This thesis examines the culture and practice of dance in Denmark in the seventeenth century, focussing on the performance practice within festivals, the pervading French influence and philosophical discourse of dance. The repertoire of staged court dance in Denmark comprises ballets and plays performed in conjunction with festival events such as coronations, weddings, and christenings. Typical is the 1634 festival in honour of Prince-Elect Christian and Magdalena Sibylla�s wedding in Copenhagen, a celebration of international significance. Subsequent celebrations during the reigns of Frederik III and Christian V followed similar models. The festival of 1655 in homage of Prince Christian, for example, gave rise to performances of the ballet Unterschiedliche Oracula, and the German-language opera Arion. The programmes from these performances, along with other contemporary descriptions, provide evidence of aspects of the ballet genre, stage construction, machinery, characters, allegory and political themes. The Danish productions, which also include an equestrian ballet, are in many respects comparable to French court ballets produced from the beginning of the century. Evidence that French choreographies were known in Denmark is clearly provided by choreographies in the publication Maître de Danse (Glückstadt 1705) and the Danish manuscript of violin dance tunes Additamenta 396 4�. Evidence that the Danish aristocracy actively sought and coveted French culture can be found as early as the wedding festival in 1634 and well into the eighteenth century. French acculturation is evident elsewhere too, such as in Ludvig Holberg�s comedy Jean de France (1722), in a translation of French dance etiquette for youth, in contemporary accounts of French clothing and language, and by the employment of French musicians and dancing masters at the Danish court. Included is an examination of Andreas Schroder�s treatise De Saltatoribus (Flensburg 1622) and Thomas Bartholin�s dance chapter in his book Qu�stiones Nuptialis (Copenhagen 1670) as significant Danish primary sources. These sources are placed in contrast with contemporary European dance manuals such as Arbeau, De Lauze, Esquivel de Navarro, Caroso and Negri. Danish and other European authors differ in their views on the morality of dance, although they cite many of the same Ancient and Biblical sources for their persuasive arguments. Just as Denmark was connected to other countries of northern Europe in a complex political web, so too did these courts share artistic and cultural traditions, which are reflected in the sources related to dance. Danish dance practices can especially be demonstrated to be akin to those of neighbouring German courts, which, like Denmark, imitated the dance fashions of France.

This thesis examines the culture and practice of dance in Denmark in the seventeenth century, focussing on the performance practice within festivals, the pervading French influence and philosophical discourse of dance. The repertoire of staged court dance in Denmark comprises ballets and plays performed in conjunction with festival events such as coronations, weddings, and christenings. Typical is the 1634 festival in honour of Prince-Elect Christian and Magdalena Sibylla�s wedding in Copenhagen, a celebration of international significance. Subsequent celebrations during the reigns of Frederik III and Christian V followed similar models. The festival of 1655 in homage of Prince Christian, for example, gave rise to performances of the ballet Unterschiedliche Oracula, and the German-language opera Arion. The programmes from these performances, along with other contemporary descriptions, provide evidence of aspects of the ballet genre, stage construction, machinery, characters, allegory and political themes. The Danish productions, which also include an equestrian ballet, are in many respects comparable to French court ballets produced from the beginning of the century. Evidence that French choreographies were known in Denmark is clearly provided by choreographies in the publication Maître de Danse (Glückstadt 1705) and the Danish manuscript of violin dance tunes Additamenta 396 4�. Evidence that the Danish aristocracy actively sought and coveted French culture can be found as early as the wedding festival in 1634 and well into the eighteenth century. French acculturation is evident elsewhere too, such as in Ludvig Holberg�s comedy Jean de France (1722), in a translation of French dance etiquette for youth, in contemporary accounts of French clothing and language, and by the employment of French musicians and dancing masters at the Danish court. Included is an examination of Andreas Schroder�s treatise De Saltatoribus (Flensburg 1622) and Thomas Bartholin�s dance chapter in his book Qu�stiones Nuptialis (Copenhagen 1670) as significant Danish primary sources. These sources are placed in contrast with contemporary European dance manuals such as Arbeau, De Lauze, Esquivel de Navarro, Caroso and Negri. Danish and other European authors differ in their views on the morality of dance, although they cite many of the same Ancient and Biblical sources for their persuasive arguments. Just as Denmark was connected to other countries of northern Europe in a complex political web, so too did these courts share artistic and cultural traditions, which are reflected in the sources related to dance. Danish dance practices can especially be demonstrated to be akin to those of neighbouring German courts, which, like Denmark, imitated the dance fashions of France.

