The polonaise is a Polish national dance, a processional dance in triple time (3/4) and a moderate tempo. It is distinguished by its solemn, ceremonial character. There are many hypotheses concerning the origins of the polonaise. ‘Walking’ dances, under various names (?a˝ony, wolny, obchodny), could have been performed already towards the end of the Middle Ages. The earliest mentions of walking to music in Poland date from the second half of the sixteenth century (J. Kochanowski, 1569), while the name chodzony, literally meaning ‘walked’, appears at the beginning of the seventeenth century (K. Miaskowski, 1622). In many publications, we read that the polonaise was known at the Polish court in the mid-sixteenth century and was danced during the celebrations of the coronation of Henri de Valois (the future King Henry III of France) as king of Poland. The current state of research into Polish dances allows us to state, however, that the dance in question could not have been a polonaise as we understand it today: ‘the Polish dances which Henryk Walezy [Henri de Valois] watched in 1574 were not yet polonaises in their rhythms’ (Z. Jachimecki, 1914).