The Dancing Plague of 1518
Dance at Molenbeek. Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638)
A depiction of dancing mania, on the pilgrimage of epileptics to the church of Molenbeek
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Having recently twice heard mention of this phenomenon, I wanted to learn more.
It’s not clear what caused an outbreak of enforced dancing. One theory suggests that it was food poisoning, from eating rye affected by ergot fungus, which can cause hallucinations. This causes twitching and convulsions rather than dancing, but is similar in composition to LSD, and was also implicated in the frenzy surrounding the Salem witch trials.
An alternative theory proposes that it was mass hysteria related to stress brought about by impoverished living conditions, disease, and starvation.
Whatever the cause, on 14th July 1518, Frau Troffea left her house in Strasbourg and began dancing. After several hours, she fell to the ground, exhausted, but began dancing again the following day. She continued to dance for six days, despite the pain of her bruised and bleeding feet. Others joined the dancing, until around four hundred people were involved. Some danced themselves to death, dying from heart attacks, strokes, or exhaustion.
At the time, in a region where St Vitus was honoured, people believed that prolonged dancing was a punishment visited on sinners.
St Vitus was a Christian martyr from Sicily. He is the patron saint of dancers, comedians, actors, and dogs, and protects against snake bites, storms, oversleeping, and epilepsy. He is most commonly associated with St Vitus’ Dance, which is now known as Sydenham’s Chorea. Sydenham’s chorea is caused by an autoimmune reaction to a streptococcal infection (strep throat) It can cause involuntary twitching of face, hands, and feet, and imbalance and poor coordination, resulting in an unusual gait.
They believed that Frau Troffea had sinned and was controlled by the Devil. They led her, with others, to a shrine in the mountains to atone for their sins.
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It is believed that sometimes strong men were employed to support exhausted dancers.
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
By the beginning of September 1518, the plague began to abate, and the dancing stopped completely after several weeks. Although the Strasbourg outbreak is probably the best-documented, there were at least ten similar occurrences centuries before, all equally inexplicable.
History has a lot of fascinating events, and we may never know the reasons for many of them. I remember reading about this many years ago. I would tend to believe the mass hysteria for both the dancing plague and the Salem witch hunt, but who knows it could be a combination, of causes.
ReplyDeleteThat is the sort of event that makes me curious to find out exactly what was the real cause. I suppose we shall never know.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the information. It always makes me smile to read about the myriad of occupations and things a Saint is patron o
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