The dissertation records changes in the Kano palace landscape between 1500 and 1990. Patriarchal practices that shaped the initial palace layout at vernacular domestic and state levels are outlined. Royal women were secluded and male slaves occupied public household domains, state strongholds. Later increases in eunuchs' and slave women's powers and spaces are also recorded. The demise of slave women's political realms and the rise of an autocratic and militaristic male state structure following the Fulani jihad of 1807 are then detailed. Lastly, the impact of British imperialism on the landscape of male and female slavery is presented. Because male slaves were placed publicly, they were the main receivers and negotiators of colonial change, and their spaces underwent the most forceful change. / Throughout the analyses, landscapes are seen as politically created and communicative material structures. Examination of epistemological relations used in landscape analyses demonstrates important linkages between how field research is structured and relations of power.

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This study of the cultural activities of the Scottish court in the adult reign of King James V reveals a vibrant, sophisticated and confident outlook, which was more closely integrated with the developments of the northern-European Renaissance than has been apparent hitherto. James V utilised the limited resources at his disposal to good effect, and his cultural patronage propagated multi-layered images of royal power. Continuity with the traditions established by his Stewart forbears, especially his father, James IV, was stressed, particularly in the early years of his reign. However, the chivalric, imperial and humanist themes which were fashionable at the Valois, Habsburg and Tudor courts of the period, were also important and became more prominent at the Scottish court as the reign progressed. An initial examination of the daily life of the court focuses on the personnel, structure and organisation of the royal household and considers the itinerary and routine activities of the king, his family and his entourage. This allows the cultural patronage of the court to be placed in a social context, in which the role and status of women at the court are particularly highlighted. Subsequent chapters consider developments in the visual arts, music and religious observance, learning and literature, military technology, and pageantry and ceremonial. The architectural patronage of the court was particularly rich and encompassed buildings in the ornate High-Gothic style, which was pioneered in the Burgundian Netherlands, and a more restrained Italianate Classicism borrowed from the French court. Music also flourished at the Scottish court, where the French chanson and the Italian consort of viols could be heard alongside the florid, Anglo-Flemish, sacred polyphony of the chapel royal. Likewise, the literary life of the court included vivid (and sometimes bawdy) vernacular verse, scholarly translations of classical texts, neo-Latin humanist treatises, and one of the earliest known examples of a Scottish play. The king also spent heavily on developing an embryonic royal navy, royal artillery and a network of coastal and border fortifications, which incorporated the latest advances in military technology. The ceremonial highlights of the reign included two royal weddings, the lavish funerals of Queens Madeleine de Valois and Margaret Tudor, the coronation of Queen Mary of Lorraine as well as tournaments and rituals connected with the chivalric orders of the Garter, the Golden Fleece and St. Michael. In all of these areas the inspiration of the court of Francis I was particularly strong, since James V spent several years of his minority under the authority of a French Governor, married two French princesses and made a personal visit to the French court in 1536-37. However, men of English, Flemish and Italian origins served the king or visited his court and their influence can also be detected operating alongside the tastes and customs of the Scottish realm. Emerging defiantly from a long and turbulent minority, the adult James V managed to create an exuberant and cosmopolitan court in only fourteen years. His patronage was, of necessity, on a smaller scale than that of the Tudor and Valois kings but a detailed examination of the Scottish court at this period nevertheless reveals a cultural achievement of remarkable quality and diversity.

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The representation of a Stuttgart court festival in a fascinating book of prints has received no art historical attention. The cultural production of German lands in a complex and obscure time described by one historian as being particularly bereft of "textbook facts", has not elicited much scholarly interest. In the seventeenth century before confessional disputes within the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation turned into armed conflict, small German territorial courts modelled themselves on and assumed the courtly style of the larger European courts. The Stuttgart baptism of 1616 presents an interesting case study of the use of a courtly spectacle by a secondary court at a time of great instability. The baptism festival served as a stage to display an alliance of some German Protestant princes that held a promise of international support for the Protestant cause. The Wurttemberg court commissioned lengthy texts and a large number of engravings to represent the event. This study will address the contributions made by printed images to the festival program. The key documents for this study are the texts which complement and at times diverge from the visual representation. The differences between the visual and textual material will serve to locate the function of the visual representation of a festival held at a time of impending conflict. The triumphal procession format of the engravings discloses a strategy of disenfranchisement of a powerful parliament while it serves to assert the rank of the court within and outside the German empire. The complex amalgams of imagery that are interspersed in the paper procession allude, I suggest, to the problems presented to the Wurttemberg court by an uneasy alliance of Protestant courts within the empire. The engravings served to encode references to problematic issues such as the survival of the Holy Roman Empire, the rights of Protestant territorial princes to form an alliance and the hopes for outside help for the Protestant cause. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

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