Strasbourg: The Dancing Plague Square

In July 1518, a woman known as Frau Troffea stepped into a narrow street in Strasbourg and began to dance. She did not stop for days. Within a week, thirty-four others had joined. Within a month, the number reached as high as four hundred, according to some accounts.

The Response

The Strasbourg city council’s response is documented in their own archives. They did not arrest the dancers or call for exorcism. They built a wooden stage, hired musicians, and brought in professional dancers, reasoning that the afflicted needed to dance the compulsion out of their systems. The strategy failed. Some dancers collapsed from exhaustion, strokes, or heart attacks.

When the musical approach did not work, the authorities reversed course. They banned public dancing, closed the dance halls, and transported the remaining dancers to a mountaintop shrine dedicated to St. Vitus at Hohlenstein, where they were given small crosses and red shoes and led in prayer around a wooden figure of the saint.

The Explanations

The standard modern hypothesis, proposed by historian John Waller, is stress-induced mass psychogenic illness. Strasbourg in 1518 was suffering from famine, smallpox, and syphilis. The population was under extraordinary strain. The dancing may have been a culturally shaped expression of collective psychological distress.

An older theory suggests ergot poisoning from contaminated grain. Ergot contains compounds related to LSD. The theory has problems: ergotism typically causes vasoconstriction and gangrene, not coordinated dancing.

For the full story: The Dancing Plague of 1518: When Strasbourg Danced Itself to Death

Visiting

The old market square where the dancing began is in the centre of Strasbourg, near the cathedral. The city archives hold the original council records. The shrine at Hohlenstein where the dancers were taken is outside the city. Strasbourg is easily reached by TGV from Paris (under two hours).