Medieval French term which appears at the head of one monophonic, textless and possibly instrumental piece in F-Pn fr.844 (a manuscript of troubadour and trouvère chansons; see Sources, MS, §III, 4), and may be extensible to other pieces. It bears some resemblance to the forms of the Estampie and Ductia.
The piece concerned follows (f.104v) immediately after eight other monophonic textless pieces, each labelled ‘estampie real’, and was probably entered by the same hand (very different from the main body of the manuscript), all nine pieces being in a mensural notation (unlike the chansons) which, however, is not without its ambiguities. They were probably copied into the manuscript before 1325 (see Aubry). The Dansse real strongly resembles the estampies except for the fact that it comprises only three melodic sentences, and that these are not repeated.
On f.5 of the same manuscript there are two pieces, probably in the same hand, which strongly resemble the above. Both pieces consist of repeated sentences with ouvert and clos endings. These endings are written out only on their first occurrence, with the words ouvert and clos actually written under them, and with fairly clear indications that the same endings were to be repeated after all sentences. The first of the two pieces has four such repeated sentences, the second has three. Thus the latter seems to correspond completely to the description given by Johannes de Grocheio for the ductia. It is, however, labelled ‘Danse’, while the former is without label.
P. Aubry: Estampies et danses royales: les plus anciens textes de musique instrumentale au Moyen Age (Paris, 1907/R)
HENDRIK VAN DER WERF