Dark History - 17: People Danced Until They LITERALLY Died?! - The Dancing Plague of 1518

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

 In 1518, the peasants of Strasbourg, France began dancing and couldn’t stop. Because of it, 15 people were dying per day. Historians don’t know what caused it, but they all agree that it absolutely happened. Today, Bailey tells the puzzling story of a mysterious Dancing Plague that gripped this town and disappeared just as quickly as it arrived! Episode sponsors include: Hunt a Killer, Wicked Clothes, SimpliSafe and Square Space! Learn more during the podcast about special offers!  For 10% off go to Wickedclothes.com and use promo code DARKHISTORY. 

Hi friends! How are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. I'm dead. Uh, isn't this fun? I know. My name's Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to the Dark History Library. Hello, it's Halloween. Not yet, but almost. And we're celebrating a little early. It's only like a couple days early. But my got my friends here. I have, um, if you're watching on YouTube, you could see my friend here, Joan Crowford. Joan, she's dressed up like a little ghost. Got some bat friends, skull friends. We're having a good old time over here. And we have a great story for you. This is a safe space for all of your curious cats out there who think, hey, this history really is boring

as it seemed in school. Oh, nay, nay. I mean, look at me, I am history right now. I mean, this is where we can learn together about all the dark, mysterious, dramatic stories or teachers of autonomous in school. So today is kind of random, but let me tell you how I got here

because like there's always a way I get to these stories, you know? So here's the backstory as how I got to this story. Great. So I've never seen the 1984 classic movie, Footloose, you know, the one with the, what's his name? Kevin Bacon, thank you so much. So I decided to pop it into my VCR and have a little movie night. Whoever had that movie before me did not rewind first of all

okay great. Anyways if you haven't seen the movie it's bizarre honestly because this guy he moves to a new town where they have a ban on dancing. Yeah, I don't know. There's like no ban on drugs or alcohol, but like dancing is just too much. So I'm gonna do much. And it's enforced by the local church. And they're like, you can't dance. You know, like those are the devil's moves. And when you watch this movie with your 2021 eyes, it's like, wow, a strange little movie. So then, me being the curious self that I am, I was like, you know what, I bet you this is based off something. Nobody just pulled this idea of their ass.

Every story is usually inspired from another story, blah, blah, blah. Shut up. Anyways, like this probably happened somewhere in history and I'm interested. I'm interested. Well, hello, I'm Bailey Sarian and I am the Google Master at this point and let me tell you, after doing some snooping around,

I realized there was a time long, long ago when a plague was running rampant in France. Oh yeah, the plague you ask? Well, it was the dancing plague. People in a small town could not stop dancing, and they didn't know why. Now this was upsetting to the local church who did not like this dancing,

and they wanted to stop, and they would do whatever it took to get them to stop dancing. And let me tell you, death by dancing. Oh, it happened. Indeed happened. One of the reasons the dancing plague of 1518, yeah, I said this was a long-ass time ago.

I was a lying 1518. The only reason it's known today is because it happened right after the invention of the printing press in a growing city. And out of all of the recorded reports of the Dancing Mania, oh yes, because there were many, many of that. The Dancing Plague of 1518 is the only one that can be told in greater detail because of the paper trail. But honestly, there's still a lot of mystery around this story. But honestly, there's still a lot of mystery around this story. And with that being said,

Fully Scabbous, scoop up the deeper, Dabbous. Hey, hey, scoop up. We didn't let me open up my book. Hey, go Joan. Getting it. Oh, you crazy Joan. She's going crazy. You can't see it right now. Well, Joan, she's crazy. Okay You can't see it right now. Well Joan. She's crazy. Okay

See where are we so this story begins the Straussburg Alsace which is like it's in what we know as modern day France and again It's 1518 so I think this is like the oldest story we've ever done in Dark history history Super iconic moments! Anyway, Strasbourg was kind of rough. And did I say kind of? I mean honestly they were not living the dream over there to put it lightly. First of all, they still had the feudal system, which means that kings and queens are in charge and everyone else is considered a poor little peasant. Ugh, and being a peasant was not a good time.

You really had no rights as an individual, and you had to live in, unfortunately, very disgusting conditions. The water you would have to drink was filthy, because it was also water everyone used for washing stuff like clothes or their bodies. So the only option they had to quench their thirst was unfortunately drinking this very dirty water. At this time they didn't quite understand what germs were or that everything was like covered in a layer of filth, which of course led to new and unusual diseases to which of course, led to new and unusual diseases too. So, riiiive, that's right, you guessed it. On top of that, there were feces from humans and animals all over the damn place. And again, 1518 here, there wasn't any form of plumbing or sanitation.

