Abstract

In the 15th century, play and dance were expressively criticised. This makes it all the more remarkable for the Dominican Meister Ingold to identify, in his ‘Guldin Spil’, not only chess, cards and dice as some of the seven games useful to overcome the seven deadly sins, but also dance. Ingold, however, does not praise the outward dance. Rather, he intends to turn the reader towards what may be called inner contemplation or Betrachtung, with the various stages of Jesus’ life are transformed into dance steps. The result is an odd conflict: external dance may have negative connotations, yet lays the mental groundwork for the inner Betrachtung. This article aims to explore this area of conflict by examining the various traditions of interpretation which may have influenced Ingold.