Europe: street entertainers
marionettes and jig dolls
Although marionettes were mostly accompanied by the pipe and tabor other instruments were also used. Here are examples of the little figures used by taborers 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 songs of the minstrel himself.
The minstrel could play a bagpipe, a hurdy-gurdy, a barrel organ, a tabor or a pipe and tabor.
1851
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 1814 Cossacks in Paris |
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 1810-1825 toile fabric, France |
 1823 satire - 'Gentleman Dancing Master' |
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1828 newspaper report of court case:
Charles Kendall was charged with destroying a drum the property of a poor Italian boy, named Joseph Bernardi.
Wilkinson, the constable, saw the defendant follow the boy, who got his livelihood by exhibiting dancing dolls,
with a pipe and tabor, and wantonly burst open the latter with his foot. The prisoner said he stumbled off the
pavement, and by accident broke the drum. He was ordered
to pay 6s. for the damage, 2s. 6d. to the officer.
Star (London) - Saturday 15 November 1828
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  All the year round : a weekly journal. 5. 30. 22.06.1861 |
 France |
 1829 satire France
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 1835 London, England
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 1824-83 |
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 Victorian lantern slide [detail]
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1834 England  Morning Post - Wednesday 13 August 1834 |
1834 'Street Exhibitions in London'  ‘Chambers' Edinburgh Journal 1834-03-15: Vol 3 Iss 111’ |
1856 London, England
“…Where is the little pipe-and-tabor doll-dancer?
Where is the monkey-bearer ?
Where the little fellow
with the marmoset ? and the other little fellow with the
guinea-pigs? and where are the Italian whitemice
boys
of to-day ? Positively,
with the rarest exceptions,
there are now none of these to be found, and we
should like to know the reason why….”
The Leisure Hour 1856-12-11: Vol 5 Iss 259 |
 Victorian |
 1863 caricature of Berlioz, France |
1866 English story ‘May-day at the Cottage.’  'Country Scenes', by Harriet Myrtle - Page 126 |
1866 story ‘The Goat and her Kid.’
“…One day a poor Italian boy came down the lane playing upon a pipe, and beating a little tabor.
He used to play these for two dolls that danced upon a board by means of a string that went through
their bodies, and was fastened to his knee, so that when he moved his knee quickly the dolls seemed
to dance about upon the board….”
‘Country Scenes’, by Harriet Myrtle |
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1830-46 France 
1810
1840 
19th century