You would literally just squat in the middle of the street and unload. You know. Yeah. So years and years of bad weather had left the town of Strasbourg with little to no food. And the food that was available would cost a ridiculous amount of money. That only really the royalty and the rich could afford. Which meant many of the people were just starving. It was just a bad time all around. And during this time, a peasant's purpose in the system was to serve the king and queens.

So, their own needs were the last ones to be met. There were a lot of wars going on, and instead of those with money and wealth participating in these wars, it was instead the peasants or the less than's who had to go into battle for them, you know? Unfortunately, having no money just meant you had to like, two-ever-one-a-lasses-dirty work. Just again, if you were a peasant who wasn't starving or sick, you're probably gonna go fight in a war. So yeah, you get the idea. It just wasn't a real hoot back then. Yeah, it's probably like one out of five stars. If you have nothing, well almost nothing. The one thing you did have at least at this time was

the church. The local church in town was a way for the people to escape the daily horrors in life. Not horrors, but like horrors of life. You get it. The leaders of the church was seen as the one-all be-all. So when something terrible was happening in town, the people would run to them and look for answers. They would ask them, you know, like, why is this happening to me, Father? Father, please, why is this happening? I don't know if they said Father, but they would ask something along those lines, like, why is this happening to me? And usually the church leaders would guide those and give answers as to why they were sick, poor, hungry, whatever else is going on. And usually, 99.9% of the time, the answer was that God was punishing them. Oh yes. Or wait, maybe even God was testing them. And they didn't study.

Return to your Bible peasant. That's right. So if you were struggling in life, you really went to church for answers and it was to give reassurance as to why these bad things were happening, giving some people relief in a way. Like, oh, I just need to go pray some more and I won't be hungry. It's kind of sad, you know, but they thought that was the answer. This is all happening to me for a reason, you know? And that kind of felt like they had some control over it. I don't know. It's 1518 people. There wasn't a lot to do. You went to church and you went home or you just existed pretty much. So men at the cloth, the church leaders, they were like the influencers of their time. Whatever they pushed, you did.

So if they got Jesus' merch, you got Jesus' merch. They said this new haircut will take you straight to heaven. You got that new haircut that would take you straight to heaven. You get what I'm saying. Church was a center of everyone's life. Well because of this, the church was able to hold a lot of power over people constantly telling the people that this life was a battle between God and Satan, heaven and hell, good and evil, and for the people of Strasbourg, I mean they didn't know any different. They had no education, and their only source of information would come from the church itself.

Everyone was so deeply religious. I mean, why in Lord's name would anyone question it? Okay, but like imagine you'd be in there at 1519 or whatever, is 9am, you would wake up. Good morning, Strasbourg. So happy to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And then you realized that your only child had died from either hunger or smallpox. It's hard to tell. It's a toss up at this point. Then you go out to work in the field, put its frozen over and you're like, well, shit. And then you pass out from exhaustion because it got damn your thirsty and hungry, but you can't afford anything. So you wake up only to realize you took a nap in human shit. Great, love that. You get up, you walk home and your wife has made you some

comforting soup. She's like, here honey, I made you some soup, you know, but it's dirt water with a little bit of horse hoof. You're then wife dies that night from who knows what but she's gone now. dies that night from who knows what but she's gone now. Okay, by Martha, thank you so much. It's been fun. And then you go to church to try and cheer yourself up. And the man of God is in there. He's looking beautiful and his beautiful robe. He's living lavishly.

He's drinking just the clearest bottle of fechy water, snacking on the body of Christ and he's like oh Yeah, your problem you need to give the church some money. Yeah, God is punishing you That's why you had such a bad day. You seem to pray more. You haven't been Christian enough I think that would piss any of us off, right? Yeah, well you're probably thinking this may seem like a bit of a reach, but for many of the peasants living out this time, I mean this would be just like a normal ass Tuesday. All the suffering starts to weigh on them, and eventually the peasants start looking at

the church leaders like, wait a second, wait a second, they're just chucking clean water, leaving these great lavish lives. Why I've been praying, sir, like shit shit doesn't seem to get getting better for me, you know? Because of this, tensions were on the rise, and something truly odd happens. Truly odd, honestly. You see a meteor from the sky. It comes crashing down in a land right near Strasbourg.

Well, yeah, you heard me write, a literal rock from space comes down to earth like a ball of fire. Now, when I read Meteor, I was thinking like the giant one that killed the dinosaurs. Allegedly? No. This one was smaller, but it was just big enough to get everyone's attention. It did cause a lot of speculation because according to the church,

if this isn't God firing a little warning shot, then what is? Question mark, question mark. But before we find out, let's pause for an ad break. I could use it. I have quite the headache. You get it. Cause my head's cut off.

