]], [[Serbia]] and [[Croatia]]. They date from the end of the 12th century to the 16th century. Many of the stones bear inscription and figures, several of which have been interpreted as dancers in a ring or line dance. These mostly date to the 14th and 15th centuries. Usually men and women are portrayed dancing together holding hands at shoulder level but occasionally the groups consist of only one sex.<ref>Alojz Benac "Chapter XIII: Medieval Tombstones (Stećci)" in {{cite book|editor-last=Bihalji-Merin|editor-first=Otto |title=Art Treasures of Yugoslavia|location=New York|publisher=Abrams|pages=277–96|year=1969}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Bihalji-Merin|first1=Otto|last2=Benac|first2=Alojz|title=The Bogomils|location=London|year=1962|publisher=Thames}}</ref>

Further south in [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]], near the town of [[Zletovo]], [[Lesnovo monastery]], originally built in the 11th century, was renovated in the middle of the 14th century and a series of murals were painted.<ref>{{cite web |title=Historical view on the Lesnovo monastery |url=http://slovo-aso.cl.bas.bg/lesnovo.html |publisher=Slovo |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706142718/http://slovo-aso.cl.bas.bg/lesnovo.html |archive-date=2011-07-06 |access-date=20 January 2025}}</ref> One of these shows a group of young men linking arms in a round dance. They are accompanied by two musicians, one playing the [[Kanun (instrument)|kanun]] while the other beats on a long drum.

There is also some documentary evidence from the [[Dalmatia]]n coast area of what is now [[Croatia]]. An anonymous chronicle from 1344 exhorts the people of the city of [[Zadar]] to sing and dance circle dances for a festival while in the 14th and 15th centuries, authorities in [[Dubrovnik]] forbid circle dances and secular songs on the cathedral grounds.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Ivančan|first=Ivan|year=1988|title=Folk Dance Among the Croats|journal=Narodna Umjetnost|issue=Special Issue 2|page=74|location=Zagreb}}</ref> Another early reference comes from the area of present-day [[Bulgaria]] in a manuscript of a 14th-century sermon which calls chain dances "devilish and damned."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Katzarova-Kukudova|first1=Raina|last2=Djenev|first2=Kiril|title=Bulgarian Folk Dances|year=1958|publisher=Slavica|location=Cambridge MA|page=9}}</ref>

At a later period there are the accounts of two western European travelers to Constantinople, the capital of the [[Ottoman Empire]]. [[Salomon Schweigger]] (1551–1622) was a German preacher who traveled in the entourage of Jochim von Sinzendorf, Ambassador to Constantinople for [[Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor|Rudolf II]] in 1577. He describes the events at a Greek wedding:<ref>{{cite book|title=Ein newe Reyssbeschreibung auss Teutschland nach Constantinopel und Jerusalem|last=Schweigger|first=Salomon|location=Graz|publisher=Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt|year=1964|page=227}}</ref>

{{Poem quote|da schrencken sie die Arm uebereinander
machen ein Ring
gehen also im Ring herumb
mit dem Fuessen hart tredent und stampffend
einer singt vor
welchem die andern alle nachfolgen.

then they joined arms one upon the other, made a circle, went round the circle, with their feet stepping hard and stamping; one sang first, with the others all following after.}}

Another traveler, the German pharmacist Reinhold Lubenau, was in Constantinople in November 1588 and reports on a Greek wedding in these terms:<ref>{{cite journal|editor-last=Sahm|editor-first=W. |year=1915|title=Beschreibung der Reisen des Reinhold Lubenau|journal=Mitteilungen aus der Stadtbibliothek zu Koenigsberg i. Pr.|volume=VI|page=23}}</ref>

{{Poem quote|
eine Companei, oft von zehen oder mehr Perschonen, Grichen herfuhr auf den Platz, fasten einander bei den Henden, machten einen runden Kreis und traten balde hinder sich, balde fur sich, balde gingen sie herumb, sungen grichisch drein, balde trampelden sie starck mit den Fussen auf die Erde.

a company of Greeks, often of ten or more persons, stepped forth to the open place, took each other by the hand, made a round circle, and now stepped backward, now forward, sometimes went around, singing in Greek the while, sometimes stamped strongly on the ground with their feet.
}}