There were two classes of dances in the middle ages, the domestic dances, and the dances of the jougleurs or minstrels. After the first crusades, the western jougleurs had adopted many of the practices of their brethren in the east, and, among others, it is evident from many allusions in old writers that they had brought westward that of the “almehs,” or eastern dancing-girls. These dances formed, like the vulgar fabliaux, a part of the jougleur’s budget of representations, and were mostly, like those, gross and indecent. The other class of dances were of a simpler character,--the domestic dances, which consisted chiefly of the _carole_, in which ladies and gentlemen, alternately, held by each other’s hands and danced in a circle. This mode of dance prevailed so generally, that the word _carole_ became used as a general term for a dance, and _caroler_, to carole, was equivalent with _to dance_. The accompanying cut (No. 158), taken from a manuscript of the Roman de Tristan, of the fourteenth century, in the National Library at Paris (No. 6956), represents a party dancing the carole to the music of pipe and tabor. A dance of another description is represented in our next cut (No. 159), taken from a manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 174), also of the fourteenth century. Here the minstrels themselves appear to be joining in the saltitation which they inspire. It is a good illustration of the scene described from the romance of “La Violette.” On festive occasions this dancing often continued till supper-time. [Illustration: _No. 158. Dancing the Carole._] [Illustration: _No. 159. A Mediæval Dance._] [Illustration: _No. 160. The Game of Hoodman-blind._] [Illustration: _No. 161. A Game at Hot-cockles._]