I thought that was funny. Whenever. Hey, how are you? We're back. Great. So when the meteorite hit the town, it caused no damage, but it did send the people into complete chaos. They're like fucking losing their heads, okay? Oh, losing their heads!

They strongly believed that this meteorite was a sign from Sky Daddy up above that day, the peasants were sinning just too much. This was their warning shot. It's so unfair, honestly. I mean, the poor people were dealing with famine, disease, poverty, they're literally sleeping in a shit, and now a meteorite, and then the church was now pointing the finger at them, blaming that they're're sitting too much. Yeah. These church leaders kind of like

they sound like they just want to remain on top but I mean what do I know. Of course the people of Strasbourg feared hell. They didn't want to sin. They didn't want to be punished so they needed to try and stop sinning. Therefore some would pray for up to six hours straight, just asking for forgiveness, asking for food and asking for blessings. But in turn, being told, it wasn't enough. How gross of the church leaders, you know? But it's how they kept their power.

Tell the kept control over the people. Boo. But there was one guy in town who agreed that everyone was just sitting a little too hard. Enter to the scene, Mr. Johann von Kyserberg. Yeah. Johann, come on in. Thank you so much. Johann was a church leader who believed that basically everybody in town was a sinner. Even the other leaders, he would refer to his fellow church leaders as lazy,

or he would tell the people that the other church leaders were a bunch of kiss asses to the wealthy people in town, and none of them had their backs, which was like, you know, where's the lie? He's not lying. Johann fancined himself as a man of God for the people, and people really seemed to love him. Like he was a guy who wasn't afraid to speak the truth.

Like we have seen here in our dark history, stories, time, and time again, people just seemed to love those straight shooters. But hey, everyone was totally buying whatever it was he was selling. They even called him the trumpet of Schausberg Cathedral, and people would travel from hundreds of miles away just to hear him speak. The most important thing to know about Johann is that he believed people could only be saved

by the church. Point blank period. Like if you wanted to go to heaven, you had to closely follow what the church was saying. But the way he went about doing it was a little, his little extreme just hate at least. There was this one time he spoke to a crowd of around 600 monks and nuns and then suddenly he decided to know where he started accusing all of them of boning each other. Having sexuals. Yeah.

He said that he knew this because, well, he just knew. I guess he was psychic or something. He didn't actually have any evidence. Maybe they were and he found out he wasn't invited. So then he just called them out. That's just my own speculation. And the crazy part is that people just believed him. This was Johann's special skill.

When he spoke, people listened and they took it as the truth and nothing but the truth. So at this point, Yohan was leading the new wave of Christianity in Shrosberg. And I mean, he wasn't wrong about the clergy being corrupt and lazy. They totally were. Yeah, the church leaders are supposed to be for the people. But Neh Neh, not Shasberg. They were boozing it up and living like a life of luxury, sleeping with the ladies of the night. Wing, wing, if you know what I mean, you know what I mean, you get it. And Vaughn Keeke was calling their asses out. He would literally go to their houses and snoop around after like helping himself to their basement where he would find vintage wines, prime cuts of me,

and sweet breads. I mean, incredible fine. Who wouldn't take advantage of that? I would. But back then, you could not do this as a man of God. You could not. Especially when the people of Strasbourg were literally starving and going through the worst times. It was just a good really bad look. And if anything added more fuel to Johann's fire of going off on the other church leaders, again, may wasn't wrong. Johann publicly calls the church leaders out, demanding that they change. Of course, they are not liking what they're hearing. The church leaders that is. And they're looking around at everyone in the streets miserable. And they're like, this dude, Johan's telling us like, we need to give up our delicious treats and go back to drinking dirty water and eating multi-bred.

Because that would be the Christian thing to do. No. You know? So of course, they didn't want to do that. That's not the plan. So the church leaders thought it would be like a really great idea to rebel against Johann and the way they were going to do this was by covering themselves head to toe in like as many jewels as possible.

Oh yeah. And then they would just dress up looking their best and then they would run up and down the streets just causing a ruckus. Basically they were rubbing their wealth in everyone's face, but in a very dramatic way, throwing a fit that someone called them out on their horseshit shenanigans. During all of this pettiness, it got the people of Strasbourg thinking like, hey, what if, what if it's actually the church leaders who are the reason all this bad stuff is happening to us. You know, like these men of God are the ones that are supposed to be leading us and convincing God to stop punishing us, but they're out here drinking clean water and like running

with jewels. Hello. What is going on, you guys? I mean, the people in town were acting more mature than the men of God. They weren't feeling so confident in their leaders. No, no, no, no, no, listen. I know I hear you, you're like Bailey. When we were gonna find out about the dancing,

because I came here for dancing, I just want to dance. Relax, girl, you don't just dance until you die for no reason. I'm just giving you some backstory here. Be right back. Have to take an ad break. Go, potty. Hi, hi. Welcome back. Okay, take an ad break. Go potty. Hi, hi.

