Придворні танці в культурі західно-європейського високого середньовіччя

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze the historical context of the court dance formation as a cultural phenomenon of the High Middle Ages, to identify its characteristic features and to find out the role and significance in the establishment of a civilizational model of behaviour in the European cultural space. Methodology. The historical-chronological, cultural and analytical approaches are applied to highlight the historical context of the court dance formation. The scientific novelty. For the first time, the court dances of the West European High Middle Ages are analyzed in the context of the then worldview concepts. Conclusions. Court dances, as a characteristic feature of the knight courteous culture of the High Middle Ages, the playful phenomenon and at the same time the pious action, contain deep sacral meaning and with the help of gestures (gestus), the plasticity of hands and bodies represent the requirements of courteous theology – worship of the Lady of the Heart, which is actually identified with the attitude towards the Mother of God. In court dances, as a result of “feudalization of love”, the roles of participants in the dance action are distributed according to which the Beautiful Lady becomes an object of worship, and the knight in non-verbal form testifies to her his “love service”. This distribution lays the foundation for the development of pair dances as a new phenomenon in the history of choreography. The growth of the generalization of flexible movements and codified gestures (gestus), their abstractness, allowed us to present in more detail the models of behaviour in interpersonal communication. And therefore, court, courteous dances demonstrated the “correctness” of the aesthetic behaviour of knights as a statement of the ideals of beauty in relations between the sexes. A pious and respectful attitude to the Beautiful Lady, emphasizing the moral and spiritual component in the relationship between a woman and a man-knight contributed to the increase of the social status of women. And the chivalrous ethos, whose visible representation was court dances, became the basis of a civilizational model of behaviour that was gradually formed in the European space.