[DANEAU, Lambert.]

£4,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

Third and last edition of this important and interesting treatise on dancing by the renowned Protestant theologian Lambert Daneau, first published in Geneva in 1579, giving tremendous insight into attitudes to the the forms and nature of dancing in the C16th. The author refutes all arguments in favour of dancing which he associates with the work of Satan. It commences with three sonnets condemning dancing and a dedication to the protestant King of Navarre, later Henry IV. The work was widely read in England where its arguments were most influential particularly amongst the Puritans, for instance in Philip Stubbs Anatomie of Abuses which contains a lengthy chapter on dancing, which he describes as an introduction to whoredom, a preparative to wantonnesse. Daneau was a close follower of Calvin in his attitude to dancing. Nor did the campaign to suppress dancing end with Calvin, for in 1579, fifteen years after his death, we find a lengthy treatise on the subject published in Geneva by Lambert Daneau. The book was offered, in the name of the Ministers of the Reformed Church to the King of Navarre. The preface describes the moral disorder which, partly as the result of the religious wars, reigns in the protestant communities of the day; amongst the evils most rampant are gambling and dancing. The latter, in particular, the author declares, has been much defended by its supporters who, instead of accepting the recommendations of their ministers, persist in putting forward all kind

• Binding: Hardcover

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