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The Dancing Plague of 1518: The Mystery of the Town That Couldn't Stop Dancing · Kat Has Questions: True Crime and Unsolved Mysteries

0:07
Speaker 1: Welcome to Cat Has Questions. Curiosity, stories, and the strange
0:12
Speaker 1: corners of everyday life. I'm Cat, and this is Cat
0:20
Speaker 1: Has Questions. Picture this. It's the middle of July in
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Speaker 1: the year 1518. The summer air hangs heavy over the
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Speaker 1: narrow streets of Strasbourg, a city nestled along the Rhine
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Speaker 1: River in what is now eastern France. The smell of livestock, smoke,
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Speaker 1: and fresh bread drifts through the crowded marketplace. Merchants are
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Speaker 1: arranging their stalls for the day. Children weave between carts.
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Speaker 1: And neighbors stop to exchange the same familiar greetings they've
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Speaker 1: shared countless times before. At first, it seems like an
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Speaker 1: ordinary morning. Until someone notices a woman dancing. Not a celebration.
1:02
Speaker 1: Not during a festival. Not because musicians are playing nearby.
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Speaker 1: She's simply dancing. She moves alone through the street with
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Speaker 1: no music to guide her steps. There's no smile on
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Speaker 1: her face, no laughter, no audience. Her movements aren't graceful
1:19
Speaker 1: or joyful. They're relentless, mechanical, as though her body has
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Speaker 1: decided to move without asking permission from her mind. People
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Speaker 1: stop what they're doing to watch. Some laugh, some stare.
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Speaker 1: Others assume she simply had too much wine. Or perhaps
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Speaker 1: she's trying to entertain a small crowd. But as the
1:39
Speaker 1: hours pass, something becomes deeply unsettling. She doesn't stop. Morning
1:45
Speaker 1: turns to afternoon. Afternoon fades into evening. Still, she dances.
1:51
Speaker 1: When darkness finally settles over the city, most people retreat
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Speaker 1: to their homes, believing that surely, surely by the morning,
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Speaker 1: the strange spectacle will have ended. Instead, the woman is
2:03
Speaker 1: still dancing. According to historical accounts, she continues through the
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Speaker 1: next day. Imagine what that must have looked like. Feet
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Speaker 1: swollen and blistered. Muscles cramping. Breathing becoming more labored with
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Speaker 1: every passing hour. The human body simply isn't designed to
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Speaker 1: remain in constant motion for days. Eventually, exhaustion should win.
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Speaker 1: But somehow it doesn't. Word spreads quickly throughout Strasbourg. Curious
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Speaker 1: onlookers gather in growing numbers. Neighbors whisper to one another,
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Speaker 1: trying to explain what they're seeing. Is she possessed? Has
2:39
Speaker 1: she gone mad? Is she being punished by God? Or
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Speaker 1: is this some illness no one has ever witnessed before?
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Speaker 1: No one seems to have an answer. Then something even
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Speaker 1: stranger happens. Other people begin to dance. At first, it's
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Speaker 1: just a few, then several more. Within days, the number
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Speaker 1: grows into dozens. Soon, the streets of Strasbourg are filled
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Speaker 1: with people who appear unable, or perhaps unwilling, to stop moving.
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Speaker 1: Some reportedly dance until they collapse from exhaustion, only to
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Speaker 1: rise again and continue. Others scream in pain while their
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Speaker 1: bodies keep moving. Historical records even claim that some dancers
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Speaker 1: eventually died, their hearts and bodies giving out after days
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Speaker 1: of near-continuous movement. It sounds impossible, like the plot of
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Speaker 1: a horror film. or an urban legend that has grown
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Speaker 1: more unbelievable with every retelling. But historians agree that something
3:36
Speaker 1: extraordinary happened in Strasbourg during the summer of 1518. What
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Speaker 1: they can't agree on is why. Was it a mysterious illness?
3:44
Speaker 1: A poisonous fungus hidden in the local food supply? A
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Speaker 1: religious curse? Mass psychological illness? Or could hundreds of otherwise
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Speaker 1: ordinary people really have been swept into a phenomenon so
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Speaker 1: powerful that their own minds overruled their bodies? More than
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Speaker 1: 500 years later, we still don't have a definitive answer. Today,
4:07
Speaker 1: we're diving into one of history's strangest unsolved mysteries. An
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Speaker 1: event so bizarre that if it happened today, videos of
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Speaker 1: it would dominate social media within minutes. Scientists from around
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Speaker 1: the world would rush to investigate. and we'd all be
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Speaker 1: asking the exact same question. How could hundreds of people
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Speaker 1: suddenly become unable to stop dancing? Before we can begin
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Speaker 1: to understand what happened in the streets of Strasbourg, we
4:34
Speaker 1: need to step back and understand the world these people
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Speaker 1: lived in. Because if you're picturing a quaint medieval town
4:40
Speaker 1: where life was slow and simple, think again. Life in
4:44
Speaker 1: Europe during the early 1500s was incredibly difficult. Strasbourg, which
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Speaker 1: today sits in northeastern France near the German border, was,
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Speaker 1: in 1518, a prosperous, free city within the Roman Empire.
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Speaker 1: It was a center for trade, religion, and craftsmanship. Merchants
5:04
Speaker 1: traveled through its streets, markets bustled with activity, and towering
5:08
Speaker 1: churches dominated the skyline. But beneath that appearance of prosperity,
5:14
Speaker 1: life for the average person was anything but easy. Most
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Speaker 1: people lived one bad harvest away from starvation. Crop failures
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Speaker 1: weren't just an inconvenience. They could determine whether an entire
5:25
Speaker 1: family survived the winter. Food shortages were common. And inflation
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Speaker 1: meant even basic staples could become unaffordable. Malnutrition weakened immune systems,
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Speaker 1: leaving people more vulnerable to disease. And disease was everywhere.
