Definition of "gambade"

He made his hawke to fly, […] And in the holy placeShe mutyd there a chaseUpon my corporas face.Such sacrificium laudisHe made with suche gambawdis.He made his hawk to fly, […] And in the holy place (altar)She dropped a fall of dung thereUpon my communion cloth’s face.Such a sacrifice of praiseHe made with such pranks.

c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, page 63, lines 47, 61–65

How strange and yet how good it was to thread those narrow passages once more! Their suffocating constriction and padded, ladderlike steps summoned up a thousand memories of gambades and trysts: coursing the white wolves, scourging the prisoners of the antechamber, reencountering Oringa.

1987, Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sun, 1st US edition, New York: Tor Books, pages 243–244