Thoinot Arbeau is the anagrammatic pen name of French cleric Jehan Tabourot (March 17, 1520 – July 23, 1595). Tabourot is most famous for his ''Orchésographie'', a study of late sixteenth-century

French Renaissance The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define th ...

social dance. He was born in

Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920. The earlies ...

and died in

Langres Langres () is a commune in northeastern France. It is a subprefecture of the department of Haute-Marne, in the region of Grand Est. History As the capital of the Romanized Gallic tribe known as the Lingones, it was called Andematunnum, then ...

''Orchésographie'' and other work

''Orchésographie'', first published in

, 1589,The title page's "Extraict du priuilege" is dated "Novembre 1588". provides information on social ballroom behaviour and on the interaction of musicians and dancers. It is available online in facsimile and in plain text. There is an English translation by Mary Stewart Evans, edited by Julia Sutton, in print with

Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, book ...

. It contains numerous

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...

s of dancers and musicians and includes many dance

tabulation A table is an arrangement of information or data, typically in rows and columns, or possibly in a more complex structure. Tables are widely used in communication, research, and data analysis. Tables appear in print media, handwritten notes, comp ...

s in which extensive instructions for the steps are lined up next to the musical notes, a significant innovation in

dance notation Dance notation is the symbolic representation of human dance movement and form, using methods such as graphic symbols and figures, path mapping, numerical systems, and letter and word notations. Several dance notation systems have been invented ...

at that time. He also published on astronomy: ''Compot et Manuel Kalendrier, par lequel toutes personnes peuvent facilement apprendre et sçavoir le cours du Soleil et de la Lune et semblablement les festes fixes et mobiles que l’on doit célébrer en l’Eglise, suyvant la correction ordonné par notre Saint Pére Grégoire XIII'' [...Calendar, by which all people can easily learn and know the course of the Sun and of the Moon and similarly, the festivals with fixed and moveable dates which one celebrates in Church, according to the correction ordained by our Father Saint Gregory XIII], Langres: Jehan des Preyz, 1582, (cited in ''Mémoires de l'Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon'', I (Dijon: Académie de Dijon, 1924), 107). Thoinot Arbeau was translated into English as ''Orchesography'' by Cyril W. Beaumont in 1925, and in a modern edition in 1967. The pavane "Belle qui tiens ma vie" was arranged by Leo Delibes for his incidental music for

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

's play "

Le roi s'amuse ''Le roi s'amuse'' (; literally, ''The King Amuses Himself'' or ''The King Has Fun'') is a French play in five acts written by Victor Hugo. First performed on 22 November 1832 but banned by the government after one evening, the play was used for G ...

". Other sections were arranged or quoted by Saint-Saens (in the "ballet" from Ascanio) and Peter Warlock (in his

Capriol Suite The Capriol Suite is a set of dances composed in October 1926 by Peter Warlock and is considered one of his most popular works. Originally written for piano duet, Warlock later scored it for both string and full orchestras. According to the compos ...

) "Branle de l'Official" provided the tune for the 20th century English Christmas carol " Ding Dong Merrily on High".

Notes

External links

*
Orchésographie

''Orchesographie''
From the Collections at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

Arbeau free sheet music including Pavanne
* *
Free scores
Mutopia Project
Orchesographie
Et traicte en forme de dialogue, par leqvel tovtes personnes pevvent facilement apprendre & practiquer l'honneste exercice des dances. Par Thoinot Arbeau demeurant à Lengres. Lengres, Imprimé par Iehan des Preyz, 1589. From th
Rare Book and Special Collections Division
at the

* Pavane" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ctkKhfC6Y"Belle qui tient ma vie" performed by Esther Ofarim {{DEFAULTSORT:Arbeau, Thoinot 1520 births 1595 deaths Renaissance dance Dance notators Clergy from Dijon 16th-century French Roman Catholic priests French didactic writers 16th-century French writers 16th-century male writers French male non-fiction writers Writers from Dijon

''Orchésographie'' and other work

Notes

Further reading

External links