5:42
Speaker 1: This was a world long before antibiotics, modern sanitation, or
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Speaker 1: even an understanding of germs. A relatively minor infection could
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Speaker 1: become life-threatening. Epidemics swept through cities with alarming regularity. And
5:57
Speaker 1: while the worst years of the Black Death were in
5:59
Speaker 1: the past, plague outbreaks still occurred often enough to keep
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Speaker 1: fear close at hand. Medical knowledge was limited, and many
6:07
Speaker 1: illnesses that are easily treated today were mysterious, frightening, and
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Speaker 1: very often fatal. Daily life also came with constant physical demands.
6:16
Speaker 1: Most people worked long hours doing manual labor. Farmers, blacksmiths, weavers, bakers,
6:22
Speaker 1: and laborers depended entirely on their bodies to earn a living.
6:26
Speaker 1: There were no labor laws, no paid sick leave, and
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Speaker 1: no social safety nets. If you couldn't work, you often
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Speaker 1: couldn't eat. On top of those everyday struggles, the years
6:36
Speaker 1: leading up to 1518 had been especially difficult. Historians believe
6:41
Speaker 1: the region had experienced periods of poor harvests, rising food prices,
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Speaker 1: and outbreaks of disease. Political instability and economic uncertainty only
6:51
Speaker 1: added to the strain. Families who had already endured years
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Speaker 1: of hardship faced an uncertain future. And chronic stress became
6:58
Speaker 1: an unavoidable part of daily life. But perhaps the biggest
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Speaker 1: difference between their world and ours wasn't the hardship itself.
7:06
Speaker 1: It was how they explained it. Today, if something strange happens,
7:09
Speaker 1: we turn to doctors, scientists, psychologists, or the internet in
7:13
Speaker 1: search of answers. The people of Strasbourg didn't have those resources.
7:18
Speaker 1: Their understanding of the world was deeply intertwined with religion, folklore,
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Speaker 1: and the supernatural. If someone became seriously ill, many believed
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Speaker 1: it could be a punishment from God. If crops failed,
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Speaker 1: perhaps a saint had been angered. If an unexplained tragedy
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Speaker 1: struck a community... It might be blamed on demons, curses,
7:37
Speaker 1: or unseen spiritual forces. These beliefs weren't fringe ideas. They
7:42
Speaker 1: were widely accepted explanations for events that no one could
7:45
Speaker 1: otherwise understand. One figure in particular would become closely associated
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Speaker 1: with what happened that summer. His name was Saint Vitus.
7:55
Speaker 1: According to medieval tradition, Saint Vitus was a Christian martyr
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Speaker 1: whose name became linked to a mysterious condition sometimes referred
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Speaker 1: to as Saint Vitus Dance. people believed that those who
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Speaker 1: offended the saint or who were cursed in some way
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Speaker 1: could be compelled to dance uncontrollably. Today, historians recognize that
8:14
Speaker 1: the term St. Vitus' dance has been used over the
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Speaker 1: centuries to describe several completely different conditions, including neurological disorders
8:23
Speaker 1: that we now know to have nothing to do with
8:25
Speaker 1: the events in Strasbourg. But in 1518, many people genuinely
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Speaker 1: believed that supernatural forces could cause uncontrollable movement. To them,
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Speaker 1: This wasn't superstition. It was reality. It's difficult for us
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Speaker 1: to fully appreciate just how much those beliefs shaped the
8:42
Speaker 1: way people interpreted unusual events. If your neighbor suddenly began
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Speaker 1: dancing without explanation, you probably wouldn't assume they were experiencing
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Speaker 1: a curse. You might wonder if they were having a
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Speaker 1: medical emergency, suffering from a neurological disorder, under the influence
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Speaker 1: of drugs, or experiencing a psychiatric crisis. The people of
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Speaker 1: Strasbourg didn't have those frameworks. They interpreted the world through
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Speaker 1: the lens of faith, folklore, and divine intervention. And that
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Speaker 1: difference matters. Because when something extraordinary began unfolding in July
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Speaker 1: of 1518, the explanations people reached for, and the decisions
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Speaker 1: they made because of those explanations, would shape the course
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Speaker 1: of one of history's strangest mysteries. And it all began
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Speaker 1: with a single woman. A woman history remembered by the
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Speaker 1: name of Frau Troffe. If you've ever heard of the
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Speaker 1: dancing plague of 1518, you've probably heard the name Frau Truffet.
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Speaker 1: According to the historical accounts that have survived, it all
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Speaker 1: began with her. The problem is, we know remarkably little
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Speaker 1: about who she actually was. Even the name Frau may
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Speaker 1: not have been her real name. Some historians believe it
9:54
Speaker 1: was simply the surname of her husband, while others question
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Speaker 1: whether it was recorded accurately at all. Beyond that, history
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Speaker 1: is almost completely silent. We don't know how old she was,
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Speaker 1: we don't know what she looked like, if she had children,
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Speaker 1: we don't know what she did for a living. In fact,
10:12
Speaker 1: nearly everything we know about her comes from documents written
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Speaker 1: after the events unfolded rather than from her own words.
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Speaker 1: She left behind no diary or letter, no explanation, only
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Speaker 1: a mystery. According to several contemporary and near-contemporary accounts, sometime
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Speaker 1: in July of 1518, Frau stepped into the streets of
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Speaker 1: Strasbourg and began to dance. One of the earliest surviving
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Speaker 1: descriptions simply states that she, quote, Just a woman who
10:48
Speaker 1: stepped into the street and began to dance. There was
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Speaker 1: no festival taking place. No celebration. No musicians leading a
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Speaker 1: procession through the street. At first, people likely assumed she
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Speaker 1: would stop after a few minutes. Then after an hour.
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Speaker 1: Then perhaps she'd exhaust herself. But she didn't. Historical accounts
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Speaker 1: suggest she continued for hours, then through the next day.
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Speaker 1: Some reports claim she danced for several days with only
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Speaker 1: brief pauses brought on by complete physical exhaustion before beginning again.
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Speaker 1: Imagine witnessing that. This wasn't someone enjoying music at a celebration.
