Dancing plague of 1518
16th century mass dancing mania in Strasbourg
The dancing plague of 1518, or dance epidemic of 1518 (French: Épidémie dansante de 1518; German: Straßburger Tanzwut), was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (modern-day France), in the Holy Roman Empire from July 1518 to September 1518. Somewhere between 50 and 400 people took to dancing for weeks. There are many theories behind the phenomenon, the most popular being stress-induced mass hysteria, suggested by John Waller. Other theories include ergot poisoning. There is controversy concerning the number of deaths, but the total is unknown.
History
Events
The outbreak began in July 1518 when a woman known as Frau Troffea began to dance fervently and uncontrollably in a street in Strasbourg. According to Ned Pennant-Rea, "Frau Troffea had started dancing on July 14th on the narrow cobbled street outside her half-timbered home. As far as we can tell she had no musical accompaniment but simply 'began to dance' ... some of those who had witnessed her strange performance had begun to mimic her, including her husband, and within days more than thirty choreomaniacs were in motion, some so monomaniacally that only death would have the power to intervene." Troffea kept up the constant dancing for a week only stopping to sleep after which she continued. Soon, three dozen others joined in.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dancing plague of 1518” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.