Section I.E -- Fifteenth Century German Sources

 


Nurnberg Ms

Nurnberg Ms. "Hie Jnnen sindt geschriben die wellschen tenntz." Brief, undated (c. 1517) ms. in Nurnberg, Germ. Nat. Mus. (MS 8842). Discussion with facsimile of single page in Ingrid Brainard. "The Art of Courtly Dancing in Transition...", Crossroads of Midieval Civilization..., ed. E. E. Dubruck and K. H. Goller. In Medieval and Renaissance Monograph Series, V (Michigan: Michigan Consortium for Mideval and Early Modern Studies, 1984), pp. 61-79.

 



This is a small manuscript, consisting of seven pages. It offers eight choreographies, but no music or description of how the steps are performed is included. Dr. Brainard attributes this source to one Johannes Cochlaus, a German who was at the university of Bologna. The manuscript was apparently compiled for a pair of young ladies in Nurnberg, who desired some knowledge of current fashion in Italian dancing, for use at local dances. Most of the included dances appear in the Italian sources of the period, but this source offers a point of view other than that of a dancing master.