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Speaker 1: Her movements appeared involuntary, repetitive, relentless, and seemingly impossible to control.
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Speaker 1: As more people noticed, crowds began to gather. Some watched
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Speaker 1: out of curiosity, others out of concern. Some were probably frightened.
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Speaker 1: Others may have believed they were witnessing a miracle or
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Speaker 1: a curse. And here's where it's important to separate what
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Speaker 1: history documents from what popular retellings have added. You've probably
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Speaker 1: heard dramatic descriptions claiming Frau screamed while dancing, cried uncontrollably,
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Speaker 1: begged for help, or danced until blood soaked through her shoes.
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Speaker 1: These details certainly make for compelling storytelling. The problem is
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Speaker 1: that historians can't verify most of them. The surviving records
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Speaker 1: don't tell us what expression was on her face. They
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Speaker 1: don't tell us whether she spoke. They don't even tell
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Speaker 1: us if she wanted to stop. Those missing details have
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Speaker 1: allowed centuries of writers, filmmakers, and internet articles to fill
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Speaker 1: in the blanks with imagination. But the truth is, we
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Speaker 1: simply don't know. What we do know is that something
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Speaker 1: about her behavior captured the attention of the city. Local
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Speaker 1: authorities became aware of the situation. Physicians observed her. Religious
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Speaker 1: leaders took notice. What began as one woman's inexplicable behavior
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Speaker 1: was quickly becoming a public spectacle. If the story had
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Speaker 1: ended there, it's unlikely any of us would have ever
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Speaker 1: heard her name. One unexplained medical episode, even if it's
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Speaker 1: a very unusual one, probably wouldn't have even earned a
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Speaker 1: place in history. But within days, something happened that transformed
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Speaker 1: a strange incident into one of history's greatest mysteries. Other
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Speaker 1: people started dancing too, not because they wanted to perform,
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Speaker 1: or because someone taught them, according to historical records, they
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Speaker 1: simply just joined in. At first, there was only a handful,
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Speaker 1: and then dozens. Before long, the streets of Strasbourg were
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Speaker 1: filled with people who appeared unable to stop moving. Whatever
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Speaker 1: had begun with Frau Troffet no longer belonged to one woman.
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Speaker 1: It had become something much, much bigger. So as the
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Speaker 1: days passed, this isolated incident became more and more people dancing.
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Speaker 1: At first, there were only a few. Maybe some neighbors,
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Speaker 1: some curious onlookers. But what they do tell us is
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Speaker 1: that the number continued to grow. Within about a week,
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Speaker 1: contemporary accounts suggest there were several dozens of people dancing
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Speaker 1: throughout Strasbourg. A surviving chronicle described how many of them
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Speaker 1: continued in their dancing day and night. As the weeks
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Speaker 1: went on, the number increased even further. This is where
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Speaker 1: you'll often see one of the most repeated claims about
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Speaker 1: the dancing plague, that nearly 400 people were dancing at
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Speaker 1: the height of the outbreak. It's an astonishing number, but
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Speaker 1: it's also one historians approach with some caution. This figure
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Speaker 1: appears in several later historical accounts and has become widely
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Speaker 1: accepted in popular retellings. Some historians believe the number was
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Speaker 1: likely in the hundreds, while others argue it may have
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Speaker 1: been smaller. Whatever the precise total, one thing is clear.
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Speaker 1: This was no longer one woman's inexplicable behavior. It was
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Speaker 1: a citywide crisis. Imagine walking through Strasbourg during those weeks.
14:49
Speaker 1: Instead of hearing merchants shouting prices or blacksmiths hammering iron,
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Speaker 1: you would have seen groups of exhausted men and women
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Speaker 1: moving almost endlessly through the streets. Some stumbled as they danced.
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Speaker 1: Others reportedly collapsed from exhaustion before recovering enough to continue.
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Speaker 1: Witnesses described people sweating heavily under the summer sun, their
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Speaker 1: bodies visibly deteriorating as the days passed. Whether every dancer
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Speaker 1: was truly incapable of stopping, or whether some felt psychologically
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Speaker 1: compelled to continue, is something historians still debate. The city
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Speaker 1: suddenly faced a problem no one knew how to solve.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't an invading army, a plague caused by visible
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Speaker 1: sores or fevers, it wasn't a fire, it wasn't famine.
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Speaker 1: And there was one unsettling question. Was it spreading? Today,
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Speaker 1: if several people in one community suddenly developed unexplained symptoms,
15:43
Speaker 1: public health officials would immediately begin asking whether an infectious
15:45
Speaker 1: disease was involved. But in 1518, people had no concept
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Speaker 1: of viruses or bacteria. Instead, they searched for answers using
15:53
Speaker 1: the knowledge available to them. Some believed they were under
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Speaker 1: a curse, others suspected demonic influence, and still others turned
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Speaker 1: to the city's physicians for answers. Those physicians examined the
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Speaker 1: dancers and reached a conclusion that sounded strange to modern ears.
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Speaker 1: According to surviving records, the physicians concluded the dancers suffered
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Speaker 1: from what they called hot blood. Rather than blaming demons
16:17
Speaker 1: or witchcraft, they believed an excess of heat within the
16:20
Speaker 1: body had triggered the uncontrollable movements. In medieval medicine, health
16:25
Speaker 1: was believed to depend on maintaining balance among the body's
16:28
Speaker 1: four humors. Blood, phlegm, Isn't that crazy that they thought
16:44
Speaker 1: there was four things that kept the body going? Just blood, phlegm,
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Speaker 1: yellow bile, and black bile. That's crazy. To the physicians
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Speaker 1: of Strasbourg, the dancers weren't necessarily possessed. nor did they
16:54
Speaker 1: believe the condition was contagious in the way we think
16:57
Speaker 1: of infectious diseases today. Instead, they just believed the body
17:00
Speaker 1: needed to rid itself of this extra heat. And that
17:03
Speaker 1: conclusion led city officials to make a decision that would
17:06
Speaker 1: become one of the most bizarre public health responses in
17:09
Speaker 1: recorded history. Instead of trying to stop the dancing, they
17:14
Speaker 1: decided the dancers should keep dancing. In fact, one account
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Speaker 1: says the city council gave authority to physicians who prescribed
17:22
Speaker 1: that the afflicted should quote, dance themselves free of it.
