ABSTRACT
In late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England, reformers and ecclesiastical authorities condemned and attacked the well-established and scripturally supported tradition of dancing in the churchyard on Sundays and holy days as profanation of sacred space. Many episcopal visitation articles from this period inquired whether the church or churchyard had been abused or profaned with unlawful games, sports, or dancing. Church court records confirm that a number of dancers were presented and punished as a result of these inquiries. However, when such cases are examined in context, they suggest that dancing in the church or churchyard was rarely prosecuted unless it was disorderly or part of a larger conflict. One such source of conflict was disagreement over whether all or only some parts of the church and churchyard should be considered sacred space. Another area of controversy was what constituted appropriate behavior within sacred versus lay spaces and how certain spaces around the church, such as the churchyard, should be defined. This chapter investigates two cases of problematic dancing in Dundry, Somerset, that illuminate some of the factors that shaped perceptions of dancing as lawful or unlawful and decided whether parochial officials prosecuted dancing in the church and churchyard. These cases demonstrate how a space’s status as sacred, secular, or somewhere in between not only impacted the day-to-day behaviors for which that space could be used, but also reflected and exacerbated religious and political tensions within the parochial community.
