The Dancing Plague of 1518

In July 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea stepped into a street in Strasbourg and began to dance. She could not stop. Within a month, over 400 people had joined her, dancing day and night, some until they collapsed from exhaustion, heart attacks, or strokes. The Dancing Plague of 1518 remains one of history’s most bizarre and unexplained mass phenomena.

The Outbreak

Frau Troffea began dancing in mid-July and continued for days without stopping. Rather than restraining her, authorities believed that if she was allowed to continue dancing, she would recover. They set up stages and brought in musicians.

The strategy backfired catastrophically. More people began dancing. By August, approximately 400 people were dancing uncontrollably. Some danced until they died.

Contemporary Response

City authorities initially prescribed more dancing, based on the theory that the afflicted needed to dance the compulsion out of their systems. They hired musicians and built a stage, essentially turning the plague into a supervised event.

When this failed, authorities changed approach, banning public dancing and removing the afflicted to a mountaintop shrine to pray for divine intervention.

Documentary Evidence

The Dancing Plague is unusually well-documented. City council notes, physician accounts, and guild records all describe the events. This was not a legend invented later but a genuine historical event that bewildered contemporaries.

Physicians of the time attributed the plague to “hot blood,” while religious authorities blamed supernatural influence.

Modern Theories

Modern researchers have proposed various explanations:

Mass psychogenic illness, triggered by the extreme stress of famine and disease that afflicted Strasbourg at the time.

Ergot poisoning from contaminated grain, which can cause convulsions and hallucinations.

A religious cult or ritual that spiraled out of control.

None of these explanations fully account for all aspects of the event.

Assessment

The Dancing Plague of 1518 remains one of history’s most inexplicable events. Something caused hundreds of people to dance uncontrollably until some died. That something has never been identified.

The plague eventually ended after several weeks. The survivors stopped dancing as mysteriously as they had begun.