Welcome back. Okay, well now that you understand how frustrated people were with the church, let me tell you some other terrible shit that happened to them that directly leads to the dancing plague. Well, earlier on we talked about all the diseases in the bad shit that was going on, right? Okay, yeah, great. So let's get back to that. We've got years of bad harvest, bad weather, starvation, and diseases like smallpox. Now, we see a bunch of new exciting diseases pop up, including drum roll. Syphilis! That's my error horn. Thank you. That's right, syphilis! Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh affecting Shrassberg in just under 30 years. This whole time the church said that

this is all God's doing. I'm laughing because of course the church was like it's not us it's you guys. You're sending too much again and this is God punishing you. I mean they didn't have any other explanation so everyone was like you know what yeah I guess we're the bad ones. Fuck us, right? Okay. Great. Well, now Johann was getting older and his teachings were getting a little weirder. He started saying that werewolves and witches were everywhere. Yeah. Children were being eaten alive. RIP. He even said that all the bad weather disease

and general misery was the act of witches. Yeah, the witches. There's witches in town. Hi, and they had put a curse on the town itself because when you can't blame the devil you can definitely always blame women. For sure, don't worry. We got you. Flame us. Love that. And again, people loved him so much. They just believed it. It got to a point where people had now 100% turned on the church. The one center of their lives believing that it could no longer be trusted, which was huge. Because like I mentioned earlier

in this story, a church was everything to these people. So going against this was like a very, very big deal. But just because they no longer trusted the church, it didn't mean that they didn't trust in God any longer. As long as someone could come through and convince people that they were indeed hearing the real voice of God, then you had your followers. It really didn't take much other than some confidence in your statement. I spoke to God one time. He told me one thing, and then people would believe you. You know, that's how you get him. That's how you get him.

And then Johann died in 1510, and people were like, oh shit. Everything is terrible, and the only man of God who wasn't totally corrupt is now dead. So, at this point, I was freaking out. I truly believed without Johann constantly leading the people away from the dangers of these witches and werewolves, the city was now in the hands of the unholy. Oh God, that does not sound good. Sure does not. So, for the next few years, things did indeed keep getting worse. Oh yes, more ruined crops, more bad weather, more diseases, people were dropping like flies. Why does God hate us? Is what they're asking? The newspapers of the time, they even started saying that

everybody's dead relatives were coming back to life, wandering the area, and screaming into the night. Oh yes, a true zombie invasion was now happening according to the local paper. I'm telling you, it was like super bizarre. I don't know what was going on. So the zombie invasion part wasn't necessarily true, but the newspaper said that the dead were indeed making a reappearance. I mean, everybody was freaking out, living a fear and believing it. Now, wait until you hear about 1517, girl, Joanne.

Crowford. Let me tell you, Joanne Crowford. Let me tell you about 1517. What do you know about it? Nothing, I know. It was wild. It was wild, 1517? What do you know about 1517?

Nah, damn thing, let me tell you. This year was labeled by the people of Shrossberg, the bad year. Mm-hmm. The bad year. Now it may not sound like a big deal, but the 1500s were already miserable. So if they're calling this one year in particular,

a bad time, it must have been like, we're all bad. Okay, my mind keeps going back to this one story for my life because this is, I think, a bad year. going back to this one story for my life because this is I think of a bad year, I think of this one story, it traumatized me forever. So one time I went to Chuck E. Cheese and I was playing in the ball pit, right? Ball pit? Good time. And I climb up to go down the big side. Okay, and there's a squirrel who went down before me and she's shit her pants. No, I swear, I swear.

She shit her pants all the way down the slide. All the way down, Joan, all the way down. Me and my sister were like, oh my God, we're telling people, do not go down the slide. Do not go down the slide. Like just shit down the slide. Don't go down it, you know? And then guess what?

Guess what? The soul girl comes up. Okay, she's not even a little, she's like a preteen. She knows better, first of all. She comes up and we're like, don't go down. She does poop, whatever. And she's wearing shorts and she doesn't give a fuck. Okay, she doesn't give a fuck.

