Editing Minuet (section)

== Dance ==
{{Main|Minuet step}}
The name may refer to the short steps, ''pas menus'', taken in the dance,{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} or else be derived from the ''branle à mener'' or ''amener'', popular group dances in early 17th-century France.{{sfn|Little|2001}} The minuet was traditionally said to have descended from the ''bransle de Poitou'', though there is no evidence making a clear connection between these two dances. The earliest treatise to mention the possible connection of the name to the expression ''pas menus'' is Gottfried Taubert's ''Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister'', published in Leipzig in 1717, but this source does not describe the steps as being particularly small or dainty.{{sfn|Russell|2006|loc=140–141}} At the period when it was most fashionable it was controlled, ceremonious and graceful.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}