[SCA-Dance] Sca-dance Digest, Vol 51, Issue 4

[Barbara Webb]

>> How about this?  From http://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/Volume4/Zaerr.html,
>> a reference to a fourteenth-century Middle English piece titled
>> Lybeaus Desconus (linked to a thirteenth-century Old French piece
>> called Le Bel Inconnu).
>
> In hands of this period, some "n"s are mistranscribed "u"s, and a few
> "t"s are mistranscribed "c"s. I'd say the names are close enough that
> they could be practically identical, especially if it was a name that
> is likely to have been incomprehensible to a period transcriber.

This was the conclusion that a friend of mine came to some time ago (I 
think I've posted it way back), i.e., that the dance name is a very 
plausible scribal transformation of the name of that romance. However I 
hadn't previously realised that the story itself had many musical elements 
and might have had associated music (though none now exists) as described 
in the web article. The rather simple tune is not unlike those found in 
similar romances for which music still exists such as Adam de le Halle's 
"Le jeu de Robin et Marion".

Caitlin

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