Over the summer of 2023, I had the opportunity to travel through seven different European countries with a large group of other musicians my age. We spent two weeks abroad, during which performances and sightseeing merged. At the end of the trip, I had valued memories, but some of the locations began to blur into each other. Particularly, one of our first stops was in Strasbourg, France. After floating along the canals of Venice, traveling up the Alps, and listening to live music in Mozartplatz, the preceding Strasbourg became nothing more than a city with a cathedral of dancing lights. Upon being assigned this state of research paper, I realized that, just over a year ago, I stood in a spot exemplary of some of the most obscure reoccurrences in history. The details of this event have baffled me and, I humiliatingly admit, have made me chuckle for years. In what was once Strasbourg, Alsace, I unknowingly breathed the air where one of my favorite, and most unbelievable, historical events took place over five hundred years prior.

In 1518, a plague hit Strasbourg, one not like any other. The town was overtaken by dancing. People took to the streets, moving manically and uncontrollably. For days and nights on end, more townspeople would join this mass renaissance revelry, some never to leave it. Many theories exist as to why the dancing plague of Strasbourg occurred, including disease, mass hysteria, and divine intervention. However, Strasbourg was not isolated in this event as various accounts of these dancing fits were scattered about Medieval and early Renaissance France and Germany.1 Those “infected” with choreomania were said to move irrationally about town, often to provoking music. Some sufferers would even face serious health issues as a result that we have diagnosed today as heart problems and hyperventilation.2 Today, these medieval music enthusiasts can be compared to fans at rock concerts due to the symptoms they experienced.2

The role of music in these epidemics piques my interest. When I first imagined the incident in Strasbourg, I never questioned the presence of music. In my mind, no music was involved, instead, I imagined people needlessly leaving their homes to dance in the streets. Reviewing some abstracts about the phenomenon known as choreomania, I see that music was considered an influence in most occurrences, specifically, by witnesses to the plagues. An abstract by Costonis regarding a case study by Dr. Kinder Wood from the nineteenth century on dancing mania states that the movements and erratic pounding on surfaces by a patient seemed to imitate a song.3 I am intrigued by the similarities between these occurrences in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. What was the influence of music in these epidemics and how was the music in a place that experienced an epidemic different from one that did not? Music may have played a role in these events, but, given their sparsity and severity throughout Europe, the vastness of the culture and overall public health must be considered. Another abstract I reviewed by Morens, who compares behavior around electronic music to medieval, states that some European towns hired considerably more conservative musicians to calm those dancers, but to no avail.2 This piece of evidence puts into perspective the pertinence of this situation in some areas while also indicating a code of morality around music. Put into perspective, there was a presence of a considered devious type of music which causes me to ponder how this music differs from what we study as medieval music today. Furthermore, the need for government intervention in the case of dancing plagues raises the topic of comprehending such public perception of these situations. In the modern day, we are far removed from these events and have more technology and methods to understand them. However, at the time, there was a lack of advanced sciences and rational thought when being in close relations with such panic. Did the people of early Europe understand these plagues to be caused by illness or some other environmental factor, evil spirits, or divine punishment? The answer to this question would go on to make a massive fluctuation in music history. As music has played a role in these plagues, it would also play a role in recovering from them. Therefore, the public’s response to such crises would inform their decisions on the future music they would make, especially in a non-secular sense. How would people turn to religious music or create the fundaments for healing music to protect themselves and battle these epidemics?

After having lived through a global pandemic, though different than a dancing one, it is evident how societal perception and music production are altered in a state of crisis. For the people of 1518 Strasbourg and other towns that faced similar predicaments, perhaps, music contributed more to the formation of the traumatic event rather than just the remediation of it. By examining the various cases of choreomania, the dancing plague, St. Vitus’s dance, or whichever synonymous term you prefer, I strive for a sound theory into why this happened and how music played a role in its timeline. With my prior knowledge from the city of Strasbourg, I will examine the events and factors that constructed one of the silliest tragedies to have taken place, then branch into other locations of similar incidents. Dancing my way through Medieval and Renaissance Europe, I will encounter the music, divinity, and fear that these cities once faced in these unique fits of mania.

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1Dickason, “Stepping into a spiritual economy,” Abstract.

2Morens, “Mass Fainting at Medieval Rock Concerts,” Abstract.

3Kinder and Maureen, “A case of the dancing mania,” Abstract.