The Dancing Plague Of Strasbourg

Both before and after the Renaissance, cities and towns in Europe were reportedly hit by epidemics of dance. Before you envision the scenes as something like a charming Broadway musical, know that the people affected by these odd epidemics truly believed themselves to be unwillingly forced to dance either by a supernatural curse or by some other strange disease. Of the areas affected by the peculiar dancing plagues, the city of Strasbourg suffered one of the worst cases and, thankfully for us, the bizarre event was well-documented and discussed by the historians and scholars of the time.

In July, 1518, the dancing plague of Strasbourg began when a certain Frau Troffea took to the street and spent the whole day in dance. She rested for only a few hours of sleep before continuing her dancing for another long day. She reportedly kept up this relentless schedule until her feet bled and she collapsed from exhaustion—and even then, she picked herself up and continued her dancing. Before long, other citizens of Strasbourg felt irresistibly drawn to the dance and they joined Frau Troffea in her daily routine. By August, there were reportedly no less than 400 people engaged in an endless dance on the streets of the city.

With hundreds of people dancing well past their physical limits, the leaders of Strasbourg knew their city was facing a major problem. At first, they thought that the epidemic could be brought to a quick conclusion by encouraging and supporting the dancers, hoping those affected would simply dance whatever was ailing them out of their systems. With this in mind, the officials of Strasbourg had a stage built, hired dance instructors, and even recruited musicians, turning the dancing plague into something like a music festival. Yet, as September neared and no end to the dancing was in sight, the leaders of Strasbourg began interpreting the dance in new ways. Some, through the ancient medical idea of bodily humors, believed that too much hot blood was the cause of the hysterical dancing. Others, inspired by the witch-crazed atmosphere of the Colonial Age, believed the dancing was the work of the Devil. Both sides, however, apparently agreed that the best way for the dancers to cool off their blood or rid themselves of demons was for the affected people to be forcibly sent off to a mountain shrine in order for them to pray for healing.

Either through prayer, or simply from the government crackdown on the dancers, the epidemic ended around September and the city finally returned to normalcy. The dancing fever, however, had by then taken a heavy toll. No formal death count was apparently recorded, but while the dancing plague was in full swing, several of the dancers were said to have dropped dead on a daily basis from over-exhaustion, heart failure or strokes.

Now that the understanding of medicine and psychology has progressed, several theories have been proposed to explain the bizarre dancing plague of Strasbourg. One of the early hypotheses was ergot poisoning. Ergot fungus, which can grow on cereals such as rye, can cause hallucinations and spasms when ingested. Yet, as the dancers showed no signs of bodily sickness or poisoning, this theory has been disregarded by many. One of the newest interpretations of the event is that the dancing plague was a case of mass-hysteria, or a psychogenic disorder, caused by an unhealthy atmosphere of stress and fear. The psychological pressures of famine, disease, and possibly the legend of St. Vitus (a saint who was said to miraculously make people dance), might have combined to produce the Dancing Plague of 1518.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Danse de noce, painted by Pieter Breughel the Younger (1564–1638), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• https://www.history.com/news/what-was-the-dancing-plague-of-1518
• https://www.britannica.com/event/dancing-plague-of-1518 
• https://listverse.com/2016/11/07/10-twisted-facts-about-the-dancing-plagues/ 
• https://www.pastmedicalhistory.co.uk/the-dancing-plague-of-1518/ 
• http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161028-the-town-the-nearly-danced-itself-to-death  

Emperor Otto III Added A Golden Nose To The Body Of Charlemagne

Otto III, born in 980, was an ambitious, but short-lived, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He was deemed old enough to rule in 994, at the age of fourteen. His dream was the renewal of the ancient Roman Empire, a passion probably fanned by Otto’s mother, Theophano, an imperial princess from the remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire, centered in the Byzantine city of Constantinople.

Before the turn of the century, Otto III dramatically expanded his influence into Rome. In 996, Otto coerced the church to elect his cousin, Bruno of Carinthia, a man of only twenty-three years, as the next pope. Bruno took the name, Gregory V, and used his papal authority to confer on Otto III the lofty title of Holy Roman Emperor. Almost immediately after Otto left Rome, Pope Gregory was deposed, but the emperor returned to Italy in 997 and, by early 998, he deposed the new rival pope, reinstated Gregory V, and executed the instigator of the resistance. When Pope Gregory V died in 999, Emperor Otto III once again took it upon himself to choose who would be the next head of the church. This time Otto’s own tutor, Gerbert of Aurillac, became pope, taking the name Pope Sylvester II. Around this time, Otto III also made Rome his capital city, a move that unnerved both Germans and Italians.

In the year 1000, Otto III may have wanted some time to reflect. The twenty-year-old emperor took several pilgrimages that year. He went to Gniezno, Poland, to visit the tomb of archbishop Adelbert of Prague. More importantly, he entered the tomb of Charlemagne in Aachen and viewed the great king’s remains. By that point, Charlemagne had been dead for nearly two centuries, so what Otto saw laying in the tomb was quite decayed and shriveled, albeit still decently intact for such an old corpse. According to the tales about Otto’s visit to the tomb of Charlemagne, he trimmed the fingernails of the deceased king, which decomposition had made to seem as if they had grown long. In addition to this, although the body of Charlemagne was still mostly whole, much of the king’s nose had crumbled away. To remedy this, Otto had a golden nose cap fashioned and placed it on Charlemagne’s face. Despite fixing Charlemagne’s countenance, Otto also took with him one of Charlemagne’s teeth as a lucky keepsake. Nevertheless, the relic from the tomb of Charlemagne did not save Emperor Otto III. He died of illness two years later while his empire was faced with revolt.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

• Two Lives of Charlemagne, by Einhard and Notker the Stammer (Introduction), translated by David Ganz. New York: Penguin Classics, 2008.
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Otto-III 
• https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/death-emperor-otto-iii

Holy Roman Emperor Vs. Holy Roman Father—Henry IV Against The Popes

Henry IV (c. 1050-1106), an emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, lived quite an extraordinarily chaotic life in the Middle Ages. Although he was ruler the Holy Roman Empire for most of his reign, he had a dismal relationship with the spiritual leaders of Christendom, the popes. Even so, the Christian religion played an extremely prominent role in Henry’s life.

