When did people Morris dance in engalnd?

Answer 1

Well there are an estimated 15,000 Morris dancers in England today, so today is one answer. Check online for information about the Morris Federation, the Morris Ring and Open Morris, three of the organizations of Morris dancers in the UK alone. The current form of the dance is revived from forms seen and described by folklorists around 1900. Some of the oldest illustrations date from 1600, and show similar groups of dancers. The figures of the modern dance show similarities to English Country Dances as published in the Playford dance series, and those were well known and first published by Playford in 1651.

In the historical record, the first reference in England to Morris bells in the inventory of a castle is from the mid 1400's.

Etymologically the word for Morris is thought to be derived from Moorish, and to date from heavy English trade and military connections with Spain and Portugal in the late 1300's. However it isn't know whether the word was then applied to an earlier form of English dancing, or if the dance itself as done at that time was derived from some Iberian dance.

By the 1500's the dance was a popular dance in Church festivals, and there are numerous references to it in the literature of the time, including one of Shakespeare's plays. The Shakespearean description includes a large number of male and female dancers.

By Samuel Pepys time (the 1660's), antiquarians were referring to it as part of the heritage of old England, and looking for places where it was still to be found. Pepys himself refers with pleasure to seeing Morris dancers once again, after the strictures of the Puritans and the Commonwealth against Morris dancing had almost wiped it out. Today most sides date from revivals begun in the early 1900's, but some have a village tradition dating at least as far back as the early 19th century. New teams are constantly being formed, and can be found around the world, with many sides in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.