After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Deadly Dancing Plague of 1518

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

When people think of Medieval diseases, hysterical dancing is not usually what first comes to mind. Yet in 14th and 15th century Germany, dozens of ordinary people claimed to be infected by the ‘dancing plague’. What was this mysterious phenomenon? What caused it? And was it even a real disease?Anthony and Maddy are joined by Dr. Eleanor Janega, co-host of History Hit podcast 'Gone Medieval'.Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ You can take part in our listener survey here.

Wendy's Small Frosty is the ultimate summer refreshment. And not because it's cool and creamy and made with fresh Canadian dairy. It's also refreshingly cheap. Just 99 cents until July 14th. It's a treat for you and your wallet. Hi, everyone. It's Maddie here. I'm just jumping in at the top of this episode to let you know that we are going to be talking about historic infanticide. So if that's not for you, skip ahead to our other episodes. Hello and welcome to this episode of After Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal. I'm Dr Maddy Pelling. And I'm Dr Anthony Delaney.

And today we are talking about the medieval dancing plague. I cannot wait to get into this. Our guest is Eleanor Jarnager. She's a medieval historian. You will definitely know her as the co-host of Gone Medieval, our sister podcast. She's an author and broadcaster, and her scholarship extends all the way from gender and sexuality to apocalyptic thought, propaganda, and the urban experience, all in the late medieval period. Eleanor, first of all, welcome to After Dark. Thank you so much for having me on here and realizing me as a kindred spooky person.

Absolutely. We had to have you on. But hold on, this isn't even the most important thing that we've just discovered. So Eleanor and I have just met for the first time, despite both having history of podcasts. And we were just, oh, where are you from? Where are you from? The usual thing we do with guests. podcast and we were just oh where are you from where you're from the usual thing we do with guests and we are from originally the very same smattering of fields yeah to kilkenny in ireland

that's right that is inside i don't meet people who are from there people are not really from there there's only hundreds of us yeah and it's so we are in fact related and this probably explains why we're both spooky people yeah well. Well, I have said this on this podcast before. Kilkenny, Chatsworth Clock, where I live. Shout out to Chatsworth. Shout out to Chatsworth. History hit podcast. That is where I think that formative spookiness came from.

I've said this before, so I hear you on that one. But listen, that's not what we're here to talk about, although we could, a whole 30 minutes on that. We're here to talk about medieval dancing plagues. Tell us a little bit about that. Okay, well, first of all, they're great. And I want to make that absolutely and abundantly clear. And the thing that's interesting about them is that there's a few of them. You would kind of think that one dancing plague would be enough.

I would think that. But medieval people, no. They go for it time and again. But also the same one thing that we have to talk about here is this seems to be something for German people. Okay. And more particularly, it's a special treat for German people who live kind of like in the Rhine area. So this is a sort of place where it crops up time and again. Now, having said that, there is a fairly of place where it crops up time and again.

Now, having said that, there is a fairly similar phenomena that happens in the Italian lands, but they more specifically say that it has to do with getting bitten by a spider or a lizard. And they call it like a tarantulism. So, you know. That's an origin story waiting to happen. Yeah. That's superhero stuff, right? Exactly.

And like, they're like, oh yeah, you know, you get bit by a spider, you dance, you know, normal, normal. But it's less of a plague because it's more like saying there's something venomous happens to you and you dance. But one of the really, really big ones that starts happening happens in 1374. And we refer to it more specifically as the St. John's Dance. And it breaks out in Aachen, which, you know, real heads will remember as Charlemagne's capital, you know, from 600 years before then or whatever, but fine.

And all these people just kind of show up from different places and they are dancing and not in like, oh, we're having a very nice and fun way. They're dancing rather maniacally, usually yelling and screaming, sometimes saying that they are seeing themselves as being in a river of blood, oftentimes jumping over things repeatedly. So like jumping over walls or other people or anything that kind of gets in their way because they experience these things as obstacles. And they are yelling about demons and how they're being tortured and how they can't stop dancing, even if they wish to do so. And they're wearing bandages kind of around their wrists and things like this.

