Coreutic time, while being measurable in "real" (or better "local") time, responds to an autonomous logic due to the systematic relativity of its duration values. Indeed, the performance configuration is not affected by variations in execution speed, as long as the movements and their spatial and temporal relationships remain unaltered.

In medieval sources, coreutic times rarely follow linear and chronological development patterns but are rather structured in circular forms articulated in interweaving between musical, dancing, liturgical, “local” and “lived” times.  Based on the idea that the perception of time is variable, the following conceptual grid (from situation to situation, from individual to individual and in relation to the cultural context of reference) associates each "time" with its function and with the sources that passed down its memory.

Local times (memory transmission)

These times involve every aspect and every stage of the memory transmission process. The sources that pass down to posterity the memory of coreutic performances are in turn characterized by a particular rhythmic structure, temporal links between the narrative and iconographic sequences, and the constant references to a "universal time" dimension.

Misura (metric rhythm)

Rhythm is the way that music is divided into beats that repeat a specific number of times within a bar at a collectively understood speed or tempo. The medieval dance manuals (15th century) explain that "misura" is a fundamental element of dance defining the rhythmic structure of the performance: the musical measure corresponds to a series of dance steps, which are defined in terms of "misura" and “tempo".

Sources: 

-       Treatises: De arte saltandi et choreas ducendi  by Domenico da Piacenza (1445-1447); De pratica seu arte tripudii vulgare opusculum by Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro (Giovanni Ambrosio; 1463); Libro dell'arte del danzare by Antonio Cornazano (1455); L'art et instruction de bien dancer, the oldest known medieval incunabulum dedicated entirely to dance. 

-       poems interspersed with lyric compositions sung by the various characters, such as Le Roman de la Rose ouGuillaume de Dole by Jean Renart (c.1230). An interesting variant of the sung novel is the Remède de Fortune, by Guillaume Machaut (1342). This work aimed at exemplifying the stylistic progression from ars vetus to ars nova, providing through the musical interludes a practical reference repertoire with which to try one's hand. The work includes the accompanying virelay to the carole Dame à vous sans retolir.

Duration and placement in a sequence of events (“dancing time”)

“Duration” measures the duration of each dance circuit. The “duration of the performance” measures the time between the start and end of the performance. “Dancing time” specifies the placement of the performance within a sequence of events. These variants are fundamental in determining whether dancing is permitted: if the performance takes place at an inappropriate time (it overlaps, for example, religious celebrations) or if it is prolonged excessively, it is considered dangerous for the believers’ soul, who must devote themselves primarily to religious practices.

Sources: 

- Encyclopedias, such as the Speculum morale, a section added after 1310 to Speculum maius by Vincent de Beauvais.

- Texts for preaching and manuals for confessors as the Summa praedicantium by John Bromyard; the Pisanella by Bartolomeo da San Concordio (14th century); Niccolò da Osimo’s Supplementum Summae Pisanellae and the Angelicaby Angelo da Chivasso (15th century).

-    sources of secular and canon law such as the Decretals of Gregory IX by Henri de Bohic; the Pupilla oculi, a manual of canon law written by the theologian John de Burgh; the Dictionary by Alberico da Rosate.

- Exempla and literary sources (see the point "Temporal suspensions").

A-temporal dimensions (oneiric and eternal time)

Dance is placed in an a-temporal dimension when it is removed from the flow of earthly events and is placed in oneiric dimensions (visions and dreams) or in post-mortem time (paradisiacal, diabolical and macabre dances).

Testimonies: literary sources and illuminated manuscripts that contain representations of angelic caroles, devils and dancing skeletons; literary sources and illuminated manuscripts that contain representations of dreamed dances, such as Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung. The miniatures included in the codices handing down the cited typologies of texts form a rich iconographic corpus.

Temporal suspensions

Dance is placed in an a-temporal dimension, where, however, the suspension is triggered by a supernatural event and can end after a certain amount of time.

Testimonies:

- the exempla concerning the cursed dancers (Kölbigk dancers). The oldest texts survived date back to the beginning of the 12th century and were subsequently included in numerous collections of exempla. Some versions of the legend were also included in historiographical and encyclopaedic works, which served as further propagation channels. 

- literary testimonies reporting magical caroles: the prose version of Lancelot, Meraugis de Portlesguez, Huon d'Auvergne and its Italian translation. Among these texts, the prose version of Lancelot du Lac was the most successful: more than a hundred manuscripts of the work have survived, but the number of copies in circulation between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries must have been higher. 

- the illuminated codices of Lancelot in prose. These are precious manuscripts intended for an aristocratic elite, coming mainly from France, the Netherlands and England (14th-15th century).

The time of the frame story 

It is the dimension that frames the dance when it appears within a figurative or narrative frame story, like the famous dance in the frame story of the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. 

Testimonies: literary and iconographic testimonies.

Temporal intertwining

Temporal intertwining means overlapping narrative, figurative and lived times. 

Testimonies: temporal intertwining is found across almost all types of testimonies related to dance. An exceptionally vast documentary typology of temporal intertwining can be found in the books of hours, in which the coreutic representation (often a pastoral dance) generates an internal rhythm within the rhythm of the manuscript, which, in turn, is marked by the rhythm of the liturgy of the hours. An example is given by the illuminated dances of the manuscripts M. 677 (New York, Morgan Library, f. 137r); Latin 1173 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, f. 20v); M. 1001 (New York, Morgan Library, f. 44r).

Sources

J.-C. Schmitt, Les Rythmes au Moyen Âge, Paris, Gallimard, 2016

H. Bergson, Durée et simultanéité, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1972

C. Rovelli, L’ordine del tempo, Adelphi, Milano, 2017