Old measures, or simply measures, were a group of dances performed at ceremonial and festive occasions in Early Modern Britain. Some of the dances included in the measures were the pavane and the almain, and dances such as the galliard and the courante are also mentioned as accompanying or following the traditional measures.
The measures are associated with the Inns of Court, the English law schools, as most of the extant sources have been found among the papers of lawyers and law students at the Inns. They are also mentioned in Shakespeare plays such as As You Like It (Act V, scene 4), Richard II (Act III, scene 4), Richard III (Act I, scene 1).
One must be wary when one encounters 16th- and 17th-century references to measure or measures, as a measure could refer to a bar, or generically to dancing, as well as to this specific group of dances.
Read more about Old Measures: Dances, Manuscript Sources, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the word measures:
“A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)