It will not be doubted that these feastings were accompanied by dances, when it is recollected that, according to Scaliger, the bishops were called in the Latin Church "_præsules,_" (from "_præsiliendo_") only because they led off the dance. Heliot, in his "History of the Monastic Orders," says also, that during the persecutions which disturbed the peace of the first Christians, congregations were formed of men and women, who, after the manner of the Therapeutæ, retired into the deserts, where they assembled in the hamlets on Sundays and feast days, and danced piously, singing the prayers of the Church.
In Portugal, in Spain, and in Roussillon, solemn dances are still performed in honor of the mysteries of Christianity. On every vigil of a feast of the Virgin, the young women assemble before the doors of the churches dedicated to her, and pass the night in dancing round, and singing hymns and canticles in honor of her. Cardinal Ximenes restored in his time, in the cathedral of Toledo, the ancient usage of the Mozarabian mass, during which dances are performed in the choir and the nave, with equal order and devotion. In France too, about the middle of the last century, the priests and all the people of the Limoges might be seen dancing round in the collegiate church, singing: "_Sant Marcian pregas pernous et nous epingaren per bous_"--that is, "St. Martian, pray for us, and we will dance for you."
And lastly, the Jesuit Menestrier, in the preface to his "Treatise on Ballets", published in 1682, says, that he had himself seen the canons of some churches take the singing boys by the hand on Easter day, and dance in the choir, singing hymns of rejoicing. What has been said in the article on "Calends," of the extravagant dances of the feast of fools, exhibits a part of the abuses which have caused dancing to be discontinued in the ceremonies of the mass, which, the greater their gravity, are the better calculated to impose on the simple.
It is perhaps as difficult as it is useless to ascertain whether "_mazzacrium,_" a word of the low Latin, is the root of "massacre," or whether "massacre" is the root of "_mazzacrium._"
A massacre signifies a number of men killed. There was yesterday a great massacre near Warsaw--near Cracow. We never say: "There has been a massacre of a man; yet we do say": "A man has been massacred": in that case it is understood that he has been killed barbarously by many blows.