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Speaker 1: According to prevailing medical theories of the time, the body
17:29
Speaker 1: just needed to work through this imbalance. To modern ears,
17:33
Speaker 1: this conclusion sounds almost absurd. If someone ran a marathon
17:36
Speaker 1: and collapsed from exhaustion, our instinct wouldn't be to tell
17:39
Speaker 1: them to keep running until they felt better. But in 1518,
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Speaker 1: the physicians believed allowing the dancers to continue moving was
17:46
Speaker 1: the quickest path to recovery. So rather than stopping the dance,
17:49
Speaker 1: they encouraged it. According to several historical accounts, Officials cleared
17:54
Speaker 1: public spaces to give the dancers room to move. Temporary
17:58
Speaker 1: wooden platforms were reportedly constructed so people could continue dancing
18:02
Speaker 1: more safely and with fewer obstructions. Musicians were hired. Drummers
18:07
Speaker 1: were brought in. Professional dancers were even recruited to help
18:10
Speaker 1: keep the afflicted moving. Think about this for a minute.
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Speaker 1: The city wasn't trying to suppress the outbreak. It was
18:17
Speaker 1: actively facilitating it. It's one of the most surreal images
18:21
Speaker 1: in all of recorded history. But here's something worth considering.
18:25
Speaker 1: They weren't ignoring science. They were following what they believed
18:28
Speaker 1: was science. And that's an important distinction. It's easy for
18:32
Speaker 1: us with centuries of medical advancements to laugh at this decision.
18:37
Speaker 1: But they don't know anything about bacteria, viruses, neurology, psychology.
18:43
Speaker 1: When every authority figure around you, including trained physicians, tells
18:46
Speaker 1: you that the body simply needs to expel excessive heat
18:49
Speaker 1: through movement, would you question them? Most people wouldn't. According
18:54
Speaker 1: to many accounts, the outbreaks only continued. The more the
18:57
Speaker 1: dancers danced, the weaker they became. Their bodies were pushed
19:00
Speaker 1: further and further beyond their physical limits. As concern grew,
19:05
Speaker 1: city leaders began to wonder if perhaps the physicians had
19:08
Speaker 1: been wrong. Maybe this wasn't a medical condition at all.
19:11
Speaker 1: Maybe it was something spiritual. Historical records suggest the city's
19:15
Speaker 1: strategy eventually shifted. Instead of encouraging continuous dancing, authorities began
19:21
Speaker 1: looking toward religion for answers. Many believed the afflicted had
19:26
Speaker 1: been cursed by Saint Vitus, who we talked about earlier,
19:29
Speaker 1: the 4th century Christian martyr whose name had long been
19:32
Speaker 1: associated with uncontrollable dancing. If medicine had failed, perhaps faith
19:37
Speaker 1: could succeed. Groups of dancers were reportedly transported to a
19:41
Speaker 1: shrine dedicated to Saint Vitus in the nearby town of Savern,
19:45
Speaker 1: roughly 25 miles northwest of Strasbourg. There, according to historical accounts,
19:51
Speaker 1: they participated in religious rituals intended to break the curse.
19:56
Speaker 1: Some sources describe priests praying over them. Others mention the
20:00
Speaker 1: dancers being given small crosses or red shoes that had
20:03
Speaker 1: been blessed before taking part in ceremonies of repentance and healing.
20:07
Speaker 1: Whether those specific details occurred exactly as later accounts describe
20:12
Speaker 1: is difficult to verify. What historians generally agree on, though,
20:17
Speaker 1: is that the city's response shifted away from encouraging more
20:20
Speaker 1: dancing toward this religious intervention. And sometime after that, the
20:24
Speaker 1: outbreak gradually came to an end. No dramatic cure, no
20:28
Speaker 1: single breakthrough. The dancing simply faded away. But before it did,
20:33
Speaker 1: one question had begun to spread almost as quickly as
20:35
Speaker 1: the dancing itself. Had people actually died from this strange epidemic?
20:41
Speaker 1: Or had that part of the story grown larger with
20:43
Speaker 1: every retelling over the last 500 years? If you've heard
20:46
Speaker 1: of the dancing plague of 1518, you've probably heard the
20:50
Speaker 1: most shocking claim that people literally dance themselves to death.
20:54
Speaker 1: It's certainly the detail that has helped keep this story
20:56
Speaker 1: alive for more than five centuries. But is it actually true?
21:01
Speaker 1: Like so much of this mystery, the answer depends on
21:03
Speaker 1: how much confidence we're willing to place in historical records
21:07
Speaker 1: that are over 500 years old. Many modern articles and
21:11
Speaker 1: even some documentaries claim that at the height of the outbreak,
21:14
Speaker 1: as many as 15 people were dying every single day
21:18
Speaker 1: from nonstop dancing. It's an unforgettable statistic. There's just one problem.
21:24
Speaker 1: Historians have struggled to find contemporary evidence that clearly supports it.
21:29
Speaker 1: that number appears to have originated from later interpretations of
21:32
Speaker 1: historical documents rather than from a daily death record kept
21:36
Speaker 1: during the outbreak itself. While it's been repeated countless times
21:40
Speaker 1: over the years, many scholars caution that we simply can't
21:43
Speaker 1: verify it with certainty. That doesn't necessarily mean no one died.
21:47
Speaker 1: It means we should be careful about stating specific numbers
21:50
Speaker 1: as facts. So when you think about what this would
21:53
Speaker 1: actually do to the body, it's not difficult to imagine
21:56
Speaker 1: the potential consequence being death. Continuous physical exertion can lead
22:00
Speaker 1: to severe dehydration, dangerously elevated body temperatures, electrolyte imbalances, kidney damage,
22:06
Speaker 1: muscle breakdown, and cardiovascular collapse. Today, endurance athletes train for
22:12
Speaker 1: months before attending events that last a single day. Even then,
22:16
Speaker 1: marathon runners, ultramarathon competitors, and endurance cyclists sometimes require emergency
22:22
Speaker 1: medical care. And the people of Strasbourg were not conditioned athletes.
