Thoinot Arbeau is the pen name (and an anagram!) of Jehan Tabourot, who was born in Dijon in 1519. He was a Catholic priest, the Canon of Langres. After his death, a dance manuscript written by him was published in 1589 and reprinted in 1596. This manual contains detailed instructions for numerous styles of dance (bransle, galliard, pavane), as well as short sections about military music, drumming, and marching, and a few details about dance forms such as Morris Dance, the Canary, the Almain, Couranto, and Bassadance.
This manual, Orchesography, is a major source of information about Renaissance Dance. It is available online in facsimile, and there is an English translation by
Mary Stewart Evans, edited by Julia Sutton, which is in print with Dover. It contains numerous woodcuts
of dancing and musicians.
For more information:
- http://rendance.org/ (Renaissance dance)
- http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/arbeau_images.html (scans of the woodcuts)
- http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/musdi.219/ (a facsimile of the entire book at the US Library of Congress)
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pics/arbeau/p048.gif (a pipe and tabor player)
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pics/arbeau/p054.gif (a man and woman doing the reverence, the Renaissance equivalent of the bow and curtsey.)
