D

Although the tradition of dance had become well established in the Middle Ages, most of its repertoire has since been lost because it consisted mostly of instrumental music, which was not customarily written down until well into the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, chronicles and archival documents do make reference to specific dancers. The earliest reference concerns a master of Jewish dance, Rabbi Hacén ben Salomo, who in 1313 performed a circular dance in the Church of San Bartolomé in Tauste, Zaragoza. Quite different were the ten dansas (a type of troubador song) with vocal accompaniment that the infante Pedro composed and performed during a banquet celebrating the coronation of his brother, Alfonso IV of Aragón, in the Aljafería of Zaragoza in 1328. Ramón Muntaner, who chronicled the event, says that the city celebrated the event in the streets with “danses de dones e de donzelles e de molta bona gent” [“dances of young men and women and many good people”]. In the Libro de Buen amor, the Arcipreste de Hita claims to have written many dance compositions fit to be performed by different instruments (“muchas cantigas de dança e troteras,/para judías e moras”). These might have resembled those heard in Burgos when Alfonso XI, King of Castile and León, was knighted: on that occasion, in the words of Rodrigo Yáñes, “ricas dueñas fasían dança/a muy gran plaser cantando” [“Many fine ladies danced/and sang with pleasure”] (Poema de Alfonso).