Cotswold Morris
Where
Cotswold morris, also known as South-Midlands morris, was collected primarily from the counties of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, but also south Northamptonshire. Although there is some geographic overlap, the Cotswold style of morris dance was not exclusively collected from The Cotswolds. This is a specific geographic area between Oxford and Cheltenham, which contains the Cotswold Hills.
Context
Cotswold style of morris was performed into the 20th century as an important part of village festivities. It was normally danced by tradesmen (builders, blacksmiths etc.) and men who worked on farms. Cotswold morris was performed around the Christian festival of Whitsun, which is also called Pentecost. Whitsun is celebrated 50 days after Easter at the beginning of the summer. From the Medieval period until 1971 it was a public holiday. In the 18th and 19th centuries teams performed at Whitsun Ales, which were money-making festivals hosted by the church. There they were often involved in competitions which could sometimes get nasty – there are many records of morris dancers getting into fights! At Whitsun dancers would leave home for up to two weeks at a time to do a tour of the surrounding villages, getting paid in money, alcohol, and food. The dancers were proud of their appearance and made a big effort with their costume, the historianKeith Chandler estimates that an agricultural worker would have spent around 5 weeks’ wages on his costume!
What
Cotswold morris dancers in the 19th century used to wear thin soled smart shoes which would have let them dance lightly and with elegance. It was not unusual for dancers to wear through the soles of their shoes in one season. Teams wore a diverse array of hats or caps, either trousers or breeches, and had white shirts decorated with a variety of decorative items such as: coloured belts; braces; rosettes; ribbons; single sashes; armbands; and baldrics. Arm bands are strips of cloth, tied along the arm, often tied just below the bicep, whilst baldrics are two sashes, or thick ribbons, which are worn diagonally across the shoulder and meet in the centre front and back. Bell-pads were normally worn by dancers on the shin of the leg, these too were often decorated with ribbons. In the 19th century ribbons referred to any narrow strip of fabric applied as decoration to a garment. Ribbons today are normally smooth and shiny like silk, but even into the 1960s ribbons made of wool were quite common.
Women
There are a couple of Victorian references to women dancing morris. Percy Manning (1897) recorded that at Spelsbury in Oxfordshire the girls wore:
a head-gear of ribbons and flowers, with short dresses, and bells on their legs, similar to those worn by the men
In the 1900s many women and girls did morris dancing as part of the Esperance Club; this was a charity in Somers Town, North London, which provided help for female factory workers. The Club performed morris dances all over the country wearing a version of rural dress including frilled aprons and sun-bonnets. Many modern teams have both male and female dancers, and while some have gender specific clothes, others have a costume which both men and women can wear comfortably.
Why White?
Cotswold morris dancers often wear white clothes. It is probable that white clothing was preferred in the 19th century because of the dance’s link at that time to the season of Whitsun which is a contraction of White-Sunday). Whitsun has been linked to the colour white since the 1600s. Christians often proclaimed their faith on this day processing from their church on whit-walks dressed in white. It was also the traditional day of baptism into the church, in the Anglican Church babies were often dressed in white for their baptism. Fashion might also have played a role, in the 1800s white was a fashionable colour for trousers! It is likely that the dancers wore white trousers initially because they were fashionable and then stuck with it because of the seasonal link with Whitsun.