And she goes down the slide. Shit, all up her back, her, oh, oh, it was a, it burned into my brain, it was soul gross, it was so sticky, it was all up her back her oh Oh, it was a try it burned into my brain. It was so gross. It was so sticky. It was all up her to this day I think of the story obviously not as bad as like famine and all that but still Obviously about here her Chuckie cheese adventure was over and when you get to go with Chuckie cheese as a kid That's a big deal and it was over for her I bet you she can't even go anymore. Anyways, just like the people of Strasbourg,

what I'm getting at is sometimes you slide down some shit. I just haunt you forever. I haven't gone down to slide since. Anyways, by this point, the church leaders had taken all the food available, so there was nothing left for the people in town. Everyone was being taxed like crazy, so they had no money to spare, and there was even a new outbreak of diseases. Yeah, not just one disease. It was now every disease you could imagine, smallpox, bubonic plague, syphilis, and there was something called the English sweat. I know, it kind

of sounds like one of those weird fancy drinks you order at like a bar, you know? But it really was a disease where you I guess sweat to death, gorgeous, but you have a really healthy glow though Love that. Everything I said before about them thinking they were being punished Honestly, it kind of like makes sense because this was a really bad year They really seemed to piss the big guy upstairs off or something because They really seem to piss the big guy up, Sarah's off, or something, because... Shit was real bad for them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then after this, guess what 15-18 has?

If you guessed more famine and disease, you would be right, my friend. Well, now people are totally up. They're fed up. They're over it. Okay? Some were even giving up their children to orphanages because they could no longer feed them. It was just awful. And they had nobody to turn to they could no longer feed them. It was just awful. And they had nobody to turn to who was going to help them. And it was just back-to-back bullshit. So what do you do?

That's right, my friends. They dance. Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss It wasn't unusually warm July back in 1518, and a woman named Fraud Trophya was a peasant who was experiencing everything that was going on firsthand. And she was like fricking miserable like everybody else, but on top of that her husband was also super abusive. Women at the time were treated freaking terrible by their husbands, and there were no laws set in place to protect them. But this was just an added layer of awfulness to Frau who had to deal with it. Outside the home, shit was in total chaos, and then she would go home and beat the fuck

up by her husband. Poor Frau over here could not catch a damn break. Since it was a long time ago, we don't really know when this happened, or even exactly what happened. But one day, Fraul was like, hey, I'm just going to dance. Okay, it might have been in her house. It might have been in public. We don't fully know.

But what we do know is that for the next few days, she just went to place to place, dancing everywhere she went. And the one time she would stop is when she was so exhausted, she had to sleep. And then when she woke up, she had to start dancing again. And when I say dancing, it's like they're kind of hopping back and forth on foot. So, the foot was very unusual.

And she did this day after day after day, after day, et cetera, et cetera. Now, we don't really actually know what her to start dancing in the first place. Some historians think that it might have been because she was under intense pressure and just kind of snapped maybe like a psychotic break or something. Her normal coping mechanism was going to the church and praying, but that was quickly becoming not an option, so it was a possibility. It was said that Frau, she would put on her little white hat, her skirt and apron,

and she would sway back and forth as she jumped awkwardly from foot to foot while she was drenched, was swept. And she was doing this non-stop everywhere she went. Well, at first people thought she was just trying to piss off her husband, right? Because like, he was such a piece of work. But then everyone in town saw her having a good time. They thought she was having a good time. So they speculated this and they were like, Oh, that's the work of the devil.

Oh, yeah. And then they believed that she was possessed. Yes, yes. Because why else would anyone be able to dance at a time like that? I mean, there's literally nothing to celebrate. Well, people got to talking, rumors were spreading around, and many were believing that women were more susceptible to the demonic spirits. I freaking roll.

And therefore, she was indeed possessed, for sure. Yeah. So, Frau, girl, you've got to double in you. Mm-hmm. But that didn't stop both, Frau, that were lenteless dancing queen. She was on the time of her life. She would go on to dance for six days straight, leading to bruises and sores caused by her non-stop dancing. So, wow.

Yeah, no, probably not the time for life actually. After a while, people started to think, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, maybe this isn't the curse of the devil. What if it's a message from God? You know, again, yeah, duh, that makes sense, because they have no other answers. Of course, it's a message from God. Well, because of this, the church sent Frau away to church for treatment. Now, the big mystery here, nobody knows what happened to Frau once she left. Like, we don't even know when or even if she died

or anything. For all we know, she's one of those zombies walking around, you know? Ooh. For all we know, she's one of those zombies walking around, you know. Oh no. But by the time they sent her away, it was too late because now over 30 other people in town has started dancing uncontrollably in the streets. Dancing in the streets. Get it, Joan. Go girl. Huh? Yeah. She got it. Yeah.

Except there was like disease in poop everywhere. Sorry about that. Can't forget the poop. So theories are going around. And people are thinking that the dance scene going on it. Maybe it came from a little saint named saint Vitis. No, this is where it gets real complicated. Let me tell you. We had a real hard time with this one.

Saint Vitis, he's a problem. Once upon a time, there was a man named Vitis, who was burned alive for his religious beliefs. Something that seemed to happen a lot back then. While he's burning on the stake, he curses the land with a plague so dark, it would be remembered for centuries as the plague that destroyed Europe.