22:28
Speaker 1: Many were already living with poor nutrition, chronic stress, and
22:32
Speaker 1: limited access to food and clean water. So if they
22:35
Speaker 1: truly danced for days with little rest, the physical toll
22:38
Speaker 1: would have been immense. So could someone have died under
22:41
Speaker 1: those circumstances? Absolutely. What remains uncertain is how often it
22:46
Speaker 1: actually happened during the outbreak. Some historians believe a number
22:50
Speaker 1: of deaths likely occurred, even if the exact figure has
22:53
Speaker 1: been lost to history. Others argue that later writers may
22:57
Speaker 1: have unintentionally exaggerated the mortality to make the story even
23:00
Speaker 1: more remarkable. It's also worth remembering that 16th century record-keeping
23:06
Speaker 1: was far from perfect. Deaths weren't always documented consistently. Causes
23:11
Speaker 1: of death were often uncertain. In many surviving records were
23:16
Speaker 1: written by observers trying to make sense of an event
23:19
Speaker 1: that defied explanation. For me, one of the most fascinating
23:23
Speaker 1: parts of this mystery is isn't whether 15 people died
23:26
Speaker 1: each day. It's the fact that enough credible observers documented
23:30
Speaker 1: this event for historians to agree something extraordinary truly happened.
23:34
Speaker 1: This wasn't a folktale invented centuries later. City records exist.
23:39
Speaker 1: Medical writings exist. Chronicles written by people living around that
23:43
Speaker 1: time exist. In fact, historians have pieced together the story
23:47
Speaker 1: using everything from physician notes and cathedral sermons to local
23:50
Speaker 1: chronicles and even records issued by the Strasbourg City Council itself.
23:55
Speaker 1: Once we move beyond the sensational headlines and exaggerated statistics,
23:59
Speaker 1: we're left with a mystery that's arguably even more interesting.
24:03
Speaker 1: If this wasn't simply a bizarre legend, what could possibly
24:07
Speaker 1: explain it? For 500 years, historians, physicians, psychologists, and scientists
24:12
Speaker 1: have proposed answers. Some point to the mind, others point
24:16
Speaker 1: to food, others point to faith, and a few believe
24:20
Speaker 1: we may never know the truth at all. So let's
24:23
Speaker 1: investigate the theories. Theory one is mass psychogenic illness. If
24:30
Speaker 1: you ask most historians and psychologists today what they believe
24:33
Speaker 1: the cause of the dancing plague of 1518 was, you'll
24:36
Speaker 1: hear the same explanation come up again and again. Mass
24:40
Speaker 1: psychogenic illness. Historian John Waller, who has extensively studied the
24:44
Speaker 1: dancing plague, argues that the strongest explanation is a form
24:48
Speaker 1: of mass psychogenic illness brought on by extreme stress in
24:52
Speaker 1: the cultural beliefs of that time. You may have heard
24:56
Speaker 1: it called mass hysteria, though many experts now prefer the
25:00
Speaker 1: term mass psychogenic illness because it's more accurate and avoids
25:04
Speaker 1: some of the outdated assumptions associated with the older phrase.
25:08
Speaker 1: For example, mass hysteria, hysteria was always associated with women,
25:11
Speaker 1: so I'm sure that's part of the reason they don't
25:12
Speaker 1: use it anymore. Because other people can be hysterical, not
25:15
Speaker 1: just women. At first glance, the idea can sound almost impossible.
25:20
Speaker 1: can stress alone really cause dozens or even hundreds of
25:23
Speaker 1: people to develop the same bizarre symptoms? Surprisingly, history suggests
25:28
Speaker 1: the answer is yes. Mass psychogenic illness occurs when physical
25:32
Speaker 1: symptoms spread through a group of people without an identifiable
25:37
Speaker 1: infectious disease or environmental toxin. The symptoms are real. They're
25:41
Speaker 1: not faked, imagined, or exaggerated. The people experiencing them genuinely
25:46
Speaker 1: believe something is happening because to them, something is happening.
25:51
Speaker 1: The mind and body are far more connected than we
25:53
Speaker 1: often realize. Think about a time that you were incredibly anxious.
25:58
Speaker 1: Maybe your heart started racing. Your palms became sweaty. You
26:02
Speaker 1: felt nauseated before giving a presentation. Perhaps your chest tightened
26:06
Speaker 1: so much that you wondered if something was seriously wrong.
26:09
Speaker 1: Those physical sensations weren't imaginary. Your brain created real measurable
26:14
Speaker 1: changes throughout your body in response to stress. Now imagine
26:18
Speaker 1: taking that individual experience and and placing it inside an
26:21
Speaker 1: entire community already living under extraordinary pressure. Remember what Strasbourg
26:26
Speaker 1: looked like in 1518. Years of failed harvests, food shortages, disease, poverty,
26:32
Speaker 1: constant fear. Many historians believe the people of Strasbourg were
26:36
Speaker 1: already living under such intense psychological strain that they had
26:40
Speaker 1: reached a breaking point. And then, one woman began dancing.
26:45
Speaker 1: If the community already believed that curses, saints, and supernatural
26:48
Speaker 1: forces could cause uncontrollable movement, it's possible her behavior became
26:53
Speaker 1: something much larger than an isolated event. Psychologists refer to
26:58
Speaker 1: this as a social contagion. Not a virus, not a bacteria,
27:02
Speaker 1: but behaviors, emotions, and beliefs spreading from one person to another.
