Fascinating Historical Event that Never Repeated Itself: the Dancing Plague of Medieval Europe

Also called St. John’s dance, St. Vitus’ dance, dancing mania, dancing plague - this was a social phenomenon that gripped medieval Europe between the 14^th and 17^th century. The earliest known outbreak was in the 7^th 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. 

Dancing mania was not an isolated event. It happened all over Europe. The treatment was to have musicians accompany the dancers. This of course, attracted more dancers. One helluva of a party one must say! Where did the dancers get time for anything else? No one has agreed on the cause for this.

                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. 

                                                  Enjoy this animated You Tube video.