The "Mysterious Circle" devised by Girard Thibault at his
fencing academy Academie de l'Espée Return
The music playing is by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer: "Der Fechtschule" or
the fencing school. At times the music is suggestive of thrusts and parries.
Pontius de Tyard's "musique humaine" in his
"Solitaire second" maintained that there
were body symmetries (ratios) that apply to men.
These "juste proportions" are 4:1, 3:1, 2:1,
½:1, etc. These are, of course, Pythagorean
musical consonances, or the cosmic harmonies.
These geometrical proportions or ratios apply to
riding horses (turns, gaits, etc.), fencing, etc.
Such ratios are displayed in Thibault's "mysterious circle".
The fencer and his movements are based upon Pythagorean
harmony. Fencing and music (dance masters often were
fencing masters, too) were bound by the same harmonies.
1
Hands are associated with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10.
At this time, solfege (the pedagogical method used to
teach musical pitch and sight singing) was based upon the
seven keys C, D, E, F, G, A, B corresponding to do, re, mi,
fa, sol, la, ti, and most people used the fingers on their
hands to count. 2
Thibault's "mysterious circle" has the Vitruvian
man inscribed in a circle, a sword being the radius of
this circle from the man's navel to the circumference
of the circle. There are three subdiagrams illustrating
positions of attach or defense: prima instantia, seconda
instantia, and tertia instantia. According to Thibault,
there is a harmonic ratio of 2:1 between two fencing men.
3
Thus there was an intimate relationship between music
and harmonic ratios both in dance as well as fencing, but
in dressage (the "dance" of horses) too.
Ballets were often organized into geometric shapes upon
the stage. This was often based upon cosmology, to show
the "order" of the state. For example, the elements of
earth, air, water, fire, and quintessence all were associated
with shapes. Quintessence was associated with the dodecahedron,
thus the number 12 had a special meaning, used in dance (12
masquers). Similarly, "earth" was associated with the cube:
6 surfaces, each a square, etc.
Order was thus introduced into dance, and such order found in
dance was used to organize armies. Armies were organized as
squares, each soldier marching in exact synchronization. Such
geometric order was used in schools (Jesuits), fencing, gardens,
etc.
Impoverished peasants were often recruited into armies (nobles
were commissioned as officers). These peasants were cannon
fodder - the peasants knew this, it was how the economic system
functioned. These peasants were issued beautiful green parade
uniforms (or some other color), green was used at Poltava. The
soldiers fought in "square" groups, synchronized just like a dance,
as they had been taught. Such geometric shapes may not have been
very strategic, as the dying soldiers' bodies were piled into a
mountain of still quivering life on the battlefield. Music was viewed
as necessary in dance, as well as on parade and during battle. The
purpose of the music was to maintain the mechanical rhythm of battle
(however, it also maintained discipline by reducing anxiety, and by
drowning out the screams). At Poltava, the Swedish king, with his
retinue of noble officers, quickly retreated (danced?) leaving the
remaining invading soldiers in a foreign land to fend for themselves
– it was how the economic system worked.
4, 5
Plato's "dances of war" or pyrrhic dances consisted of
defensive postures to swerve, duck, side-leap, leap upwards,
crouch, etc. to avoid blows, and their opposites in offense.
Collisions of swords and shields leading to disarray, but as with
dance, the soldiers retreat in orderly fashion, to regroup and attack
again, and again, all synchronized to military music. A military that
is highly disciplined to the choreography of war, synchronizing archers,
javelins, pikes, swordsmen, and cavalry.
