The Cursed Carolers in Context explores the interplay between the forms and contexts in which the tale of the cursed carolers circulated, and the meanings it had for medieval and early modern authors and audiences. It will appeal to scholars and students of medieval European history, literature, and dance.

The tale of the Kölbigk dancers: transmissions, translations, and themes Part 1. Setting the stage 1. Kinesic analysis: a theoretical approach to reading bodily movement in literature 2. Prefacing the marvelous: dance in popular medieval French and English literature Part 2. Carolers and contexts 3. The cursed carolers as crusaders in twelfth-century Flanders 4. "Desturné en us de secularité"?: authority and narrative framing in the cursed dancers episode of the Manuel des Péchés 5. Priests, cursed carolers, and pastoral care in Handlyng Synne , Of Shrifte and Penance , and Instructions to His Son 6. The tale of the Kölbigk dancers in Goscelin's Legend of St. Edith and the Wilton Chronicle 7. The cursed carolers in medieval and early modern Scandinavia Part 3. Dancing on 8. Dancing out the pest: afterlives of medieval dance plague narratives in nineteenth-century Münchner Schäfflertanz discourse Epilogue: dancing the spaces between