# Dancing under an English church settlement

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH09.P006](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH09.P006/#char=174,351): "Those countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air."

The English *Declaration of Sports* supplies a useful historical complication. Charles I's 1633 declaration reissued James I's 1618 text, authorizing dancing, May games, Morris dances, and Maypoles after divine service. It opposed Puritan restrictions while expressly attacking Catholic recusancy, and excluded people who missed church from the privilege of recreation. Charles also defended church-dedication feasts, or wakes. The inspected witness is the [1862 Quaritch reprint, transcribed on Wikisource](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Sports_(1633)), especially the paragraphs beginning “And as for Our good peoples lawfull Recreation” and “And likewise We barre.”

Here religious authority and popular festivity were allies within a church settlement antagonistic to Rome. The example therefore complicates a simple Catholic-versus-Protestant map, while closely resembling Chesterton's model of liberty inside prescribed bounds. Its exclusions also expose a question concealed by the children's island: who may enter the protected playground? A royal prescription establishes policy and aspiration, not how consistently people actually danced.

## Sources

- [Charles I, Declaration to His Subjects Concerning Lawful Sports (1633), reprint 1862](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Sports_(1633)), James I's reprinted declaration: paragraphs beginning 'Whereas Wee did iustly', 'And as for Our good peoples lawfull Recreation', and 'And likewise We barre'; Charles I's concluding paragraphs on wakes, dated 18 October 1633.

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