by Benji Colcher (7th)
One of the most memorable moments of the movie Hocus Pocus is the scene where the three witches cast a hex on everyone and force them to dance. How is that related to this article? Well, it can be traced back to 1518, during the Roman Empire, in the French town of Strasbourg. This event is known as the Dancing Plague of 1518, which is one of the most famous examples of mass hysteria.
Mass hysteria can be defined as a shared delusion and panic about a specific or set of events. In many cases, such as this one, people can get ill or even die from the communal anxiety caused by these events. During this specific event, people passed away from an unusual fatigue: dancing.
This event started when a woman known as Frau Troffea began to dance in the streets. After she collapsed from fatigue, she rested and returned back to dance again. After dancing for around a week, approximately thirty onlookers would join her. By the end, around four hundred people were affected by this mania. Doctors were called in, and the only thing they diagnosed was “hot blood”. And you know what they said the cure would be? More dancing.
You would think that after a bunch of people passed out and even died from fatigue and strokes, you wouldn’t encourage it to continue. But middle age medicine was deeply flawed, so musicians and bands came in and played music. It wasn’t until September when the council banned music, and the city whisked away the dancers to a mountain shrine in order to be forgiven by Saint Vitus, who was said to punish people by making them dance..
While this story may seem insane, many primary sources have been discovered. Similar occurrences also happened throughout Europe at the time, but they weren’t to the same degree.
Many historians have created their own theories on what may have happened. One of the most popular theories is that they were poisoned by a type of mold called ergot, which grew on rye and could cause delusions. You may have heard of LSD, which is made of ergotamine, which is contained in ergot. Mass hysteria was also a plausible idea, as there was a widespread fear during this period, and this may have led to chorea, which means “to dance” in Greek. Some people also believe that the Catholic Saint Vitus was the cause, as he believed that he could curse people to dance.
Now that you have some background information about mass hysteria, I would like to share two examples of this that I could find. This first one also takes place in France, and is known as the Meowing Nuns incident. This event is similar to the Dancing Plague in the sense where one person started doing something, and a bunch of other people joined. I assume France really is the embodiment of the saying “you wouldn’t jump off a bridge if your friends did”.
The story begins in a French covenant, where a nun started making meowing sounds (for some odd reason). Other nuns must have found this hilarious, as they also began to meow. Apparently, the sound echoed through the town, and the nuns only stopped after being threatened to be whipped. Now, hearing a bunch of nuns meowing must not be the most fun thing, but whipping feels excessive.
Unfortunately, this event seems to be partly lost in history. We have no idea where in France this occurrence happened, and the only source of information I could find is from The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, which is a collection of three books written by J. F. C. Hecker, who was a famous medical historian. Funnily enough, the book gives much detail about the Dancing Plague, including other events outside of the one in France. It is a very interesting read, and I linked the translated version in the citations below. However, the only mention of the meowing nuns is in the translation by Benjamin Guy Babington (the son of a psychiatrist), who put this note under the hysteria section;
Now, this is quite interesting, as he mentions reading it in a “good medical work”. Luckily, we know what this work is. The work is known as Solitude, written by Johann Georg Zimmermann. And I have to ask; who named him this? Come on, Mr. and Mrs. Zimmermann. You could have spelt it Johan George or something. No need for this monstrosity. Anyways, here is the excerpt;
But the problem with this note is that it only leaves us wondering; what is the original text? We may never know. It is likely that it is gone forever. In fact, there’s a chance that this event is completely made up. But then again, Solitude is a very credible source from what I could find.
Anyways, our last example is a change of pace from our last two, as it is a darker example of hysteria, and also the only one I actually knew about before researching for this article. This event is known as the Hammersmith Ghost murder case, which shaped the self-defense laws in modern England.
During the Napoleonic war in 1803, villagers in a town known as Hammersmith (located in the outskirts of London) reported that a ghost in white sheets terrorized them, and that it even assaulted them in a few cases. When the church bell would ring at one o’clock, the ghost would reportedly appear. People claimed that the ghost was the spirit of a man who had cut his own throat the previous year, and that it came from the graveyard near the church. Thus began the feeling of hysteria, which was shared between both residents and those traveling through the “quaint” village.
An unnamed pregnant woman later was reported to die from the fright of an encounter with the ghost, as it grabbed her as she ran away. A wagon driver was also frightened from an encounter, and he fled on foot while the passengers were just left there. I seriously hope that the ride was free, or that the passengers got their money back, because I personally would be annoyed if that happened to me.
Eventually, the residents got sick of the tormenting, so they banded together to prove that the ghost was actually just a person wearing white clothes. So men lined the village, and they were ready to shoot the perpetrator. One man reported that he saw the “ghost”, which was wearing a tablecloth.
The tragic day came on the third of January, 1804. A bricklayer named Thomas Milwood had left his home wearing white clothing that resembled the Hammersmith ghost. In fact, he was mistaken as the figure twice before, and his family even recommended not wearing the clothing. Nevertheless, he didn’t listen, and he was shot and killed by officer Francis Smith, who was wandering that night alone, looking for the specter. The coroner claimed that the act was one of willful murder, as the bullet went through his mouth and pierced the back of his neck.
Witnesses reported that Franics was a gentle soul, and that the lack of illumination made it difficult to see clearly. They also reported that the act was out of frustration for the failure to find the ghost. The jury attempted to rule it as manslaughter, but the judges disagreed, stating that there were no circumstances that would account for it being manslaughter rather than murder.
The judges argued that Milwood had not attempted to run away upon being sighted, and that even if he was the ghost, his crimes would only count up to a charge of being a nuisance, which wouldn’t serve many punishments.
This tragic case is sad on both accounts of Milwood and Smith, but it does have a few “good” outcomes. For one, shoemaker John Graham admitted to being the ghost, and that it was revenge for his apprentices telling his children scary stories. Which I mean, wanting to protect your kids is one thing, but this is just overly petty. However, reports of a fire-breathing version of this ghost later came out, but that became known as the Spring-heeled Jack incident, which is a whole other case of mass hysteria. And the second outcome was the development of modern self-defense laws in England. Safe to say, the real villains of this story are Graham’s children, as they got offended over nothing and caused multiple people to die. (That’s sarcasm. I don’t believe that the children are the murderers.)
Anyways, those were three famous examples of mass hysteria. See, the title doesn’t lie. Maybe I could do this again, but with some other stories, such as the Spring-heeled Jack incident listed above. Below are all the citations I used to write this, and I highly recommend checking them out, considering they go way more in depth than me.
Websites Sourced:
https://www.history.com/articles/what-was-the-dancing-plague-of-1518
https://www.britannica.com/event/dancing-plague-of-1518
https://www.curiousarchive.com/the-murky-truth-about-the-meowing-french-nuns/
https://gutenberg.org/files/63232/63232-h/63232-h.htm#FNanchor_102b
https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2015/10/the-case-of-a-ghost-haunted-england-for-over-two-hundred-years/