And this plague you ask? Unstoppable dancing. I wouldn't mind that plague. Well, I shouldn't say that. I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that, but I mean, if you had a pick one, pick a plague. It's kind of specific, weirdly specific, but okay, maybe he liked to dance. You know? So the people of Strasbourg begin calling the dancing plague the St. Vitus dance. Now we're not even sure that St. Vitus was a real person, but the people of Strasbourg believe deeply in his ability from beyond the grave to make people dance uncontrollably. I mean, okay, sure.

A random saint who makes people just dance forever. Let's go with it. At this point in the story, let's just go with it. Great. Anyways, so the city of Strasbourg had become one big, unexplainable dance party. People were dancing in houses, they were dancing in the streets, they were even dancing at church. Sometimes with shoes and sometimes they were just completely barefoot. Honestly, super fun. I mean, what else were they doing? Nothing.

Exactly. Just let them dance. God. The church was bothered by all this dancing and they tried everything they could to make it all stop. Make it just go away. But they weren't having any damn luck. So with that being said, they decided, hey,

maybe we should like lean into this a little bit, you know? And this next part is kind of strange, but honestly, it happened. Okay, great. So, to church through a big street festival with professional musicians in order to try and fight the dancing plague. Okay, go on. The idea was that if they brought the music, then people would come out to some dancing, right? The music doesn't stop. And voila, baby, these dances are exhausted, right? And there you have it.

We saw the dancing plague. They can't dance. They can't dance anymore if they're exhausted. Weed them to it. It's kind of like when you have a song stuck in your head and they say like, oh the only treatment is just to listen to the song. Sure, great comparison, you get it. Pipers and drummers would play music and they just told the people who were dancing to keep on dancing until you drop from exhaustion. They're like, you can go in, you can do it, yeah. You know? They even hired professional dancers to join in

and keep the energy up and make sure that people kept going. Just like getting out of your system, you know? Now, the funny thing is that they also were providing the dancers with food and drink so that they would have the energy to keep dancing to just make sure that they really got it all out. And the reason I think that's kind of funny, LOL, you know, it's because like,

they were fully in this horrible famine and the church was just hogging all this food. But now that there's a dancing plague and suddenly they're able to like feed the people, like this is what it took to get some food? Dancing? Okay. So others are seeing that these people are stuck dancing or now getting free food and water and they're like, you know what? I got the dancing plate too and I like getting in on it. Everyone's literally dancing.

Okay, you get it. Lots of dancing going on. So they could get free food and water. Which hello, who would blame them? I don't, okay? But really, this dancing plague kept spreading and spreading, and by August, they were around 400 dancers. I'm not kidding, like these people kept dancing all day, every day, unless they were sleeping. It was bizarre. Would this be considered the first Renaissance fare? Hmm, valid question. Like I mentioned earlier, this started in July.

So you've been dancing for a whole month at this point. In the middle of summer, with no showers. Could you imagine how stinky everyone was? Stank? Must have been real. But it was an all just fun and dancing, 9A, of course not. This would actually start to become deadly, but after this. So welcome back.

So those in charge wanted to keep the dancers dancing, and they hired what was described as, quote, strong men, like football player types or something. I guess they were using them to prop the dancers up, again, to keep them dancing. Yeah, this sounds completely made up, but I swear to you, okay, I swear. Historians said it happened. They were being forced to keep dancing, and again, it's really hilarious. What does it mean? Well, depending on who you ask, this method did work. Some

people did indeed stop dancing. The only reason they stopped was because some were literally dying from exhaustion. They were dying from non-stop dancing. Many of them didn't want to keep going, but also they just couldn't stop. Some were so miserable why they danced but seemed to have like no control over their own bodies, leading to their deaths. Yes, there was food and water provided, but at this point there were so many dancers and they were unable to like keep them all hydrated and full. Some of the people were begging to stop, but they couldn't. Their bodies would not allow it where they possessed. Was it some curse?

Was it a psychotic break? What in the world was going on with them? Well, there were reports that said, there were up to 15 dancers, which is called people at this point because there are people. 15 people dying per day. Yes! This story is from long, long ago that we don't even have an exact record, but it's believed to be around this number. I mean, the people on charge wanted the dances

to stop, so I guess they got what they wanted, 15 people stopping at a time. There was still no clear answers as to what the cause to this non-stop dancing was, and nobody knew how to solve it, or get them to stop other than just let them keep going. One form of treatment was to open the church doors and make them dance in the chapel that they took for out to. But their idea was to give the dancers red shoes. Oh yes, the red shoes. This would symbolize fire which in turn would make God pity them and their burning feet. Yeah, I don't know you guys it sounds super random, but I'm sure at the time it definitely made sense. They're like yeah, totally make sense. Wear red shoes. Two historians. Another thought behind the red shoes was that they