And they'll dance and they'll dance and they'll dance. And then they'll kind of fall down onto the ground. And someone will come around with a stick and sort of twist the bandages that are around their limbs and often around their middle tighter, which seems to give them some kind of relief from whatever it is that they're suffering. Sometimes that escalates to just beating them. Interesting. Question mark. And often they are said to have distended stomachs. So their stomachs are really bloated and distended and they talk about that and they talk about that being uncomfortable.

The reason that this is often called St. John's Dance is it generally takes place around in June, which is when you have a lot of the feast day celebrations for St. John the Baptist. And Victorians, you know, surprise, got a bit weird about this. what they like to say about this is oh well saint john's celebrations were um a takeover from pagan traditions where you burn trees and then people started doing that with saint john the baptist so really they're enacting some pagan ritual this is a victorian nonsense you know victorians they want to the what they want to do is say that something medieval people did is like a pagan holdover and i'm like that's a hell of a hangover like that's like 900 years later yeah by the time you get to the 14th century so it seems odd right but it is experienced by everyone it's like a very um kind of distressing thing so and it starts off in these in the german lands right

and then they kind of move into the netherlands so they show up at liege they show up in in utrecht are these the same people oftentimes yeah so like and they kind of show up and it begins to snowball okay so i'm gonna be the suspicious person yeah this is usually anthony's role he doesn't buy anything that i ever say and it's not just you it's just everyone he makes me work for it um okay so these people, they're dancing in a way that seems chaotic. They're moving erratically. But there's obviously some choreography going on

in that they're all claiming to see and experience the same things. Their bodies are decorated in these weird ways with these weird ties. And they're the same people, all the same kinds of communities that are turning up all over Europe. And it's spreading.

This is suspicious is there a motive for this do we think so i mean what it seems like to me one of the motives is oh i'm i've got that dancing plague i gotta go to utrecht you know and which you know so one thing that that is written about it is says thus thus. Cousins left their plows, mechanics their workshops, housewives their domestic duties to join the wild revels. And this rich commercial city, Utrecht, became the scene of the most ruinous disorder. Secret desires were excited, but too often found opportunities for wild enjoyment. And numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood.

Girls and boys quitted their parents and servants their masters to amuse themselves at the dance of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Above a hundred unmarried women were seen raving about, in consecrated and unconsecrated places, and the consequences were soon perceived. Gangs of idle vagabonds who understood how to imitate the life and the gestures and convulsions of those really affected rove from place to place seeking maintenance and adventures, and thus, wherever they went, spreading this disgusting, spasmodic disease like a plague.

For in maladies of this kind, the susceptible are infected as easily by the appearance as by the appearance as by the reality so many things to say here so it's an opportunity to step out of your normal experience if you are lacking power in some way if you're a vagabond as quoted in that text if you are an unmarried woman or a housewife or someone laboring in the field you get to step out of your life and do something a little bit different the mention of the plague there now we don't necessarily think of dancing as something viral outside of the internet i'm down with the kids we've all seen tiktok it's on the tiktoks guys but it's it's there's this idea that it's

spreading and of course plague is a real very virulent thing in the medieval world and is a genuine threat and does spread. So is this something that's seen like, I mean, obviously they don't understand it in terms of a virus, but is it seen like another kind of plague? Yeah, because what they kind of have a concept of, I think that we could say is what we would call social contigin. And they're really clear on that. So, for example, medieval people are really clear on the idea that if you see people behaving badly, you know, whatever that might mean, it can spread just because it's sort of influential. You know, we see this, for example, in the way that sex work is mediated. You know, it's something that you have to do in order to keep the

spread of violence and the contigin of that down, but you also have to keep it in particular places so that it doesn't spread. You know, there is a real idea that practice or action is something that will spur other people to action. So yeah, absolutely, there is this idea that you can kind of be pricked into these certain things. And, you know, I think also with one of the things we have to say, especially about the St. John's dance is where it kind of starts off along the Rhine. They just come out of a really, really devastating flood. So really terrible. There was a huge loss of life. It ruined crops. So they were having a really tough time. You know, in a tough – the 14th century noted like probably the toughest century.

