Despite the great opportunities for study offered by Arbeau's choreographies and their music—not to mention his witty commentary on social mores as they relate to dancing—dance historians have rarely moved beyond a superficial study of Orchesographie. Julia Sutton may have unintentionally identified the problem when, in her brief introduction to the Dover edition, she referred to Orchesographie as “delightful.” Unlike the complex Italian dances, which generally require some degree of specialization, the rather straightforward “do it yourself “ nature of the instructions for Arbeau's dances makes them available to an exceedingly broad audience. And this apparent simplicity may be responsible for leading scholars to overlook the important contributions that this book leaves to posterity. Or perhaps it is the sparkling banter between teacher Arbeau and his student Capriol that has caused historians and musicians to overlook the valuable jewels within. Or perhaps it is that these relatively simple dances, their attractive music, and the text that accompanies both are quite simply fun.

Scholarship of the modern era sometimes overlooks the value of having fun—a point of view that Arbeau and the many wits of the Renaissance fortunately eschew. But, as James D. Gordon notes in an article on the use of humor in scholarship, “Because it addresses issues in a light way, humor has the risk of superficiality.” I would argue that the use of humor, which was so highly valued in Renaissance intellectual society, has sometimes clashed with the severe outlook of much modern scholarship, resulting in a culture clash of sorts.

Writers like Arbeau, Brantôme, Rabelais and Castiglione are best viewed as exemplars of Gordon's assertion that “humor's playful juxtapositioning of ideas engages the intellect and draws the mind into the subject.” Arbeau takes pleasure in presenting a light-hearted view of the human condition, but his remarks on dancing and dancers form essential reading for anyone wishing to understand what dance looked like during his lifetime.

Historians of Renaissance dance have tended to explore contemporary perception of dances, and the way in which onlookers viewed the bodies dancing before them, from a perspective informed by modern, rather than Renaissance, societal expectations.