"Sotar con vellaco": Danza y movimiento en el "Libro de buen amor" a partir del estudio del léxico

Abstract

This article proposes that the author of Libro de buen amor is familiar with and distinguishes (sometimes implicitly) various forms of contemporary dances, and their performance conventions and circumstances. In order to do this we begin by identifying and defining the musical contexts of various dances. We then offer a series of examples that establish relationships between certain musical instruments and specific types of dances and their steps and also address a third factor, namely, how the ideological environment determines the selection of instruments and type of dance. Although considering medieval musical iconography, in this study we focus on the text of the Libro itself, particularly in the work’s descriptions of movement and instrumental accompaniment. Words such as “sotar”, “trotar”, “trotalla”, “trotera”, that express excessive movement, are mainly associated with the minstrel, the “vellaco”, the “serrana”, the “cantadera”, eroticism, the tavern, dice and certain instruments, while it is the understated circular dance choreography of the higher social class that marks the shared norms of both dance and love that distinguishes their social rank. In the Libro de buen amor allusions to the latter dance form is used allegorically to underscore the nature of the time’s passage over the course of the year