12. Thoughts on Dancing Theologians

Dearly Beloved,

Did Theologians ever dance? It has always seemed to me that Dante's Divine Comedy represented the pinnacle of a mediaeval culture permeated by Christianity. It was completed in 1320, a year before Dante's death. It is an extraordinary work describing individuals, both those whom Dante knew in life, those from the Classical period and those of political and ecclesiastical influence both of his time and before. The drama is set in hell, purgatory and heaven and is imbued with mediaeval Christian ideas and philosophy. He wrote of mediaeval cruelties in hell whilst in Purgatory he describes just trials imbued with hope for the righteous and celebratory and ecstatic verses for those who have reached the nine spheres of Paradise, whether great contemplatives, saints or doctors of the Church. The whole is shot through with human, romantic love as Dante's beloved, Beatrice, shows him around the glories of the nine heavenly spheres.

In Canto X of Paradise, in the sphere of the sun we find Dante and Beatrice at the center of a group of twelve theologians and divines who are described as dancing like ladies, sometimes stopping and listening to catch the new rhythm of the music. These are a disparate crowd. They include Aquinas, Albert the Great, Solomon, Boethius and Bede.

Some believe that theologians and divines really did dance within their institutions and not only during the celebratory times of the Lord's of Misrule, mostly between Christmas and Candlemas, when one of the most junior of monks or members of a Cathedral community was dressed up as a bishop and nominally presided over much feasting and celebration. We may never know the answer to this question as dancing was seen in the later mediaeval period as associated with immorality and fornication and any history of it may have been deleted from the record.

On a very different note, another of these theologians was Gratian who reviewed all the cannon laws and ordinances of the Church from its foundation to about 1150 in a document known as the Decretum Gratiani. That to some extent foreshadowed Christianity becoming more legalistic as shown by the rule of Pope Innocent III.

Peace,

Paul.



Francesco Botticini circa 1446 --1497 The Assumption of the Virgin.

The National Gallery London NG1126 Creative Commons.


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