Europe history: Street entertainers
marionettes and jig dolls
gallery
examples of the little figures used by pipe and tabor players over the centuries to entertain the general public in town and country.
From the twelfth century there is documentation of some dancing puppets called bavasteles. They are of Italian origin, but quickly spread throughout France, Spain and the rest of European capitals.
The bavasteles were small full-bodied polychrome wooden articulated dolls that were suspended between ropes in a horizontal position. One end of the string was tied to a wooden stake or other fixed object, and the other to the leg of the puppeteer, who, by moving it, tightened it and caused the puppets to dance or do somersaults to the beat of the music or the melodies. songs of the minstrel himself. The minstrel could play a bagpipe, a hurdy-gurdy, a barrel organ or a pipe and tabor.
1851
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