[See also: BAUDE, HENRI; CONFRÉRIE DE LA PASSION; COQUILLART,
GUILLAUME; FARCE; SOTTIE; THEATER]
Fabre, Adolphe. Les clercs du palais. 2nd ed. Lyon: Scheuring, 1875.
Harvey, Howard Graham. The Theatre of the Basoche. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941.
BASSE DANSE
. An elegant, choreographed procession dance of the 15th and early 16th centuries. The
favorite dance in the courts of France, England, and Spain, it was closely related to the
Italian bassadanza.
Although the earliest mention of the basse danse is in a poem by Raimon de Cornet
(ca. 1320), nothing is known of the dance steps until the early 15th century, when a
number of tunes and choreographies were preserved in manuscripts. From these
instruction manuals, we know that each basse danse employed a combination of five
steps: reverence, branle, simples, double, and reprise. Each choreography had a unique
sequence and length and was paired with a particular tune of exactly the correct number
of notes to fit the dance steps.
In the later 16th century, the basse danse lost its individual choreography and was
performed with a continuous repetition of a set sequence of steps to music of uniform-
length phrases.
Timothy J.McGee
[See also: ALTA CAPELLA; DANCE]
Brainard, Ingrid. “Bassedanse, Bassadanza and Ballo in the 15th Century.” In Dance History
Research: Perspectives from Related Arts and Disciplines, ed. Joann W.Kealiinohomoku. New
York: Committee on Research in Dance, 1970, pp. 64–79.
Bukofzer, Manfred F. “A Polyphonic Basse Dance of the Renaissance.” In Studies in Medieval and
Renaissance Music. New York: Norton, 1950, pp. 190–216.
Crane, Frederick. Materials for the Study of the Fifteenth Century Basse Danse. Brooklyn: Institute
of Mediaeval Music, 1968.
Heartz, Daniel. “The Basse Dance: Its Evolution Circa 1450–1550.” Annales musicologiques
6(1958–63):287–340.
BASTIDE
. Fortified community in western France. In Aquitaine, preceding the Hundred Years’
War, along the Anglo-French border both English and French kings or their officials
founded fortified towns, usually in contracts (called in French pariage) with Cistercian
and other monastic houses on lands that had formerly been granges under the direct
cultivation of the monks. These fortified towns, or large villages, of the late 13th and
early 14th centuries differ from the villeneuves in that they were founded on land that was
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