represented St. Vitus, like in his burning feet. Remember the saint, those burned to the stake? Yeah, well red shoes may have represented his burning feet. So if the people of Strasbourg wanted to save their souls, it would represent St. Vitus, therefore God would protect them and they would stop dancing. Great. Sometimes you have to get creative when it comes to problem solving and I applaud them for that. What's that, Joan? Yeah, I know. Obviously, this town has some kind of curse on it. And those in charge,

they thought it would be best to try and purify the town. They're like, you know what? We need to try and bring the peace and order that we once had here. We need to bring that back. You know, peace and order where the peasants are annoying us and dancing. So they decided what they were gonna do is ban sinners, drunks, sex workers, gamblers,

and any criminals in order to bring purity back into the town. There's obviously a dark cloud of sinners causing everyone to dance, and in order to fix this, everyone was banned except for those deemed good. Well, I don't think I'd want to stay, I'd want to dance. Anyways, around September of 1518, the dancing, I just stopped. I sure did. And we don't know why, we really don't.

Maybe it was the red shoes after all. Shit, your guess is as good as mine, okay? Now there's a lot of historical context as to why they might have been dancing in the first place, but not that much about why or how it even stopped. Something that the Red Shoes really were the answer, which in my mind naturally, I go right to like the Wizard of Oz. Like, were they making some kind of connection to Red Shoes in that movie?

That relates to the story? Or is that like a real thing? Red Shoes? No, you know? I don't know, but like there's just a lot of answered questions here. Great. Glad to be on the same page. So in the hundreds of years following this event, historians can't seem to agree on some of those specifics, but the one thing they can agree on is that this actually did indeed happen. There's dozens of newspapers, politicians,

and even religious texts that make direct reference to the summer of 1518 when a bunch of people started dancing and they didn't stop for a long time. Hey John, I have a question for you. Have you ever heard of mass hysteria? Wow. Some believe that this was an early example of those kinds of events. People were miserable. God was everywhere, and he was telling them that they were all sinners, you know? Well, allegedly, of course.

Nothing they were doing was making anything better, and all this dancing was probably some kind of escape for them. Or it was believed that the people of Strasbourg were suffering from some kind of disease that caused them to keep moving, which they just couldn't stop. Or maybe, just maybe. There was a curse on the town, a devil himself, who made the people keep dancing as a form of odd punishment. Hmm. Now there's a couple examples in history of similar events. Yeah, this isn't the only one.

And most of them happened around the same place as all this Strasbourg chaos. This wasn't even like the first dancing plague that like ever happened, but it was one of the most deadly. The early one we know of happened way back in the year 1021. Wow, that someone was a thousand years ago, exactly. Math. Yeah. Anyways, it happened in a small town in Germany, or 18 people danced outside of the church on Christmas Eve, and the church leader was so mad that they disrespected Jesus' birthday, and he put a curse on them. They proceeded

to dance for the next full year, a whole year of straight dancing, with many of them dying. Oh yeah, this is a real thing. How fucking strange, no? Another example where this plague happened, but to kids, was in the 1200s in the Netherlands, where some of them also died.

And then in 1374, there was a series of dancing plagues that tore through Western Germany and parts of France, which again includes Strasbourg. The last known dancing plague seemed to be extra awful. People were said to be screaming in pain as they danced nonstop, just crying out for mercy. For their church leaders to please save their poor souls. They wandered from city to city just dancing. Honestly, it just sounds like the status parade of all time. Now, it seems like these dancing plagues were mostly happening in France or Germany for some weird reason, and nobody seems to know why. Many believed that whatever was going

on was perhaps contagious, like a dancing flu or maybe like an actual plague. I guess that's why it was given the name the Dancing Plague. Great, we solved the mystery. It seems to start off kind of fun, but then it keeps going and it turns into a ball of misery. But many think it was as contagious as a yawn. Yawn.

You want a yawn. You know, when you see someone do it and you can't stop your body from doing it, yawn. Yawn. You want a yawn. You know, when you see someone do it and you can't stop your body from doing it, yawn. Are you yawning? I know someone out there did. So maybe the people just saw others dancing and like just started dancing too. I mean maybe. I don't think that makes sense though. They would have heard about it in newspapers from their friends, family, and their leaders, and would have just believed the idea of people dancing to their deaths because of Satan punishing them.

Like just because we can't explain it doesn't mean it wasn't real. I mean, I can't explain quantum mechanics. Yet it's still a thing, you know? Can you? On the ending, so. Some experts think that it was a form of self-punishment so they could suffer before God made them suffer any further. Others say that it was simply rebellion against the horrible ways that the church and royalty would abuse lower class.

