England: history of the pipe and tabor
Cotswold morris dance
1600 a play called ‘The Shoemaker's Holiday or the Gentle Craft’, Eyre announces that: Thomas Dekker (F2v , III.iii.49-50). |
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1601 song from 'Jack Drum's Entertainment', talking about the Whitson morris dance: "Skip it, and frisk it nimbly, nimbly! 'Highgate: Part 2 of 2', Old and New London: Volume 5 |
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1617 Morris dance is discussed in a play: “Morrice-bels? And waste-coates, and napkins?... . So, now we want nothing but the Taborer wee talk't of: but 'tis no matter, since he does not come, wee'll sing, and so make musike to our selves. ? [Enter an hobby horse dancing the Morrice, and a Tabourer] Oh, here they are both...[They dance three times, the hobby-horse over throwes them all againe, kisses Musica, and runnes away with the Tabourer]” 'Technogamia or The marriages of the arts: a comedie,' Holyday (1617) 46 editions published between 1618 and 1630 |
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Hone's Everyday Book, May 1st 1661 |
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17th century, in Hereford: page 144 “Old Hall of Hereford. ... the waits of three metropolitan cities make not more music than he can, with his pipe and tabor” page. 139 “The wood of this old Hall's tabor should have been made a pail to carry water in, ....; but Hall, being wise, because he was, even then, reasonably well stricken in years, saved it from going to the water, and converted it, in those days, to a tabor. So that his tabor hath made bachelors and lasses dance round about the May-pole threescore summers, one after another, in order, and is yet not worm-eaten.” page 140 In 1609 a tract called " Old Meg of Herefordshire, for a Mayd Marian, and Hereford Toivnc for a Morris Daunce ; or Twclve Morris Dauncers in Hereford- shire of Twclve Hundred Years Old." is dedicated :
page 145 Temple says : |
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1696 |
Quoted in Morning Herald (London) - |
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18th century pipe from Chipping Campden | |||||
1720’s - 'Dixton Harvesters', a painting
in Cheltenham Art Gallery showing how the harvest was gathered. The pipe and tabor player accompanied all the different activities. ( The painting has poor lighting and is high up on the wall so difficult to photograph [frances] ) |
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part of the painting | |||||
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1733, May 19th in the vicinity of Hempsted, Gloucestershire
" two Children were burnt in a terrible Manner at Hemftead near this City, one of which is fince dead, and the other lies dangeroufly ill: It is obfervable, that the affectionate Father was then attending a Company of Morrice Dancers with his Tabot and Pipe, and when the News of this melancholy Accident was brought to him, he refufed to return home, faying, He would not lofe his Whitfuntide." Thomas Hill 1706-1739 |
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Writers recorded seeing morris men and women dancing to the pipe and tabor in towns too: "In Fleet strete then I heard a shoote : in John Brand (1744-1806) |
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Rustic Sounds, and Other Studies in Literature and Natural History By Sir Francis Darwin |
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1770's Gwilym Davies has researched the history of the pipe and tabor in Gloucestershire up to the present. He found that the |
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1777 a play incorporated morris dances in the intervals between acts: | Leeds Intelligencer - Tuesday 22 May 1781
also in 1782 in Derby at the New Theatre “Morris Dancing to be accompanied by a Tabor and Pipe” as part of the evening's Derby Mercury - Thursday 28 February 1782 |
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By the early 1800's writers were starting to mourn the gradual decline of folk traditions like the playing of the pipe and tabor in the streets. And by the middle of the nineteenth century fashions were changing and the pipe and tabor dropped out of use for morris dancing. |
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1805 Samuel Johnson ‘A dictionary of the English Language' ‘Maidmarian A kind of dance so called from a buffoon dressed like a man who plays tricks to the populace. |
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Died: "On Sunday se'nnight, Mr. James Nicholson, of York; Manchester Mercury - Tuesday 08 September 1807 |
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1811, 19 January Died "At Easton, near Winchester, aged 94 years, 1811, 14 January The Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle |
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the pipe and tabor player, 'poor old Master Beechey, of Lew', played at Bampton early in the century.
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John Fathers (1789-1873) was born at Upper Heyford, and played for a number of morris sides, probably in the vicinity of Marston. “He Played the Whittle and Dub for the different Morris round about – he died about 20 years ago at the age of 80 and the wife of his son …. told me that she gave her Children the Whittle and Dub to Play with and she remembers them Breaking them to Pieces.” |
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John Timbs (1801 –1875) wrote of when he was a school-boy:mentioned in the Hertford Mercury and Reformer - Saturday 08 June 1889 |
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As a child Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) lived in Gawcot village, Buckinghamshire. In 1827 he moved to London to become an architect associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses. Writing about his childhood:
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at Bampton in the Cotswolds:
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at Spelsbury in Oxfordshire:
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1826, Goswell Road, London; a correspondent, writing to the "Every Day Book," describes what was evidently the same company as being in Rosoman Street, Clerkenwell, in June of the same year : Morris dancing still went on in the countryside and the dancers came to the towns once a year: A letter from a reader to the editor of The Every-Day Book (1838): |
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1829 Duchess of St Albans wedding anniversary garden fete: Morning Chronicle - Monday 22 June 1829 |
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Gutch writing in 1847says that, a few years before, he witnessed
in a chapter called The Morris Dancers:
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for other types of dance see : |
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