Lynneth Miller Renberg, "Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith" (Boydell & Brewer, 2022)

Feb 14, 2026

Lynneth Miller Renberg, a historian of performance and parish religion, discusses how dance in England shifted from devotional practice to a suspected sinful act between 1300 and 1640. Short, lively takes explore changing sermon rhetoric, gendered accusations against dancing women, links to witchcraft narratives, and surprising parish records that complicate the story.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Dance As A Window Into Theological Change

Dance shifted from sacred praise to a marker of sin between 1200 and the late Middle Ages.
Tracing sermon side-comments reveals broader theological and social changes shaping parish life.

INSIGHT

Sacrilege Linked Belief And Behavior

Clergy aimed to teach laity correct belief and correct practice after Fourth Lateran.
Dance became coded as sacrilege: if you danced you probably believed or practiced wrongly.

INSIGHT

Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Why Dance Mattered

Medieval reformers feared dance in sacred space and time because it disrupted worship and created 'pagan' echoes.
Sermon tales show dancing outside mass could spiritually contaminate services and clergy performance.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

In Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg presents a lively exploration of the medieval and early modern attitudes towards dance, as the perception of dancers changed from saints dancing after Christ into cows dancing after the devil.

The devil’s cows, impudent camels, or damsels animated by the devil: late medieval and early modern authors used these descriptors and more to talk about dancers, particularly women. Yet, dance was not always considered entirely sinful or connected primarily to women: in some early medieval texts, dancers were exhorted to dance to God, arm-in-arm with their neighbors, and parishes were filled with danced expressions of faith. What led to the transformation of dancers from saints dancing after Christ into cows dancing after the devil?

Drawing on the evidence from medieval and early modern sermons, and in particular the narratives of the cursed carolers and the dance of Salome, this book explores these changing understandings of dance as they relate to religion, gender, sin, and community within the English parish. In parishes both before and during the English Reformations, dance played an integral role in creating, maintaining, uniting, or fracturing community. But as theological understandings of sacrilege, sin, and proper worship changed, the meanings of dance and gender shifted as well. Redefining dance had tangible ramifications for the men and women of the parish, as new definitions of what it meant to perform one’s gender collided with discourses about holiness and transgression, leading to closer scrutiny and monitoring of the bodies of the faithful.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day