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Frau Troffea and the Medieval Curse of Uncontrollable Dancing
The story of the truly bizarre medieval phenomenon called choreomania
In July 1518 a woman named Frau Troffea began dancing in the middle of the street. Within the next four days, thirty-three others had joined her, and within a month, 400 people were dancing, many of whom suffered heart attacks and died. Why was there so much dancing in medieval times?
What sounds like a flashmob today, back then, was a dangerous social phenomenon. This well-reported phenomenon affected children, men, and women, mostly in central Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. These spontaneous and continuous dancing to exhaustion and sometimes death were regularly reported and seemed to be contagious, with one of the most notorious dancing marathons taking place in June of 1374 in Aachen, Germany, before it spread to other sites such as Flanders, Cologne, Utrecht, and later Italy.
According to Jem Duducu, the dancing plague was also known as the St. Vitus dance. It was believed to be the saints’ curse that led to wild dancing. Therefore, people of the time would pray extensively and go on pilgrimages to places dedicated to Vitus. When some victims of dance mania recovered after such a pilgrimage, according to Jem Duducu, “it further bolstered the perceived…