I think that we could say that. So, you know, you're kind of like 40 years on from the Black Death. There are still plague recurrences over and over every few years. Now you've got this devastating flood and people are just a little bit freaked out um and so the idea that you can kind of act out a little bit might be very very kind of pleasant for them and also i guess if you're a laborer in the field and your field's been flooded and you have no crops to labor over what are you going to do yeah go dancing exactly and you know it's it is what i do i do it's just like when times are tough maybe absolutely it's the answer how how so this is all happening right so we have these dancing people and we they're they're potentially traveling and they're going from different

areas to different places places which i didn't know by the way so that's really interesting that there's potentially some of the same people turning up in some of these same uh different areas how did they get it under control then in this particular instance in this particular instance we go straight to exorcisms obviously needless to say clearly uh so um it's very much experienced by the people who are looking at it as this is demonic in character okay so you know again the idea of contigin really kind of works there um you know and people are saying that you know, again, the idea of contigin really kind of works there. You know, and people are saying that, you know, they're insensible. They're just screaming.

They talk about how they're being plagued by demons. They talk about rivers of blood. They're asking the Virgin Mary and Jesus for help. So the clergy show up and they're like, all right, okay, that is it. And they do say that they experience this to be fairly effective on a number of occasions. So basically the clergy just heard them kind of towards churches and like one by one, they're kind of like, here you go. And people go, oh, right. Yeah. Kind of get up. And then they're like, yes, this is fine. Back to the fields. Yeah, exactly. And then you're like, oh, back to the fields.

Well, here I am. And, you know, Metz, I'm from Aachen. So, you know, it's going to take a little while to get back there. You know, So you get kind of this experience with that. So there is very much this understanding that it can be controlled by means of divine intercession. So they're experiencing it as supernatural, very specifically in character at the time for the 14th century plague. But the thing is, these does come back again so and more particularly in the 15th century so it's 1418 and then we hit the saint vitus dance this is the one people have probably heard a little bit about and this happens in strasbourg and strasbourg is a real epicenter for dancing plagues. They just love it in Strasbourg.

Can't get enough. They do it again in 1518 as well. Why? I, my personal opinion on this is they understand it as something that can happen. So it happens. Yes, yes, yes. You know, it's a part of the cultural memory. It's a part of, you know, understanding that this is something that can break out.

And so they're like, oh, it's happening again. Right. a part of you know understanding that this is something that can break out and so they're like oh right oh it's happening again right um and that one the 1518 one this is the one where if you if you look up dancing plagues online you'll see kind of like uh engravings and stuff okay so why is this one the big one that we remember so this one is absolutely huge um and you just get a lot more people involved um and it becomes a bit more violent than did the St. Vitus dances. Sorry, the St. John's dances. This is the St. Vitus dance. And so we've got this description thus.

The dancers' fury and extravagance of demeanor so completely deprived them of their senses that many of them dashed their brains out against the walls and corners of buildings or rushed headlong into rapid rivers where they found a watery grave. Roaring and foaming as they were, the bystanders could only succeed in restraining them by placing benches and chairs in their way, so that, by the high leaps they were thus tempted to take, their strength might be exhausted. As soon as this was the case, they fell as if they were

lifeless to the ground, and by very slow degrees again recovered their strength. Many there were who, even with all this exertion, had not yet expanded the violence of the tempest which raged within them, but awoke with newly revived powers, and again and again mixed with the crowd of dancers, until at length the violent excitement of their disordered nerves was allayed by the general and great involuntary exertion of their limbs, and the mental disorder was calmed by the extreme exhaustion of the body. Wow. So this is, you know, the St. John's dance was a bit, well, this is odd.