27:08
Speaker 1: It may sound unfamiliar, but versions of social contagion happen
27:12
Speaker 1: all the time. Think about contagious laughter. Someone begins laughing uncontrollably,
27:17
Speaker 1: and before long, everyone else is laughing too, even if
27:21
Speaker 1: they don't really know what started it. Yawning works in
27:23
Speaker 1: a very similar way. Reading about someone yawning may even
27:27
Speaker 1: make you yawn yourself. The human brain is remarkably good
27:31
Speaker 1: at unconsciously mirroring the people around us. Of course, laughter
27:36
Speaker 1: and yawning aren't quite the same as dancing for days,
27:40
Speaker 1: but history provides other examples of mass psychogenic illness that
27:43
Speaker 1: are equally startling. In 1962, in what is now Tanzania,
27:49
Speaker 1: a group of schoolgirls suddenly began laughing uncontrollably. And the
27:53
Speaker 1: laughter wasn't joyful. It became impossible for many of them
27:56
Speaker 1: to stop. Some episodes reportedly lasted for hours. Others continued
28:02
Speaker 1: on and off for days. The phenomenon spread to other
28:05
Speaker 1: schools and nearby communities, eventually affecting hundreds of people and
28:09
Speaker 1: forcing several schools to temporarily close. Doctors searched for an
28:13
Speaker 1: infectious disease. but none were ever identified. Today, that event
28:18
Speaker 1: is widely considered one of the best documented cases of
28:21
Speaker 1: mass psychogenic illness. And remember, this was the 1960s, so
28:25
Speaker 1: this was not like centuries and centuries ago. There have
28:28
Speaker 1: been other events of this type of mass psychogenic illness.
28:32
Speaker 1: So communities where groups of people suddenly develop unexplained fainting
28:36
Speaker 1: spells or Factories where workers reported mysterious illnesses despite no
28:41
Speaker 1: detectable chemical exposures. Schools where students experience identical physical symptoms
28:46
Speaker 1: that medical investigations could never fully explain. Again and again,
28:51
Speaker 1: researchers have found that extreme stress, fear, expectation, and social
28:56
Speaker 1: influence can produce genuine physical symptoms in a surprisingly large
29:00
Speaker 1: group of people. So could something have happened similar in Strasbourg?
29:05
Speaker 1: Supporters of this theory think so. They argue that Frau
29:08
Speaker 1: Treffe may have experienced an individual psychological or neurological crisis.
29:14
Speaker 1: Once others witnessed her behavior through their own cultural lens
29:17
Speaker 1: of curses and saint vitus, and their own expectations and fears,
29:22
Speaker 1: could have triggered similar symptoms. This explanation doesn't require an
29:26
Speaker 1: unknown disease or poisoned food, and it helps explain why
29:30
Speaker 1: the outbreak eventually just faded away rather than continuing indefinitely.
29:35
Speaker 1: But while this theory is the leading explanation today, it's
29:38
Speaker 1: not perfect. One major question remains. Could psychological stress alone
29:43
Speaker 1: really compel people to dance for days until they collapse
29:46
Speaker 1: from exhaustion? Some researchers think that that's asking too much
29:49
Speaker 1: of the human body. Others point out that historical records
29:53
Speaker 1: are incomplete, making it difficult to know exactly how continuous
29:56
Speaker 1: the dancing really was. If the reports are completely accurate,
30:01
Speaker 1: the mystery becomes considerably harder to explain. Which brings us
30:05
Speaker 1: to another theory. One that shifts the focus away from
30:08
Speaker 1: the human mind and onto something much smaller. A fungus
30:13
Speaker 1: that may have been hiding in the region's bread. For
30:16
Speaker 1: many years, one explanation seemed almost too perfect. Maybe the
30:20
Speaker 1: people of Strasbourg weren't experiencing a psychological phenomenon at all.
30:24
Speaker 1: Maybe they had been poisoned. The culprit? A fungus called ergot. Now,
30:30
Speaker 1: I had to look up what this was because I
30:32
Speaker 1: did not know what ergot was. Ergot is a fungus
30:35
Speaker 1: that grows on grains, particularly rye, which was a staple
30:38
Speaker 1: food throughout much of medieval Europe. Under the right conditions,
30:43
Speaker 1: the fungus produces toxic compounds known as ergot alkaloids. If
30:48
Speaker 1: that sounds vaguely familiar, which it doesn't, there's a reason.
30:52
Speaker 1: Centuries later, scientists studying these compounds developed substances chemically related
30:57
Speaker 1: to them. including the drug LSD. While ergot itself isn't LSD,
31:03
Speaker 1: the connection has helped fuel speculation that the people of
31:06
Speaker 1: Strasbourg may have been experiencing hallucinations or altered states of
31:10
Speaker 1: consciousness after eating contaminated bread. At first glance, it sounds
31:15
Speaker 1: like an excellent explanation. They're just on LSD, guys. If
31:20
Speaker 1: an entire community consumed grain contaminated with ergot, perhaps they
31:24
Speaker 1: all became intoxicated at the same time. Mystery solved. Urgot
31:28
Speaker 1: poisoning is a very real medical condition. Historically, outbreaks have
31:32
Speaker 1: caused devastating illness across Europe. People who consume contaminated grains
31:38
Speaker 1: sometimes experience burning sensations in their hands and feet so
31:42
Speaker 1: severe that the condition became known as St. Anthony's Fire.
31:47
Speaker 1: Others developed muscle spasms, convulsions, confusion, hallucination. In several cases,
31:53
Speaker 1: reduced blood flow caused fingers, toes, and even entire limbs
31:56
Speaker 1: to die from lack of circulation. So it's easy to
32:00
Speaker 1: understand why researchers became interested in this possibility. During a
32:05
Speaker 1: time when nearly everyone relied on rye, it seemed to fit.
32:10
Speaker 1: But as historians and medical researchers took a closer look,
32:13
Speaker 1: problems begin to appear. The first issue is the symptoms themselves.
