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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.
So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year. So you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.
This is an ad by BetterHelp. What?
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Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?
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Hi, friends. How are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. I'm dead. 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 I got my friends here. I have, if you're watching on YouTube, you could see my friend here, Joan Crawford. Joan?
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 you curious cats out there who think, hey, is history really as 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 our teachers never taught us 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 fucking too much. It's fucking too 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, oh, wow.
What 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 out of their ass. Every story is usually inspired from another story, you know, 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 it to stop. And they would do whatever it took to get them to stop dancing. And let me tell you, death by dancing, that's not a good thing.
Oh, it happened. It indeed happened. One of the reasons the dancing plague of 1518, yeah, I said this was a long-ass time ago. I wasn't 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 dancing mania, oh, yes, because there were many, many of them.
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. And with that being said... Footloose, scabloose, scoobop, ba-doop-a-da-boo, scoobop, 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. Whoa, Joan. She's crazy. Okay. Let's see. Where are we? So this story begins in Strasbourg, 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 moment. Okay. Anyway, Strasbourg was kind of...
It was kind of rough. And did I say kinda? 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 too.
Survive. 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-thens who had to go into battle for them, you know? Unfortunately, having no money just meant you had to do everyone else's dirty work. Just, again, if you were a peasant who wasn't starving or sick, you were probably going to go fight in a war.
So yeah, you get the idea. It just like 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, 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, peasants. 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 15, 18 people. There wasn't a lot to do. You went to church and you went home or you just existed pretty much. So men of 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 the 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 being there at 15, 19 or whatever. It's 9 a.m. You would wake up. Good morning, Strasburg. So happy to be here. Thank you. Thank you. And then you realize 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, but it's frozen over and you're like, well...
Shit. And then you pass out from exhaustion because goddamn, you're 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. Your then wife dies that night from who knows what, but she's gone now.
Okay, bye, 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 in his beautiful robe. He's living lavishly. He's drinking just the clearest bottle of Fiji 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 just need to pray more.
You haven't been Christian enough. I think that would piss any of us off, right? Well, you're probably thinking this may seem like a bit of a reach, but for many of the peasants living at 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 chugging clean water, living these great lavish lives. Well, I've been praying, sir, and like shit doesn't seem to be 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 and lands right near Strasbourg.
Oh yeah, you heard me right. 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?
But before we find out, let's pause for an ad break. I could use it. I have quite the headache. You get it? Because my head's cut off. I thought that was funny. Whatever.
whatever. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.
So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year. So you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.
Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?
BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere. And the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. 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 believe that this meteorite was a sign from Sky Daddy up above that they, 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 shit and now a meteorite? And then the church was now pointing the finger at them, blaming that they're sinning 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. It's how they 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 Kaiserberg.
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.
Johan fancied 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 seem to love those straight shooters.
But hey, everyone was totally buying whatever it was he was selling. They even called him the trumpet of Strasbourg Cathedral and people would travel from hundreds of miles away just to hear him speak. The most important thing to know about Johan is that he believed people could only be saved by the church. Point blank period. Okay. 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 extreme, to say the least. There was this one time he spoke to a crowd of around 600 monks and nuns. And then suddenly, just out of nowhere, 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, Johann was leading the new wave of Christianity in Strasbourg. 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 nay, nay, not in Sharsburg. They were boozing it up and living like a life of luxury, sleeping with the ladies of the night. Wink, wink, if you know what I mean. You know what I mean. You get it. And Von Kiki 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 meat, and sweet breads. I mean, incredible find. Who wouldn't take advantage of that? I would. But back then, you could not do this as a man of God. No, you could not. Especially when the people of Strasbourg were literally starving and going through the worst times.
It was just like a really bad look. And if anything added more fuel to Johan's fire of going off on the other church leaders, again, he wasn't wrong. Johan 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 moldy bread 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 Johan. And the way they were going to do this was by covering themselves head to toe in, like, as many jewels as possible. Yeah.
Oh yeah, and then they would just dress up looking their best, 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 horse shit shenanigans. During all of this pettiness, it got the people of Strasbourg thinking like, hey, what if, 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. Now, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, I know I hear you. You're like, Bailey, when are we 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. I have to take an ad break. Go potty. Hi. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.
So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.
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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 and the bad shit that was going on, right? Okay, yeah, great. So let's get back to that.
We've got years of bad harvests, 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 air horn. Thank you. That's right, syphilis.
Syphilis was new in town and she came running to party. She did. But back then there was no cure for syphilis. You just would die a very slow and miserable death. The famine and diseases all started affecting Strasbourg 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 sinning 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 Johan 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. R.I.P. 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 the story, the church was everything to these people. So going against this was like a very, very big deal. But
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 them. That's how you get them. And then Johan 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, everyone's freaking out. They truly believed without Johan 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 bellies,
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. Mm-hmm. I mean, everybody was freaking out, living in fear, and believing it. Now, wait until you hear about 1517. Girl. Joanne. Joanne.
Let me tell you. Joanne Crawford, 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? Not a damn thing. Let me tell you. This year was labeled by the people of Strasbourg as
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, real bad. Okay, my mind keeps going back to this one story from my life because this is, I think, a bad year. I think of this one story. It traumatized me forever. Okay.
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 slide, okay? And there's this girl who went down before me and she shit her pants. No, I swear, I swear. She shit her pants all the way down the slide. 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 this little girl comes up okay she's not even little she's like a preteen she knows better first of all she comes up and we're like don't go down she there's 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 it burned into my brain it was so gross it was so stinky 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 a bad year her chucky cheese adventure was over and when you get to go with chucky 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 and it just haunts you forever. I haven't gone down a 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. I bet 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 shit was real bad for them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then after this, guess what 1518 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 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. Ah!