These people are experiencing themselves as being possessed. They're in distress. We can certainly say that they're in distress. But they're not killing themselves. Yeah. They're not falling into rivers. So this is much more, you know, it kind of strikes me a bit almost like zombie movies or something where it's like, you know, you just have a bunch of people and then they begin to to act very violently and erratically and again that idea of virus spreading because we are now in the world of illness however you want to i mean we you could have said that about the

saint john's obviously but we're now talking about people who are so distressed that they are potentially taking their own lives which is on mass as well this is mass hysteria something psychological across a group of people is happening here and we we are left with some depictions of this dancing particularly for the saint vitus curse is that correct yeah that's right so by the 16th century we have a few engravings of this and they're quite interesting you know if you're a fan of kind of early modern late medieval painting which i am it looks like a Bruegel or it looks like, you know, these kind of depictions of dancing that you would see of peasants at a wedding. And they're kind of shaking though, and they seem really in distress and you've got neighbors sort of grabbing them and being like,

no, no, don't do it. Don't, don't go and get dancing mania. So you can see that they're really very particularly in distress. But this is something that was notable enough that artists were saying, we need to make a rendering of this. We need to kind of like get it on record that this had happened. And I love the idea of neighbors trying to pull them back and that they thought that was worthwhile recording, that the neighbors were trying to pull them back. And they're taking this visual language of the sort of medieval, late medieval bucolic art language and they're making it horrific in some ways.

A sort of transformation of the art as well as the people and their bodies. Yeah. And, you know, I think that it's really important sometimes to kind of have a look at these things because when we see it, we can just kind of say, oh, it's a little bit jolly. Oh, you know, dancing is like, oh, yeah, it's silly. But, you know, they are experiencing it as traumatic in a lot of cases. And I'm assuming now, based on what you've told us previously, that there may have been some kind of social, cultural, religious pressure on the community that enacted this. Would that be correct? Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting, because here here we also have the explanations change very slightly. So before where we see kind of ideas that this is demoniac in character, that this is something that is affected very specifically by demons and you can just ask for the intersection of God and that'll be fine. Here, interestingly, they come up with the idea that they have been cursed by very specifically St. Vitus, which is why we call this the St. Vitus plague.

And this is odd because St. Vitus, he's one of these saints where, eh? Never heard of him. Yeah, like, I mean, that's a saint. So he's big in the German lands because someone went down to Sicily and got his body at a point in time and brought him back. And he's also like one of the founding saints of the Prague Cathedral. Oh, yeah. Because St. Wenceslas got hold of his arm. Right. So like it's St. Vitus and St. Wenceslas, you know, cathedral.

And everyone forgets the St. Vitus part because who? And he's any, we don't know anything about him. He's just one of those like really late antique. He's not even on social media. Yeah, no. No profile whatsoever. For medieval people in the German lands, they've got his body parts. And so that is a really compelling reason to worship him.

So he begins to be referred to as one of the heavenly helpers. It's kind of like this German thing. So they're like, oh, yeah, he's a guy that you can ask to for help. And they decide that he's cursing people partially because one of the ways that they try to control the people who have this dancing mania is they kind of drag them into this one chapel that's nearby. And it happens to be a chapel of St. Vitus. And they get in there and it's like, oh, I'm not dancing anymore. So there's this understanding or a kind of connection between saint vitus stopping this that is created in people's minds and then they decide oh saint vitus has cursed us for you know question mark

standard late medieval reasons you're probably too sexy too into food too lazy being too sexy i mean ever like god is constantly mad at medieval people in the late medieval period for being too sexy i wish i had that problem i know well you, it's a curse. What can I say? Pull you out. Yeah, I know. It's really terrible. But yeah, so it's quite interesting, though, because this one becomes a real template. And very interestingly, it's something that even when dancing plays begin to peter out in sort of the 16th and 17th century for example there are references to women who they're like oh well i just proactively every year get down to the saint vitus chapel because i know i'm gonna get hit with a dancing plague and then they go

they dance around ah you know they they freak out for a while then they kind of go into the chapel at which point they calm down and they report feeling much better. And I'm like. It's therapy. Yeah, exactly. Like, it's kind of like, oh, this is their week a year where they go freak out dancing. Yeah. And then they feel really, you know, expunged.