32:19
Speaker 1: While ergot poisoning can certainly produce muscle spasms and involuntary movements,
32:23
Speaker 1: It doesn't typically cause people to perform coordinated activities like
32:27
Speaker 1: dancing continuously for days. Instead, victims often experience painful muscle contractions, tremors, seizures, confusion,
32:35
Speaker 1: and significant physical weakness. Many become too sick to stand,
32:41
Speaker 1: not energetic enough to dance. Ergot poisoning usually also affects
32:45
Speaker 1: everyone who consumes the grain. If an entire town food
32:49
Speaker 1: supply had been contaminated... Historians expect to see a much
32:52
Speaker 1: broader range of symptoms throughout the population. There likely would
32:56
Speaker 1: have been a more widespread illness. Timing also raises questions.
33:00
Speaker 1: The dancing outbreak appears to have spread gradually over days
33:03
Speaker 1: and weeks. Food poisoning, on the other hand, generally affects
33:07
Speaker 1: people very quickly. Ergot poisoning is usually profoundly debilitating. So
33:14
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean it played no role in this situation,
33:17
Speaker 1: because science is rarely that simple. But Today, most historians
33:22
Speaker 1: and medical experts no longer view ergot poisoning as the
33:25
Speaker 1: leading explanation for the dancing plague, but it is still
33:28
Speaker 1: an intriguing possibility. So if psychology doesn't answer every question,
33:33
Speaker 1: and poisoned bread doesn't seem to explain the outbreak either,
33:36
Speaker 1: what else do we look at? For the people of Strasbourg,
33:39
Speaker 1: the answer wasn't found in medicine. It was found in faith,
33:43
Speaker 1: and in the belief that one saint held the power
33:45
Speaker 1: to make people dance. So theory three is kind of
33:49
Speaker 1: circling back to St. Vitus. For the people of Strasbourg,
33:54
Speaker 1: supernatural and natural, there was really no distinction between that.
33:58
Speaker 1: Unexplained illnesses could sometimes be a message from God. One
34:03
Speaker 1: of the saints that most closely associated with this mysterious
34:06
Speaker 1: movement disorder was St. Vitus. Vitus was a martyr, and
34:11
Speaker 1: over time, legends surrounding him grew. And by the Middle Ages,
34:15
Speaker 1: many Europeans believed he possessed the power to either protect
34:17
Speaker 1: people from or afflict them with uncontrollable dancing and convulsive movements.
34:23
Speaker 1: Pilgrims traveled to shrines dedicated to him, seeking healing from
34:27
Speaker 1: strange neurological symptoms. Parents prayed to him on behalf of
34:31
Speaker 1: sick children. His name became so closely connected to involuntary
34:35
Speaker 1: movement that several conditions were collectively referred to as St.
34:38
Speaker 1: Vitus' Dance, like we talked about before. So a lot
34:41
Speaker 1: of people think that he could have possibly cursed this community,
34:45
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of good reason to think that
34:47
Speaker 1: the people in Strasbourg in 1518 did. When people saw
34:52
Speaker 1: the dancing uncontrollably, many naturally reached for the explanation that
34:55
Speaker 1: made the most sense within their worldview. A curse. A
34:59
Speaker 1: saint's displeasure. Divine punishment. If enough people genuinely expected a
35:04
Speaker 1: supernatural force to manifest this way, could those expectations themselves
35:08
Speaker 1: influence behavior? Modern psychology suggests they can. Researchers have long
35:13
Speaker 1: studied something known as the nocebo effect. So most people
35:18
Speaker 1: are familiar with the placebo effect, which is the phenomenon
35:21
Speaker 1: in which positive expectations can produce measurable improvements. But the
35:26
Speaker 1: nocebo effect, which I've never heard of that, and it's
35:28
Speaker 1: kind of fun. The nocebo effect is essentially the opposite.
35:31
Speaker 1: It's negative expectations that can produce real physical symptoms. So
35:37
Speaker 1: If someone sincerely believes they're being exposed to something harmful,
35:41
Speaker 1: they may experience pain, nausea, dizziness, weakness, or other symptoms
35:45
Speaker 1: even when no physical danger exists. So, if someone believed
35:49
Speaker 1: they had fallen under the curse of St. Vitus, their
35:52
Speaker 1: body might begin responding in ways they genuinely couldn't control.
35:56
Speaker 1: And then others witness it, they recognize the sign, and
35:58
Speaker 1: they're kind of fearing the curse, and suddenly the cycle
36:01
Speaker 1: keeps reinforcing itself and repeating itself. Because belief is fueling
36:05
Speaker 1: the behavior, and the behavior is reinforcing the belief. It's
36:09
Speaker 1: important to emphasize that this doesn't require people to be
36:13
Speaker 1: like pretending or like, you know, just joining in for fun.
36:18
Speaker 1: It's literally like a psychological distress that turns into physical distress. Still,
36:24
Speaker 1: even together, these theories don't answer every question. Why did
36:28
Speaker 1: the outbreak happen in Strasbourg and not somewhere else? Why
36:31
Speaker 1: during the summer of 1518? And why has no event
36:35
Speaker 1: on this scale ever been documented again? Perhaps the true
36:40
Speaker 1: explanation isn't one single theory at all. Perhaps it's far
36:43
Speaker 1: more complicated. The more historians have caused it. So this
36:47
Speaker 1: is kind of the fourth and final theory, which it's
36:50
Speaker 1: not really a theory in its own. It's basically a
36:53
Speaker 1: mixture of things. So the more historians have studied the
36:56
Speaker 1: dancing plague of 1518, the more many of them have
36:59
Speaker 1: begun to think we may be asking the wrong question.
37:02
Speaker 1: Instead of searching for the cause, perhaps we should be
37:04
Speaker 1: asking about the combination of causes. So it's a city
37:08
Speaker 1: where people have endured years of failed harvests. Food is scarce.
37:12
Speaker 1: Disease is common. There's a culture where supernatural isn't viewed
37:16
Speaker 1: as a fantasy, but it's accepted as everyday life. Then
37:19
Speaker 1: one woman begins behaving in a way no one can explain.
37:22
Speaker 1: And then everyone starts talking about it. Rumors spread. Fear grows.
