The dance of death: when a skeleton sweeps a king and a beggar into the dance
The Pope, the emperor, the knight, the merchant, the peasant, and the child walk in a single procession, each one held by the hand of a skeleton. The dance of death is one of the most powerful images that the Middle Ages ever created.
Ezostylia Editorial Team · facts checked in sources · updated 31.10.2026
The birth of the motif
The motif flourished in the fifteenth century, following the waves of plague that killed an enormous proportion of Europe's inhabitants. One of the earliest known depictions was a fresco in the Cemetery of the Innocents in Paris, dating from 1424–1425 and no longer extant. In Lübeck, Bernt Notke painted his celebrated "Totentanz" in 1463, which was destroyed by fire during the Second World War.
What this image says
The message is simple and radical: death is the same for everyone. Power, wealth, and youth are of no avail. For the people of the Middle Ages it was both a sentence and a consolation, for the mighty were just as defenceless as the poor.
The Polish dance of death
In the fifteenth century, the "Rozmowa Mistrza Polikarpa ze Śmiercią" was written — a Polish poem in which a learned sage encounters a gaunt, grotesque Death carrying a scythe and listens in terror as it tells of its power over all estates. In the Bernardine church in Kraków there hangs, in turn, a seventeenth-century painting, "Taniec śmierci," showing successive figures led away by skeletons.
Music and the modern day
Camille Saint-Saëns composed his symphonic poem "Danse macabre" in 1874, in which at midnight Death plays the violin while skeletons dance until the cock crows. The motif recurs in film, comics, and games, and it serves as a reminder of the same truth: life is fragile, so it is worth living wisely.
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You will find all 30 topics in the section Mysteries of life and death.
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Sources
Danse Macabre, Wikipedia · Rozmowa Mistrza Polikarpa ze Śmiercią, Wikipedia
Frequently asked questions
What does the dance of death mean?
It is a mediaeval artistic motif depicting Death leading people of all estates into the dance. The message: death is the same for everyone.
Is there a painting of the dance of death in Poland?
Yes, a seventeenth-century painting, "Taniec śmierci," hangs in the Bernardine church in Kraków.