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to tell the stories of the six queens of Henry VIII who shaped and changed England forever. Subscribe to and follow Not Just the Tudors from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. I wonder if it's something to do with sort of autonomy over your own body. If we're thinking about this as something that's affecting people who traditionally don't have much power in these societies,

that this gives them an opportunity to kind of hand their power over to something else that isn't tangible necessarily, something that can take over their bodies, and they're not responsible for anything. But it's not the society around them that's controlling them. It's something else. And maybe that's therapeutic to them. It's an escape of some sort. Yeah, I mean, I would especially believe that to be true you know when we look at for example the saint john's plague and they're like oh and these unmarried these housewives and it's like yeah you know oh well there's nothing you can do you can't drag me back to the kitchen yeah and tell me to kind of look after babies you know unmarried women this is a chance to socialize

yeah without you know having everyone in your business calling you a slut yeah you know and to be out of the house to literally be out of the space that you spend all of your life in exactly and your village that you may never have had any idea of leaving prior to this i mean making it from aachen all the way to utrecht that's a really big deal like getting to see like liege like you know and you're now suddenly you're up in in belgium or something you know and saying oh well i couldn't help it there's nothing i can do you know what's your master gonna do if you're a serf yeah right like you can't get in trouble if you've got the dancing plague right so there are all these interesting ways of kind of acting it out and

when it happens again kind of in the 16th century really, we see this new approach to it from particularly people of medicine. And so we have some great stuff from the 16th century Swiss physician called Pericelsius says about it, it is abundantly not a curse from a saint. And he says, quote, we will not, however, admit that the saints have the power to inflict diseases, and that these ought to be named after them. Although many there are who in their theology So you do begin to have this new way of like thinking in the modern period where it's like come on now yeah it's a total shift isn't it yeah from god and the church having power to say this is the saint who's doing it and now it's suddenly guys maybe we need to look at the medical situation what's going on and it's really

interesting because when he looks at it, he says that we can class people who are affected by the dancing plague in three different ways. So he says that the dancing plague can arrive from the imagination. It can also come from sensual desires, depending on the will. And also it could come from corporeal causes. Okay. So psychological or something physical is happening i mean that's it's quite logical he's also covering a lot of bases there right it's like yeah it could literally be it could be anything yeah and it's and so he also at the same time says and then you treat it accordingly so if it's someone who is affected by the imagination

he's got this really great very psychological way of treating it where he says he has the person affected make a wax model of themselves stop that's incredible yeah yeah exactly right do any of these models survive no because that would be amazing what you do is you you you make the model and you think really hard on you know the way that you are being uh affected by this particular outbreak of the dancing plague and you put it together and then you burn it you see this is a form of wellness mental health the administration of some kind of healing around mental health i'm using contemporary terminology but it's asking you to reflect on yourself it's asking you to self-correct self-correct by the way not the church intervening yeah yeah it's a very interesting way about going to make a physical manifestation of this other

version of you that's stepped outside your life that's having this adventure and you have to at the end of your time enjoying yourself you have to destroy it you have to put it back which by the way they wouldn't really have had these people who are mostly suffering from this wouldn't have been having sculptures made of them wouldn't have been appearing in paintings so the depiction of themselves even in rudimentary form as a self-portrait as well it's self-reflection and self-portrayal i guess sorry we got carried away with that but that is interesting it's really interesting too because especially when we look at you know earlier iterations of the dancing plague and the way that it's experienced it experiences a group mania, right?

So this is something that a huge group of people does. You're all carried away. You begin to do this. And, you know, some people are carried away by it. Some people just follow it because they're like, my wife, you know, and you've got to kind of like go around long to make sure that she doesn't, you know, maim herself or something like that.

I mean, that's how most men get to the dance floor, right? Yeah, I know, right? And here this is kind of really individualizing. It's saying, no, you've kind of got the power to be treated with this. For people who are then, you know, they're saying you're doing this because you've got sensual desires. Then it's sort of like, you know, maybe you should seek confession or something like that. You know, it becomes. Take five.