But let's take a nap.
It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.
So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.
Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?
BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp.
Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. Hi, welcome back. It was an unusually warm July back in 1518. And a woman named Frau Trophia was a peasant who was experiencing everything that was going on firsthand.
And she was like freaking 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 get 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 Frau was like, "Hey, I'm just gonna 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 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 to foot. It was very unusual. And she did this day after day after day after day, etc., etc.,
Now, we don't really actually know what caused 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 with sweat. And she was doing this nonstop 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, gasp.
Because why else would anyone be able to dance at a time like that? I mean, there was 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 frickin' roll.
And therefore, she was indeed possessed. For sure. Yeah. So, Frau Girl, you've got the devil in you. Mm-hmm. But that didn't stop old Frau, that relentless 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 nonstop dancing.
So, wow. Yeah, no, probably not the time of her 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?
Oh, you know, again, yeah, duh, that makes sense. 'Cause 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 when 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? I don't know.
But by the time they sent her away, it was too late because now over 30 other people in town had started dancing uncontrollably in the streets. Dancing in the streets. Get it, Joan. Go, girl. Yeah. She got it. Yeah. Except there was like disease and poop everywhere.
Sorry about that. Can't forget the poop. So theories are going around and people are thinking that the dancing going on, maybe it came from a little saint named Saint Vitus. Now this is where it gets real complicated. Let me tell you, we had a real hard time with this one. Saint Vitus, he's a problem. Once upon a time, there was a man named Vitus 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 to pick one, pick a plague? Hmm.
It's kind of specific, weirdly specific, but okay, maybe he liked to dance, you know? So the people of Strasbourg began 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 believed 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 the church threw 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, do some dancing, right? The music doesn't stop. And voila, baby, these dancers are exhausted, right? There you have it. We solve the dancing plague. They can't dance. They can't dance anymore if they're exhausted. Beat 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 to listen to the song, right?
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, keep going. 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. Mm-hmm.
Just like get it 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, is 'cause 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 who are stuck dancing are now getting free food and water. And they're like, you know what? I got the dancing plate too. And they're 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, there 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 fair? Valid question.
Like I mentioned earlier, this started in July. So they had 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 wasn't all just fun and dancing. Nay nay. Of course not. This would actually start to become...
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So welcome back. So those in charge wanted to keep the dancers dancing and they hired what was described as quote, strong men, end quote, 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 nonstop 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. Were 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. We should just call them 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 in charge wanted the dancers 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 nonstop 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 Frout 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 makes sense. Wear red shoes. To historians, another thought behind the red shoes was that they represented St. Vitus, like in his burning feet. Remember the saint that was burned at 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 like the peasants are annoying us and dancing. So they decided what they were going to do is ban sinners, drunks, sex workers, gamblers, and any criminals in order to bring purity back into the town.
There's obviously like 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, it just stopped. It 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. Some think 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 this story? Or is that like a real thing? Red shoes? You know what I mean?
I don't know, but like there's just a lot of unanswered questions here. Great. Glad we're on the same page. So in the hundreds of years following this event, historians can't seem to agree on some of the specifics, but
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 Joan, I have a question for you. Have you ever heard of mass hysteria?
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 from the devil himself who made the people keep dancing as a form of odd punishment.
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 the 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's almost a thousand years ago. Exactly. Math. Yeah.
Anyways, it happened in a small town in Germany where 18 people danced outside of the church on Christmas Eve. And the church leader was so mad that they disrespected Jesus's birthday that 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 freaking 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 saddest 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 believe 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 turns into a ball of misery. But many think it was as contagious as a yawn. Yawn. You want to 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?
I didn't think 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 the lower class. The power of suggestion can be very intense and make you want to 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 to dance in 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 pleased 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?
There hasn't been another record of a dancing plague until the year 2011, when EDC started and people danced for three days straight. We don't know much about the dancing plague, except that it started with a woman. Eye 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. While 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 a bad thing. I mean, they were going through it. And also, groups of people who experience things like this tend to be separated from the community or society as a whole. The Dancing Plague 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 from 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? We're
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 a lot 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, somebody else had scary, I don't know, a one-eyed cow were 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 it 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 TikTok dances are the new dancing plague. I mean, there are people dancing on a public platform for me to see, and then the video might go viral. Voila, baby, it's the Dancing Plague 2021 edition. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Get it? Get it? I don't understand TikTok. They always stand there and just look miserable when they do it. They're like... It's just, it doesn't look fun.
Anyways, this story is very strange and I love it. Well, everyone, thank you so much for learning with me today. Now, I'd love to hear your reactions to the story. So make sure to use the hashtag dark history over on social media so I can read what you got to 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 Halloweeny. And I'll be talking to you next week.
Bye. I'm going to go die now. Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by me, Bailey Sarian, Chelsea Durgan from Slash Management, Kimberly Jacobs, and Ed Simpson from Wheelhouse DNA. Produced by Lexi Kiven, Daryl Christon, Spencer Strassmore, and Claire Turner. Research provided by Tisha Dunstan,
writers Jed Bookout, Michael Oberst, 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. Joan, are you doing okay? Girl, you are a ghost. I can't even see you right now. You like disappeared. Joan, Joan, where are you? Oh, Joan, there you are. You're so funny, girl.