37:27
Speaker 1: Every conversation reinforces the idea that something extraordinary is happening.
37:31
Speaker 1: Could all of those things together create conditions unlike anything
37:35
Speaker 1: we'd normally experience? Many historians think the answer is yes.
37:41
Speaker 1: Rather than imagining one mysterious trigger, they see the dancing
37:44
Speaker 1: plague as a perfect storm. Psychological stress, social contagion, religious expectation,
37:51
Speaker 1: physical exhaustion, and malnutrition. So one of the first questions
37:55
Speaker 1: I had while researching the episode was, has anything like
38:00
Speaker 1: this ever happened before? And so this wasn't actually the
38:04
Speaker 1: first documented outbreak of what historians called dancing mania. And
38:08
Speaker 1: it wasn't even the largest. In fact, similar events were
38:11
Speaker 1: reported across parts of Europe between the 13th and 17th centuries,
38:16
Speaker 1: particularly in communities along the Rhine and Moselle rivers. One
38:21
Speaker 1: of the earliest well-documented outbreaks was occurred in 1237 in Erfurt,
38:27
Speaker 1: where chronicles described a large group of children dancing and
38:31
Speaker 1: jumping for miles before collapsing from exhaustion. And then in 1374,
38:37
Speaker 1: there was people in Aachen, I hope I'm saying that right,
38:41
Speaker 1: suddenly began dancing uncontrollably and it spread to other cities.
38:45
Speaker 1: And then in southern Italy, another related phenomenon emerged known
38:51
Speaker 1: as Tarantism. So what this means, this is kind of interesting,
38:55
Speaker 1: and kind of, I guess, could be another theory as
38:58
Speaker 1: to the dancing plague in 1518. For centuries, people believed
39:02
Speaker 1: that a bite of a tarantula spider could cause victims
39:05
Speaker 1: to become restless, ill, and compelled to dance. Music was
39:09
Speaker 1: actually considered the cure, with musicians playing for hours while
39:13
Speaker 1: the afflicted danced in hopes of sweating out the poison. Today,
39:18
Speaker 1: historians generally don't believe spider venom explains these events. but
39:22
Speaker 1: many think tarantism may represent another form of culturally influenced
39:27
Speaker 1: mass psychogenic illness. By the 17th century when this occurred
39:31
Speaker 1: in 1518, large-scale dancing manias had become exceedingly rare and
39:36
Speaker 1: nothing quite like the Strasbourg has ever been documented on
39:39
Speaker 1: that scale again. That doesn't mean mass psychogenic illness has
39:43
Speaker 1: disappeared like we talked about. That was as most recent
39:45
Speaker 1: as the 1960s with like the laughing hysteria. So it's
39:49
Speaker 1: far from it that mass psychogenic illness has gone away. Instead,
39:53
Speaker 1: it just seems to have changed with society. More than
39:56
Speaker 1: 500 years later, the streets of Strasbourg no longer echo
40:00
Speaker 1: with the footsteps of exhausted dancers. The wooden stages are gone.
40:04
Speaker 1: The physicians who prescribed more dancing have long since become
40:07
Speaker 1: a curious footnote in medical history. And the people who
40:10
Speaker 1: lived through those bewildering weeks have been gone for centuries.
40:13
Speaker 1: Yet somehow, their story lives on. Not because we know
40:17
Speaker 1: exactly what happened, but because we don't. The dancing plague
40:20
Speaker 1: has fascinated historians, physicians, psychologists, and curious minds for generations
40:26
Speaker 1: because it refuses to fit neatly into a single category.
40:29
Speaker 1: It's not purely a medical mystery. It's not purely psychological.
40:32
Speaker 1: It's not religious. It's a human mystery. One that reminds
40:36
Speaker 1: us how deeply connected our minds, bodies, beliefs, and communities
40:40
Speaker 1: really are. As much as we'd like to think we're
40:43
Speaker 1: completely different from the people who lived in 1518, perhaps
40:46
Speaker 1: we're not as different as we imagined. We still look
40:49
Speaker 1: for explanations when something frightening happens. We still influence one
40:53
Speaker 1: another in ways we don't always recognize. But human nature
40:57
Speaker 1: hasn't changed nearly as much as we'd like to believe.
41:00
Speaker 1: Every generation has its own mysteries, its own blind spots,
41:04
Speaker 1: its own explanations that future generations may one day look
41:07
Speaker 1: back on with confusion. Maybe that's why the dancing plague
41:11
Speaker 1: continues to resonate after all this time. Not because it
41:14
Speaker 1: gives us answers, because it reminds us of how many
41:16
Speaker 1: questions remain. We'll probably never know for certain what happened
41:20
Speaker 1: that day, and perhaps that's okay. Some mysteries aren't valuable
41:24
Speaker 1: because they're solved. They're valuable because they force us to
41:27
Speaker 1: think differently, to question our assumptions, to recognize that the
41:31
Speaker 1: past was every bit as complicated as the present. As always,
41:36
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear what you think. After hearing all
41:39
Speaker 1: the evidence, which explanation makes the most sense to you?
41:42
Speaker 1: Do you think the dancing plague can be explained psychologically alone?
41:46
Speaker 1: Or do you believe historians are still missing something important?
41:51
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode of Cat Has Questions, I'd
41:54
Speaker 1: be so grateful if you'd follow the show on your
41:56
Speaker 1: favorite podcast platform and leave a rating or review. If
42:01
Speaker 1: there's a mystery, historical event, true crime case, or unexplained
42:05
Speaker 1: phenomenon you'd like me to cover in a future episode,
42:08
Speaker 1: please reach out to me via social media or email.
42:11
Speaker 1: I love hearing your suggestions. And many of my episodes
42:14
Speaker 1: include Start with ideas from listeners just like you. Until
42:19
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Thanks for listening to Cat Has Questions.
42:26
Speaker 1: If you liked this episode, follow the show and share
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Speaker 1: it with someone who loves a good spiral. See you
42:31
Speaker 1: next week.