The woman was dancing
wildly, her arms and legs
fl ailing, her hair bouncing.
Passers-by stopped to watch in
amusement. Some joined in.
Soon, the crowd of dancers had
swelled – and as night fell, they
carried on dancing...
No, this wasn’t Glastonbury
music festival – or any kind of
organised rave. It was 1518 in
the French town of Strasbourg,
in the height of a sweltering
hot summer, and the
dancer was a woman
called Mrs Troff ea.
She danced day and
night without stopping
to eat or drink.
Dozens of others
found themselves
seized by the same
irresistible urge, and within a
month, there were around 400
dancers, predominately women.
The rich nobles who ran
Strasbourg were left scratching
their heads. What had caused
this ‘dancing plague’ – and
what could they do about
it? Strasbourg City Council
consulted doctors and
astrologers, who declared the
dancing to be the result of ‘over-
heated blood’ on the brain.
In their wisdom, the
councillors decided the solution
was to let them dance it out
of their systems. They built a
wooden stage, hired pipers and
drummers, and even employedWords: Amanda Vlietstra Images: Alamy and Getty
it’s fateit’s fatestrong men to hold up the
affl icted as they grew exhausted
and began to totter and sway.
Unsurprisingly, this ‘cure’
didn’t work. To the horror of
the crowds that were drawn to
watch the spectacle, many of
the dancers collapsed from heat
stroke and exhaustion. A record
in the city archives states: ‘In
their madness people kept up
their dancing until they fell
unconscious and many died.’
These poor souls
had literally danced
themselves to death.
The council quickly
changed tactic, and
took the dancers up to
the shrine of St Vitus,
in the hills above
the nearby town of
Saverne. Their bloodied feet
were placed in red shoes and
they were led around the shrine
of the saint. Eventually, their
frantic dancing ceased.
To this day, Sydenham’s
chorea – a disorder that causes
rapid, uncoordinated jerking
movements of the hand, face
and feet – is known colloquially
as St Vitus’ Dance.Bad bread
So, what was it that caused
all these Mediaeval peasants to
start dancing uncontrollably?
One theory is that they’d
inadvertently consumed a
psychoactive chemical known
as ergotamine, which grows
on grains in the wheat family,
including rye, the most
common ingredient in cheap
bread at the time. This may
have caused them to ‘trip’ in a
similar way to LSD.
But this doesn’t explain
how they managed to dance
so hard for so long – each of
those dancers would have put
more strain on their body than a
Marathon runner!
It’s been hypothesised that
the dancing was actually
organised and not spontaneous
at all – Mediaeval fl ash mobs!
It’s also been suggested that
they were all members of some
kind of religious cult.
However, perhaps the most
persuasive theory is that itwas a form of mass hysteria,
or mass psychogenic
illness, in which illness
symptoms spread through
a population where there’s
no viral or bacterial agent
responsible for it.
A similar ‘epidemic’
occurred at Le Roy
High School in New
York State in 2011,
when a cheerleader
started twitching
and spasming
uncontrollably.
Within days,
18 people had
experienced the
same symptoms- but no physical
cause was found.
Interestingly,
the Strasbourg
phenomenon
wasn’t an isolated
event. Several
outbreaks
of ‘dancing
plague’ occurred
between the
14th and 17th
centuries. So
maybe, if
you’re feeling
stressed, a
good old
boogie isn’t
the answer to
your problems - you might
never stop...
Their feetwere redwith bloodWhy did peasants in 16th centuryStrasbourg dance themselves to death?DANCING IN THE STREETOF THE MONTHMystery???????Did you know?The Salem Witch Trials in
Massachusetts, USA, began
in 1692 when teenage girls
began to have fits that were
blamed on witchcraft, leading
to the execution of 19 innocent
people. However, it’s now
thought that the fits could be
an example of a mass
psychogenic illness.Afflicted:
Cursed to dance