This chapter focuses on popular culture as seen by the late antique church, in particular as visible through the sermons of Caesarius of Arles. First the key features of Caesarius’ opus are introduced, along with the methodological problems it poses for scholars, including a close discussion of Serm. 1. Caesarius’ ideological programme is discussed, including his use of the concepts of rusticitas and imperitia. The bishop’s concern with the bodily habitus of his congregation is considered next, then his attack on scurriltas, singing and dancing as key features of popular culture. This chapter therefore considers popular culture both substantively and discursively, while exploring the ways in which Caesarius and the church sought to appropriate elements of this popular culture, while at the same time seeking to oppose it, in an ongoing dialectic.

A Feeling and Body Investigator would be incomplete without in-depth explorations of joyous sensations. We explore what it feels like to be so filled with energy that you cannot sit still (Ernie the Energy Ball) or when you have so much music in your heart that you have to dance around (Dancing Darrin). We investigate moments when you are so filled with joy that you feel your heart might burst out of your chest (Bursting Bella), or when you are laughing so hard that your side hurts (Lulu the Laughing Pain). In this session we move. We dance. We giggle. We explore ways to take these joyous sensations and share them and make them even bigger.

The poetry and music of the trouvères in Northern France is the focus of Chapter 5. We explore the lives and music of Chrétien de Troyes, Adam de la Halle, Gautier de Coinci, Rutebeuf, and the female trouvère Gertrude of Dagsburg. We chart the ways in which the trouvères modelled themselves on the Occitan troubadours, translating their concept of courtly love, along with their song forms and genres, into an Old French linguistic context. We also consider some of the key differences between the two spheres, especially the increasingly urban - rather than courtly - environment in which the thirteenth-century trouvères worked, and their greater involvement in literary and musical production beyond songs, such as romances (romans) and other narrative poetry, and the French motet. The emergence of distinctive poetic-musical structures, known as the formes fixes, was another key feature of thirteenth-century French song, as was the phenomenon of refrains, or snippets of song, that were borrowed and quoted across a wide range of musical and literary genres.

Chapter 3 discusses the fading of music rituals at elite symposia, which was due in large part to the diminishing cultural significance of the musical arts in defining the aristocrat (a process that was already well underway by the fourth century), an increasing preference for professional entertainments, and the evolution of the upper-class domestic symposion itself. The last of these included the abandonment of rituals marking the transition from meal to symposion, the replacement of the communal wine krater with individualized wine service, and a shift to larger social meals, which new forms of dining architecture accommodated. The group paean and scolia disappeared very quickly. Other forms of organized music-making by dining groups continued in some places during the third century but were nearly obsolete by the middle of the second. It is likely that recital of poetry became at least as common or more common than singing it. In addition to describing these developments, the chapter gives special attention to stories about occasional singing and dancing by diners who engaged in those activities as self-display, performing for others.

The nineteenth century brought diversification to Eastern Mediterranean pastimes. Residents could visit neighbors and friends at home or meet them at the evening stroll along the waterside or main avenues. Especially as of the 1870s, commercial venues increased to large numbers. Especially the season from New Year to Carnival brought with them numerous receptions and balls as main sites of social prestige. Toward the new century, consumers increasingly expected music and dance opportunities to be on permanent offer through cafés. Especially balls served as loci to perform interethnic and international harmony. While participation in these leisure practices was not equally practiced by all denominational groups, with especially Muslims being underrepresented, there was no formal exclusion of any group, as acquired cultural capital was the main hurdle for taking part and profiting from these sociabilities.

This chapter provides the readers with a reassessment of the Stuart masque. In order to have a broader perception of the Stuart masque texts themselves, Barroll contrasts them with the livrets of a number of ballets presented at the contemporary courts of France. Then, turning to Jonson, Barroll observes that if one considers the literary values in the printed texts of Ben Jonson’s masques, they emerge as uneven records of his oeuvre. The poet’s various attempts to influence the transmission of his masques have affected our assumptions about them. Barroll pays specific attention to the transmission history of Oberon and Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly, first printed, with four others, in Jonson’s 1616 Folio. Beyond our sense of Jonson’s inclination to present all his F1 masques not as multi-dimensional spectacles but as literary endeavors, another factor may well have contributed to this great difference in detail between the Oberon and Love Freed texts, Barroll suggests. This was the changed atmosphere of the 1615 as opposed to the 1610 Stuart court.