Ringleaders of Redemption

Book excerpt: In popular thought, Christianity is often figured as being opposed to dance. Throughout the medieval era, the Latin Church denounced and prohibited dancing, often aligning it with demonic intervention, lust, pride, and sacrilege. However, Ringleaders of Redemption reveals how the historical sources - including biblical commentaries, sermons, saints' lives, ecclesiastical statutes, mystical treatises, vernacular literature, and iconography from France, Italy, Germany, England, Spain, and beyond - tell a different story. During the High and Late Middle Ages, Western theologians, liturgists, and mystics not only tolerated dance; they transformed it into a dynamic component of religious thought and practice.