Henry IV became the ruler of the Germany-centered Holy Roman Empire in 1056, upon the death of his father, Henry III. As the child-emperor was too young to rule, his mother, Empress Agnes, served as the regent ruler, with helpful aid and advice from Pope Victor II. Unfortunately, the helpful pope only lived until 1057, and after his death, the empress had no luck acquiring competent and loyal advisors. For the next few years, Empress Agnes allowed the regional rulers of the empire to dramatically strengthen themselves against the crown. It would have been an odd childhood experience for Henry IV—the young ruler was even kidnapped in 1062 by the archbishop of Cologne, a man named Anno, who consequently replaced Empress Agnes as regent. The empress was not injured in the change of power, but she did retire to a convent soon after the event.

When Henry IV became old enough to rule by himself in 1065, he shed himself of the regents and other influencers, but found himself in charge of an unstable realm. Nevertheless, he quickly asserted his rule and soon the relationship between the monarch and his vassals began to strain. He announced that he wanted to divorce his wife of three years and also launched building projects at the expense of his vassals in the Harz Mountains. Unfortunately, the emperor’s desire for a divorce caused outrage among the religious circles, and the his construction projects in the Harz Mountains set the region of Saxony on a course toward rebellion.

Henry IV was eventually talked out of pursuing divorce, but the threat of a Saxon uprising persisted. Despite, or possibly because of, the arrest of Duke Magnus of Saxony, the Saxons rebelled in 1073, beginning the first of many military challenges to the rule of Henry IV. The rebels were initially successful. In 1074, they had Henry IV momentarily ready to concede to their demands, but he was able to come back and crush the rebellion in 1075.

While Henry IV was dealing with the Saxons, he was also negotiating with Pope Gregory VII over who should become archbishop of Milan. The Pope and the emperor had separate nominees for the position. While Henry IV had been preoccupied with the Saxon rebellion, he had seemed willing to follow the Pope’s lead on the nomination. After the rebellion was defeated, however, Henry IV defied the Pope’s wishes and named a chaplain from the German court as the archbishop of Milan.

The fiasco over the archbishop of Milan caused an ongoing feud between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. In response to Henry’s decision in Milan, the Pope excommunicated the emperor from the Catholic Church in 1076 and revoked Henry’s divine right to rule, basically giving the regional nobility of the Holy Roman Empire a religious reason to rebel against their king.

The pope’s ploy worked—regions of the empire became so hostile to Henry IV that he was forced to sneak through the Alps to meet with Pope Gregory VII at Canossa, within the realm of Mathilda of Tuscany. There, in 1077, Henry IV put on a grand display of humble penitence for Pope Gregory VII, reportedly even including the wearing of sackcloth clothing. Whatever happened at Canossa, it was convincing enough that Pope Gregory readmitted Henry IV to the Catholic Church and restored his divine right to rule.

With the pope’s forgiveness, Henry IV won back the support of many of his countrymen. Even so, plots were already in motion and factions began to coalesce behind their own claimants to the throne. The most important of these rebels was Rudolf, the Duke of Swabia, who fought against Henry IV for around three years. Pope Gregory VII eventually decided to give official support to Rudolf in 1080, when he once again excommunicated Henry IV and voided his right to rule. Unfortunately for Pope Gregory VII, he backed the wrong faction—Rudolf died in battle before the end of the year.

Henry IV did not forgive the papacy for its meddling. He convened his own religious synod, where he denounced Pope Gregory VII and set up a man named Guibert, the archbishop of Ravenna, as a rival pope. Once Henry IV had contained the rebellions in his own empire, he turned his forces against Rome, where he sieged the city unsuccessfully in 1081 and 1082, but finally forced his way into the city in 1084. In Rome, Henry’s anti-pope, Guibert, took the name Clement III and attempted to replace the exiled Pope Gregory VII as the head of the Catholic Church. Henry also took advantage of the occasion to officially receive the lofty title of Holy Roman Emperor, which had until then been withheld from him by the pope.

Even though the anti-pope, Clement III, was residing in Rome, the legitimate line of popes was still maneuvering behind the scenes to undermine Henry IV. Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) incited and supported leagues and rebellions against Henry IV, managing to even turn the emperor’s sons (Conrad and Henry V) against their father.

Understandably, Henry IV tried to calm relations, both with his vassals and the Catholic Church. He tried to enforce peace between feuding lords and hoped to gain a pardon from the Church in exchange for going on crusade. His son, however, decided it was time to break away from his controversial father—Henry V rebelled in 1104 and successfully forced his father to abdicate in 1105. Nevertheless, the stubborn Henry IV somehow escaped, raised an army and defeated his son in battle, shortly before dying suddenly in 1106.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Top picture: (Emperor Henry IV (by John Foxe, c. 1563) and Pope Gregory VII (printed 1891), both [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Introduction to Medieval Europe, 300-1500 (Second Edition) by Wim Blockmans and Peter Hoppenbrouwers. New York: Routledge, 2014. 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-IV-Holy-Roman-emperor 
• https://www.biography.com/people/henry-iv-9335166 
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/spanish-and-portuguese-history-biographies/henry-iv-holy-roman-empire 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-III-Holy-Roman-emperor 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Gregory-VII 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clement-III-antipope