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A haunting medieval portrait of the dancing plague of 1518. The plague stricken danced till they dropped. The frenzy turned into a dance.
The Dancing Plague of 1518 was a bizarre event that took place in Strasbourg, now in France, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire at the time. This phenomenon lasted from July to September 1518 and involved a large number of people dancing uncontrollably.
The episode began when a woman named Frau Troffea stepped into the street and started dancing. Her actions quickly attracted attention and within a month, 400 people had joined her in this uncontrollable dance.
Participants danced for days without rest, leading to deaths from exhaustion, heart attacks, and strokes, with some chronicles reporting up to 15 deaths per day at the peak of the epidemic. City authorities initially worsened the crisis by hiring musicians and building stages, believing the dancers needed to "dance it out," which only fueled the frenzy.
Historians attribute the event to mass hysteria triggered by extreme stress, famine, disease, and religious superstitions regarding St. Vitus
