Also called
St. John’s dance, St. Vitus’ dance, dancing mania, dancing plague - this was a
social phenomenon that gripped medieval Europe between the 14th and
17th century. The earliest known outbreak was in the 7th
century. People would dance in the street for hours, days and months. Dancing
outbreaks would attract thousands of men, women and children. Was it caused by a fungus or did the dancers belong
to a deviant cult? Was it a mental disorder or people just trying to fit in? Or
was this just plain mass hysteria or maybe communal stress relief? Were they on
drugs? There were no videos or photos in those days. In fact history as an
academic discipline was not invented yet. People relied on artists to paint and engrave events
that happened. The drawing below called ‘Dancing Mania on a pilgrimage to the
Church at Sint-Jans-Molenbeek,’ is a 1642 engraving by Hendrick Hondius.
This mania may have led to the
legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin and the southern European tradition of tarantism. Some dancers would travel
from place to place, some wore colorful attire and some carried wooden sticks.
Some wore garlands in their hair. Some were naked, some had intercourse, some
acted like animals, and some screamed, laughed and cried. Some became violent
on seeing the color red. Of course the dancers suffered resulting illnesses.
Some became ecstatic and maybe the dancing could have been contagious. Prayers
were made and pilgrimages undertaken to fix the problem. Exorcisms were
performed. The participants were said to be mentally disturbed, some called it
a festival and others thought the dances were staged. But the strange thing is
this all stopped abruptly and the world has not seen the likes of this again.
A few strange things have
happened in the world since this time, but the only thing that closely matches
this is the Tanganyika laughter epidemic in 1962.
