Into the question of the state of dancing prior to the invention of
any method of denoting by signs or characters the length or duration
of sounds, we need scarcely enter. Doubtless music was felt and
appreciated by a sort of instinct long before it was understood
scientifically, or duly measured out and written down upon a
recognised system. If dancing is to be viewed as dependent upon its
correspondence with mensurable music, it must date simply from the
invention of the Cantus Mensurabilis, attributed by some writers to
Franco, the scholastic of Liege, who flourished in the eleventh
century; and by others to Johannes de Muris, doctor of Sorbonne and a
native of England, at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
There were dances of the court and dances of the people. The Morris
dance, which seems to have been an invention of the Moors, had firmly
established itself in England in the sixteenth century. The country
dance was even of earlier date. The old Roundel or Roundelay has been
described by ancient authorities as an air appropriate to dancing, and
would indicate little more than a circular dance with the hands
joined.
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