Think about what you've done. You know, the 16th century is only so enlightened. you should seek confession or something like that you know it becomes right take five think about what you've done you know the 16th century is only so enlightened you know i think people everyone wants to go like oh and in the renaissance then suddenly i'm like no it was still hyper religious you know it's sometimes even more so um and so there there is still kind of thing there and then there is an understanding that it might be physical in some senses. And it's interesting because some of the treatments that we see even earlier, when, you know, their exorcism is sort of like the big one, but also there'll be things that are like,

well, get some bagpipes in here. It's always bagpipes. They're like, we're gonna do more music because what we're going to do is we're just going to kind of like draw this out of people. And they get excited by more dancing. So if you give them some music to go with it, they'll be like,

all right, well, these people are just going to exhaust themselves, you know, and kind of like treating it like maybe it is physical. It's a physical ailment. So if we're just like, let's just chop,

chop, make it with the dancing and fall down and like, let's get this out of your system. Okay. Now you're tired. So sometimes, um, the way that they look at it is like,

this is physical but all that we can really do is go with it go with it you know like to quote p funk we've got to get over the hump you know yeah like you just gotta like bring it up and like get it yeah get it through but bagpipes in the medieval world do they have any particular religious significance are they used in battle are they relevant to how people are viewing this hysteria interestingly uh they like it's a big party time instrument but also it's experienced much in the way that bagpipes are now which is like they're kind of a bit much so for example like when you see like hell scenes uh you know and hieronymus bosch does this so

hieronymus bosch when he includes instruments in hell scenes it's either a hurdy-gurdy or it is a bagpipe not the hurdy-gurdy i am here for the hurdy-gurdy say i quite like the bagpipes well i like both from a distance they're noisy right yeah so i mean i think that kind of people experience it as they're shocking they're quite it's a good way of shocking you out of yourself i guess yeah that's so interesting that they're associated with Hitler. Yeah, are they in some way enchanting? I'm thinking of a particular medieval story, and one of the few medieval stories that I know, of the Pied Piper and the idea of enchanting people with music and getting them into some kind of trance-like state.

Is that connected to this? I think partially what connects the the pied piper story with this is one of the things you would do is like if these people are in your town and they're like and they're still tearing it up you're like oh the bagpipes going that way guys where are they going you know and it would be kind of like a way where you're like all right we are done we can't host these people anymore you kind of like can lead them down the road with music and they will do that yeah you know another one of the treatments like from a social sense to be like and also don't allow music be like nope sorry no bagpipes today get the hell out of here you know yeah kind of a deal um and

we do know that earlier on there were dancing plagues that were specifically affecting children in the medieval period so um like a in in 1237 it is it happens specifically in erfurt uh where a hundred or so children wow are affected very specifically so kind of together putting the yeah we know that music really draws us out of people we know that you can use music to ferry these people from one way to another and there are instances in which case, you know, this means specifically children. Yeah. It happens.

See, I think that's so interesting because in a lot of supernatural stories, especially when we think about poltergeist and possession, it's often children or young people who are seemingly affected. And there's something there about sort of desirability of youth and also, I guess, the credulity of youth,

maybe that you'll buy into that. And also, I suppose, an element of sort of desirability of youth and also i guess the credulity of youth maybe that you'll buy into that um and also i suppose an element of sort of performatively going against authority you know just thinking about the pied piper story as well and this is bringing like primary school level history knowledge um isn't the story that the pied piper steals the children from the town that he's he's at, but he's there primarily to get rid of rats. Is that right? Which is another interesting plague connection.

You are very smart, Maddie. I'm making all the connections. My primary school education is coming in really handy. We love this. Yeah. But yeah, you're absolutely right.