The power of suggestion can be very intense and making one just kind of go off the deep end. But many experts all agree that the people who ended up dancing didn't even like want dancing the first place. They were said to be miserable, screaming in pain and crying for mercy. Some saying it was so painful that they jumped into the river in hopes of drowning just to make it all stop. The bright side to all of this? I mean, there's kind of a bright side.

I guess the dancing plague, please, whoever was in charge, because once it was all over, the town had a good harvest and the famine was finally over. Talk about a plot twist, huh? No. There hasn't been another record

of a dancing plague until the year 2011, when EDC started in People Dance for 3 days straight. We don't know much about the dancing plague, except that it started with a woman, I roll. Why is it always us? We start everything. And most of the initial dancers were women too. Some historians even think that this might have all been planned by the women of the village

as a way to lash out against the men who ran the church. And like, okay, I could get with that. That kind of makes sense. You've got God on one side telling you you're not pure enough, and then you've got these men covered in jewels telling you the same. I mean, how could you not revolt and like dance it off? When I put it like that, it kind of just feels like we all just watched a weird old-timey version of Footloose. But that's kind of the point of the story. Well a lot of it seems really silly and hard to picture. It really happened. And in order for something like this to take root and spread, there usually needs to be a common source of stress or anxiety affecting a group

of people, right? In this case, it was several sources. Famine, disease, poverty, name about thing, I mean, they were going through it. And also, groups of people who experienced things like this tend to be separated from the community or society as a whole. The dancing playing of 1518, check and check. Wow, thanks, book. You taught me so much knowledge today.

I greatly appreciate you. You're welcome. Yeah. Cool. Anyways, the human mind is capable of incredible things, and there's still so much we don't know. But people just don't dance until they die just because they feel like it. Right?

I mean, it's hard to wrap my brain around because it just sounds so fake, right? But honestly, it's just so damn hard to even imagine something more 500 years ago. It was a very weird occurrence that truly doesn't have any explanation. If it was mass hysteria, that might actually make sense. It has taken many forms over the years, and when we say plague, people think disease, but at the beginning of 2020, we could have said that there was a toilet paper plague. Remember where people were like literally fighting in the supermarket parking lot over toilet paper? It didn't make any

damn sense. But I remember seeing people talking about toilet paper and thinking like, oh shit, like we need to go get toilet paper, babe, like, oh my God, like that was mass hysteria. It's all easier to stay grounded when we have the technology to communicate all over the world, but back then they were so consumed by their little bubble of a town that they didn't even have the ability to check themselves. Everybody was going a little crazy at this time. Religion back then wasn't exactly the same as it is now.

Basically everybody believed that witches, demons, vampires, and I don't know, something else that's scary. I don't know, a one-eyed cow, we're out to get them. If you tell people the same thing about how literal demons are out to get them over and over for long enough, don't be surprised when they lose their minds over and start dancing it out. But in another sense, mass hysteria could take an even darker turn with this new information age. The power of suggestion could spread so much faster if there was like no one to check it.

Some could even say that tick-tock dances are the new dancing plague. I mean, there are people dancing on a public platform for me to see. And then a video might go viral. Hey? Well, a lot, baby. It's a dancing plague 2021 edition. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Get it, get it.

I don't know where I stand to talk. They always say stand in, this looks miserable when they do what they're like. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. That's just, it doesn't look fun.

Anyways, this story is very strange, and I love it. Love it. Well, everyone, thank you so much for learning with me today. Now, I'd love to hear your reactions to this story, so make sure to use the hashtag darkhistoryover on social media so I can read what you gotta say about the dancing plague. Don't forget to join me over on my YouTube

where you can actually watch these episodes on Thursday. Come see Joan Crawford. Oh, sorry, Crawford. Sorry girl. Whoa. She's got a cute costume on. She's real cute.

Anyways, you can check that out on Thursday after the podcast airs and also come by and check out my murder mystery makeup which drops every Monday. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices. Please be safe out there. Happy Holowee-Nee! And I'll be talking to you next week! Bye! I'm gonna go die now. Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by me, Bailey Saran. Chelsea Darken from Slash Management, Kimberly Jacobs, and Ed Simpson from Willhouse DNA. Produced by Lexie Kiven, Dariel Christon, Spencer Strassmore, and Claire Turner, research provided by Tisha Dunston,

writers, Jed Bookout, Michael Obersd, Joey Scavuzzo, and me, Bailey Sarian. And a big thank you to our historical consultant, Professor John Waller, author of the Dancing Plague. And don't forget, I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. John are you doing okay? Girl, you are. Ghost, I can't even see you right now. You like disappeared John? John, why aren't you? Oh, John, there you are. You're so funny, girl. I can't even see you right now. You like disappeared Joan?

Joan, why aren't you? Oh Joan, there you are. You're so funny girl.