The Dancing Plague of 1518

In the sweltering summer of 1518, Strasbourg, that fine medieval city snug between what we now call France and Germany, was gripped by a madness that didn’t march, didn’t protest, didn’t pray—it danced. Yes, danced. Not metaphorically or in joyous celebration, but with a kind of feral, foot-blistering abandon that turned cobbled streets into chaotic ballrooms and eventually landed people not in recovery wards but in freshly dug graves. The bizarre event now known as The Dancing Plague saw dozens, possibly hundreds, of otherwise rational human beings boogie themselves into oblivion. They left behind baffled doctors, exhausted priests, and a historical anecdote so surreal it sounds like the set-up for a Renaissance-themed flash mob gone terribly wrong.

It all kicked off with a woman named Frau Troffea. She wasn’t royalty or prophet or even particularly eccentric, as far as records show. Just an average woman who, one morning in July, stepped into a narrow alleyway and began to dance. Alone. No lute, no hurdy-gurdy, no village piper. No local festival, either. Just unprompted, uninvited, incessant movement. She twirled, skipped, stomped, and swayed as if caught in the grip of an invisible minstrel. Onlookers initially giggled. After all, who doesn’t love a spontaneous performance? But hours passed. Then came nightfall. Still she danced. By the following day, when she was still moving, the giggles turned to gasps.

After several days of uninterrupted jigging, Troffea finally collapsed from sheer exhaustion—only to begin again once she regained consciousness. By then, others had joined her. Dozens more. Men and women. Young and old. Entire households lured onto the streets by some unseen, unrelenting beat. The Dancing Plague, if that’s what it was, had begun. And the rhythm, maddeningly, refused to stop.

The authorities of Strasbourg were at a complete loss. Bear in mind, this was a pre-TikTok world entirely unprepared for viral trends or collective flash mobs. Their first response? Facilitate it. In one of history’s more baffling public health decisions, the local physicians diagnosed the dancers with an overflow of hot blood, a condition which apparently required even more dancing to purge. They declared it a medical necessity to let the frenzy run its course. So, naturally, they built a stage. Yes. A stage. With musicians. Paid entertainers playing instruments to encourage the afflicted to keep on shaking it until, presumably, they were cured or dead.

In their defence, medical science in 1518 was basically a mash-up of astrology, religion, and educated guesswork. No one had yet invented penicillin, let alone therapy. Ailments were often blamed on celestial bodies, bad air, or sin. Hence, if The Dancing Plague seemed like a divine punishment, then dancing more—under supervision and with catchy tunes—felt like as good a plan as any. And thus, this surreal public experiment unfolded, with government-endorsed DJs and a captive, convulsing audience.

Speculation about what caused The Dancing Plague still keeps historians busy. One popular theory blames ergot poisoning. Ergot is a hallucinogenic mould that grows on damp rye and can induce spasms, delusions, and what we might describe as 16th-century rave behaviour. Think of it as nature’s own bad trip in bread form. Another theory veers more psychological: mass hysteria, or as the scholars prefer, mass psychogenic illness. Essentially, a collective mental breakdown under pressure. And what pressure it was. The early 1500s were no picnic. Famine had gripped the region. Disease lingered in the air like a bad smell. Life expectancy hovered somewhere between dismal and doomed. Religion dominated every aspect of life, often via fear and fire. Add chronic stress, superstition, hunger, and trauma—and you’ve got a recipe for psychological combustion.

Some theories even flirt with the idea of political or religious protest in disguise. Perhaps the dancers were making a statement. Or maybe they were simply broken by the times, their bodies revolting in a way words could not. After all, how do you process a world where plagues, inquisitions, and crop failures are part of your daily planner?

The Dancing Plague dragged on for weeks. People didn’t just dance until they got tired. They danced until their feet were raw, until their hearts gave out, until they collapsed mid-step and never rose again. Eyewitnesses spoke of blood-soaked shoes and faces twisted in anguish. It was not joyous. It was a performance of pain, a choreography of collective breakdown. People took turns. They danced in shifts. Friends held each other up. Some were carried away, only to return. Families begged for mercy as loved ones danced to death.

Eventually, even the most misguided officials realised that hosting Strasbourg’s Got Talent wasn’t solving the issue. They pulled the plug. Literally. Music was banned. Dancing in public was forbidden. Authorities rounded up the worst afflicted and carted them off to a shrine dedicated to Saint Vitus, a saint curiously associated with both epilepsy and dancing madness. Here, among incense and relics, the afflicted were encouraged to pray, confess, and presumably stand still. Miraculously, it seemed to work. The dancers slowed. The rhythm faded. The city exhaled.

And then, predictably, everyone did their best to never speak of The Dancing Plague again.

But of course, stories like this never really die. They linger in the footnotes of dusty manuscripts, in scholarly debates, and in the darker corners of the internet where history buffs and amateur theorists gather. The Dancing Plague continues to fascinate not because it’s so easily explained, but precisely because it isn’t. It resists tidy conclusions. It dances out of reach.

Maybe that’s the enduring appeal. It wasn’t just about illness. It was about release. About a society pushed to the brink where the only outlet left was movement. Frenzied, uncontainable, illogical movement. It was fear wearing shoes. It was despair with rhythm. It was a silent scream set to tempo.

There’s something deeply human in that. When the world becomes too much, we reach for the irrational. We laugh. We cry. We dance. Not because it makes sense, but because standing still feels worse. Maybe that’s why the tale of Frau Troffea still resonates. Not just as a historical curiosity, but as a kind of strange, cautionary parable. Or maybe just the best weird anecdote you could possibly bring up at a dinner party.

So next time someone tells you they danced until they dropped, ask them, with a raised eyebrow and a knowing grin: did you mean at Glastonbury… or during The Dancing Plague of 1518?

Because once upon a fevered summer, in a city half-mad with grief and grain mould, the world went wild. And the madness had choreography.