6
Heavy cavalries of horsemen (courtly knights with the wealth to afford
this) soon became insignificant in war, in the face of an infantry armed
with armor-piercing muskets. Instead, light cavalry replaced these
useless courtiers. 7
Horsemen were now trained with pillars (restricted the movements of
the horses) allowing horsemen to learn to ride in battle, the centres
of dressage (horsemanship) being in Naples and Ferrara. Music and tempo
using misura giusta were emphasized. Different steps for horses
were accompanied by short tunes for each step or gait: a comprehensive
musical vocabulary was used in dressage. Thus different music for
"un passo e un salto" vs. "gallopo raccolto". Cavaliers
used music to communicate with horses: singing, tongue-clicks, soothing
tones, and encouraging cries. Voice, crop, bridle, the pressure of thighs,
stirrups, spurs, and pulling the horse up short (the bit) were used.
8
"Passade" (lifting of the forelegs off the ground) and
"courbette" (raised forelegs with a hop on the hindlegs) was
used in the "ballet à cheval".
9
The idea here parallels the idea of racism (being developed in Europe at
this time (Raza and Casta) that certain biological features
are relatively constant or inherited. Namely, if animals such as horses
can be taught to act in an "orderly" fashion then so might the
general population be made to be "orderly".
For further information, see
http://esthermlederberg.com/EImages/Extracurricular/Dickens%20Universe/Dickens%20and%20Dogs.html
.
Dances involving tournaments, assaults on enchanted castles, horse ballets,
drawbridges and dungeons, cloud machines, fairies enchanting knights
(disguised as rocks and trees): what is going on here? Mass hysteria? Why is
the ideology of chivalry repeatedly appealed to? The ideology of chivalry is
being used as a cover for religious wars. 10
What was seen was ridiculous expenditures on frivolities. Commentators
juxaposed fête and famine (spectacle and starvation):
hymns vs ballet antics; mass vs mascarades. Henry III was seen as a
feminized philanderer, the Nero of Rome, the fêtes and mascarades
were the gladatorial displays of the Roman circus. "I'Isle des Hermaphrodites"
was a satire on Henry III: "orde, salle, vile et basse" (base, vile,
sordid, unworthy). 11
The poet Ronsard, in his "Bergerie" provided the royal view of peasants:
viewed as aristocrats! That is, the royal view was thoroughly divorced
from reality. "François Ier and Queen Eléonore, facing the façade
of the cathedral at Rouen in February 1532, were confronted by the spectacle
of shepherds singing and dancing to the music of their leader, 'un grand berger
jouant de sa muse', while a young maiden/shepherdess came dancing forward to
present the king with the gift of a lamb." and "... the twelve shepherds and
twelve 'bergerettes' were dressed in costly garments of taffetas, 'acoutrées
de taffetas, portant olettes et panetières, dansans...au son des orgues
et musettes' (while they danced, other shepherds sang motets). Simply put, in the
royal view, peasants acted and dressed exactly like members of the court!
12 Furthermore, in the royal
view, the harmonies found in the nature of the countryside are idealized, populated
by fairies, the whole show (reality is entertainment) run like the government by
magic. 13
1
Kate van Orden, "Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early and
Modern France", Univ. of Chicago Press, 2005,
pp. 56, 58, 60
.
2
Ibid., p. 60
.
3
Ibid., p. 62
"Fencing had a "choreography" with "balletic movements". Also
"... Italian dancing masters often taught fencing as well...".
See McGowan, Margaret M.; "Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion,
French Obsession", Yale Univ. Press, p. 32
.
4
Peter Englund, "The Battle that Shook Europe: Poltava and the
Birth of the Russian Empire", I. B. Taurus, New York, 2006
.
5
Kate van Orden, "Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early and
Modern France", Univ. of Chicago Press, 2005,
pp. 57-62, 92, 105, 187-189, 235-241, 248, 249 (chapters 5, 6).
.
6
Ibid., pp. 189-191.
.
7
Ibid., pp. 235-239
.
8
Ibid., pp. 239-241
.
9
Ibid., pp. 248, 249, 256, 259, 264
.
10
McGowan, Margaret M.; "Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion,
French Obsession", Yale Univ. Press, pp. 156, 162, 163, 174, 175
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