So, you know, initially the town is, Hamelin's overrun by rats. They say, come get rid of the rats. He doesn't, then he's like,

now pay me. And they say, ha ha, sucker. Okay. Like, what are like what are you gonna do the rats are gone now and so he takes the kids i mean slightly extreme it's actually petrifying i used to hate that story as a child yeah yeah like he leads them into the side of a mountain or something like that yes so as these children are being led away or dancing away in in particularly when we're talking in 1233 or the Pied Piper story that we've just been discussing, these are children from all different walks of life, from these particular villages, these towns. What is the class element that we're talking about in terms of this dancing plague? I mean, this is a really interesting thing for me because the St. John's Plague in 1374, it's usually kind of peasants, right? So people who are from the lower social orders in

particular. And, you know, to me, that indicates, you know, these are people who are pretty distressed, you know, especially by, you know, large floods kind of wiping out their livelihood. And also people who are often in real socially structured places where they're not allowed to leave, right? When you get to the St. Vitus plagueus plague really interestingly it's townspeople and we tend to find more cases wherein it's people who have skilled but sedentary jobs that's so specific yeah so it'll be like carpenters people who are tied to a workshop or a place and fancy a bit of a break yeah and so and they're so they're a little bit more like middle class people and um

they the thing of it is it never seems to kind of reach the upper echelons so like nobles don't get the dancing plague and if they do get the dancing plague it's like they're they're notably kind of like yeah exactly they're like you know what like hey if they want to go to utrecht they're gonna go to yeah you know like there's there's there's no real they don't need the excuse of dancing traveling yeah you know and they can dance like whenever if they really feel like you know they can bring some music in and they can just go for it so it does seem to be people who are from the lower echelons of society even if it is you know people who have a bit of cash you know if you're a cooper you know you've got a pretty good livelihood you've got a skilled job

but you spend all your day in a warehouse making barrels and one day you just want to go dance for a while. It's like, well, here's your excuse, right? There's something there about society being turned upside down. And obviously, the medieval world is, and I'm talking in very broad terms here, but it's very structured. It's very organized into these layers of power. And if the people with skills who are making things, they're making money, they're the people who are providing trade. If that class of people starts to misbehave in some way, surely those skills are going to be, you know, not employed where they need to be. There's going to be tools lying dormant. That's going to be a problem for that society, right? So I wonder if there's, these stories are maybe hyped up in some way because of that anxiety. Is that fair to say

in the sources that we've got? I mean, we've gone through a lot of firsthand accounts or writing from this period, but is there a sense that these things are being exaggerated at all? I mean, I think that, especially if we're kind of talking about 14th and 15th centuries, there is a great deal of anxiety about the lower orders kind of losing what their rightful place in the world is, right? So, you know, we're going in through a time when there are multiple peasants rebellions just all across Europe. And, you know, we're coming out of the Black Death. Society is really sort of finding what it's going to be in terms of like what are things now that we have a greatly reduced

population. There is much more movement of people generally, because, you know, what are you going to do? Come after year five surviving serfs when like you and what army, you know, kind of a deal. So there is more ability for this to happen as well, because it's more difficult to kind of pursue them. And I mean, I think also one thing that we have to remember is that for medieval people, when they really party, right, when they really get down, a lot of the things that they do are about inversion of social order. So, you know, for them, it is absolutely hilarious to be like, got a boy bishop today.

Oh, the boy's a bishop. I'm thinking like mummer's plays. Yeah, mummer's plays. Like the peasants dressed up as the landlord. This is hilarious to them. And it also is how you know that you're having a really good time. So this is kind of like unsanctioned topsy-turviness, right? And it's kind of like it's introducing this mess that they find really pleasurable and enjoyable.

But the only way you can kind of get away with it is by being like, I'm tormented, you know, kind of deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are there theories today about why people behave like this yeah i mean so there's one that i think is massively unlikely which is ergotism okay okay and so here hear me out on why i think it's massively unlikely ergotism is a fairly debilitating sickness you know and if you eat rye that's basically gone off oh so that this is the same theory isn't it that's applied to the salem witch trials where i think i'm right that the it's the the rye or the crop that's growing nearby supposedly has this mold on it or some kind of bacterial infection

and people consume that and then are hallucinating that they're seeing which is flying right yeah but in fact puritans are just jerks yeah yeah um so but that's a whole other we really want to get people out of like their bad behavior by saying i don't know you ate some weird rye and i just i'm not buying it um but part of the reason why i'm not buying this is yes ergotism can uh produce a hallucination or delusions and it does kind of you know say all right well it could happen because your rye got wet during a flooded time but if that was true we would see the dancing plague come up in places that are not around the rye

you know like we would see it recur in in very different places where it doesn't have this particular cultural cachet um similarly it is very debilitating ergotism and can be fatal and nobody can dance for several weeks if they have ergotism okay like it's unlikely that this is what's causing it it's just like from a medical standpoint it would just be incredibly difficult for people to have the stamina to do what it is that they want to do i do think for the most part that it's kind of a mass hysteria yeah and mass hysteria exists you know um and you know i think partly sometimes some people really do believe it they really do believe that they are being pulled along so this isn't to say you know if something is a mass hysteria that the people

aren't experiencing it right and we have to be really careful with this is the distinction there we can't just say oh they were all making it up i think that there were some people who were you know some people were like yeah well i'm dead you know i'm going along with it like a week off work and a holiday to utrecht yeah that sounds great you know but some of them i do think felt as though they had no choice but you know part of probably what is making them feel is that they have no choice is they live in a very communal society you know other people are kind of saying this is happening they're feeling like yeah i don't know sometimes life sucks and you just got to go for a while yeah you know yeah and i think that that's something that we can we can all kind of relate to right so i do kind of think that it is a social malady is what i would say

that um is really heightened by the circumstances of the medieval and early modern world, this kind of tight structure and control, the fact that you don't have a lot of options in life, and you do see yourself as part of a community that can be affected by this, because it's possible. It's within the realm of historical possibility. And it's a world that's full of trauma as well, right? You know, we think about the flooding of the Rhine, the plague, the actual plague spreading, you know, there's, there's so much trauma, there's so much loss, there's so much horror. And death is very proximate. Your lack of control over your body is something that is evident all the time. And maybe that trauma comes out in a mass hysterical way in this form. Yeah, I think that that's, that's really apt. You know um i think if you do feel

yourself to be surrounded by death you feel your body to be something that is in god's hands you know which you're reminded of on a daily basis within these these societies then you know it also stands to reason that that could go in a bad direction yeah yeah i think that's a good place to finish but before we do fully I have a question for everybody. We're going to go one by one. Okay, yeah, all right. Okay, I'm going to start with Producer Charlotte.

So she's hiding in the corner. Producer Charlotte, if there was a dancing plague, would you currently dance or would you be one of the local people going, what are these dancing fools doing? Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Oh, she would have danced. So Producer Charlotte would have danced. Mad, Jusha Charlotte would have danced. Maddie, dancing or no dancing? It has to be dancing. I think as long as I'm not falling in any rivers or off any rooftops a day, a day out from the drudgery of domestic life. Sounds good. Okay, Eleanor? Oh, I'm dancing.

I get that vibe. I mean, I'm going to Utrecht, baby. Like, goodbye plowing. That's what's up. I am at my window and I'm going to Utrecht, baby. Like, goodbye plowing. That's what's up. I am at my window and I'm taking the curtains down. Oh, you're judging everyone. And I'm going, these fools are ruining the price of the houses around here. Yeah, all right.

You're hiring in the piper to pipe everyone up. I am doing the piping. Yeah. I can't cope with that mess. Wow. we need regulation in this town can all dance out that door yeah i'm i'm i'm a hundred percent you know like i'll be like oh that he's at it again twitching the lace yeah yeah and it would be me and yeah yeah yeah anyway look that's just my own my own annoyance um listen eleanor thank you so much i one of my

favorite things about After Dark is when you think you know something and then you learn something during the course of the episode that you didn't really know and it changes your perspective and that has totally happened

with me on this dancing play. I thought I knew from my undergrad days but actually it's so much more complex and more interesting than what I had remembered. So thank you so much for that. You know what?

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