# The St Vitus cult, the Saverne shrine, the earlier "dancing" outbreaks, and the ritual reading of 1518 Scope: religious and cultural context of the Strasbourg dance of July–September 1518 (the other notes cover the 1518 record itself, Waller/Backman, Paracelsus, medicine, climate). Everything quoted below was read in the edition cited unless marked **UNVERIFIED (from memory)** or "via X" (= quoted at second hand from a source I did read). Source files and URLs: `sources/context/E_SOURCES.md`. Summary of the main findings: 1. **No Strasbourg chronicle records dancers in 1374.** Königshofen's chronicle (CdS 9) has for 1374 only a flood entry (transcribed below, pp. 866–867); Hegel's glossary has no *tanz* entry, the OCR of CdS 8–9 has none, and neither Hecker, Martin, Midelfort nor Rohmann cites Königshofen for 1374. The "1374 on the Rhine" outbreak is documented for Aachen, Cologne, Maastricht, Utrecht, Liège, Tongeren, Metz, the Moselle and the Lahn (Limburg), not for Strasbourg. 2. **"Strasbourg 1418" is a historiographical ghost** created by Schilter (1698), Boersch (1836), Hecker (1832) and Häser; the only genuine 15th-century Upper-Rhine records are Zurich 1418/1428 and 1452 (St Vitus's day), and the 1463 cluster (Metz, Obernai, Eberhardsklausen, Luxembourg), all tied to **St John**, not St Vitus. 3. **St Vitus is named as the disease's patron in Alsace only from the 15th century** (Rottweil law 1485 curse; Zurich 1452; Strasbourg 1518). The 1374 sources call it St John's dance (Trithemius, writing c. 1500, is the first I found to gloss it "S. Veits Tantz"). 4. **The Saverne/Hohlenstein shrine** is documented from 1338 (grotto), 1508 (donation register), 1518 (first mention of a chapel, in Brant's annals); the 1518 rite (sung offices, circumambulation of the altar, pfennig offering; red shoes with chrism crosses and holy water according to Specklin c. 1580) is described below with the texts. 5. **The 2018 Strasbourg historians** (Clementz, Bischoff, Poma, Gotman; curator Dupeux) put the number of dancers at "quelque cinquante", find **no death in any contemporary document**, treat Frau Troffea as an invention of Paracelsus (first printed 1565), and reject ergotism; Rohmann (2009–2023) reads the phenomenon as a religiously constructed illness/ritual, while conceding "Wir wissen noch nicht, was konkret passiert ist". --- ## 1. Dated table of documented "dancing" episodes in the Empire and its borderlands, 1021–1550 Legend — Saint: which saint the source itself names. Status: C = contemporary or near-contemporary record; L = later chronicle/legend; S = spurious/uncertain. | Date | Place | Source (edition, page) | What the source records | Saint | Status | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | "1021" (variants 1012/1013/1020) | Kölbigk (Cölbigk, Anhalt) | Otbert's *relatio*, ed. E. Schröder, ZKG 17 (1897) p. 101 ff.; *Cronica minor Minoritae Erphordensis*, MGH SS rer. Germ. 42, p. 628 | 18 people (15 men, 3 women) dance and sing in the churchyard during Christmas matins; the priest curses them to dance for a year "per merita sancti Magni"; they dance a year without food or sleep; released by Archbishop Heribert of Cologne; four die at once; the survivors wander as sick beggars. | St Magnus (church patron); the curse of a priest | L (legend, written 11th–12th c.) | | 1237, 15 July | Erfurt → Arnstadt | *Liber cronicorum Erfordensis*, MGH SS rer. Germ. 42, p. 763; *Excerpta Conradi Stolle*, ibid. p. 808 | "Anno Domini MCCXXXVII. Idus Iulii pueri Erfordenses, millenarium excedentes numerum, ducentes coream usque Arnstete venerunt." (More than a thousand Erfurt children came dancing as far as Arnstadt.) | none | L (transmitted in 15th-c. Erfurt compilations; I did not find it in the older *Cronica S. Petri moderna* in the same volume) | | 1278 (17 June) | bridge at Utrecht (or Maastricht / a Moselle bridge) | Martinus Minorita (via Martin 1914 p. 239; Schröder 1897 p. 159) | c. 200 dancers on a bridge would not stop when a priest passed with the Host; the bridge broke and they drowned. Bartholomew 2000 p. 42 adds a chapel of St Vitus where survivors were healed — from Backman, **UNVERIFIED** | (St Vitus only in Backman) | L | | 1374, mid-July → Oct.; aftershocks 1375–78 | Aachen (dedication feast, 15/16 July), Cologne, Maastricht, Utrecht, Liège, Tongeren, Herstal, Hainaut; "auf dem Rhein und auf der Mosel"; Metz; Limburg an der Lahn | Limburg chronicle § 97 (Wyss p. 64); Koelhoff 1499 (CdS 14, 715, via Martin); Radulphus de Rivo (Chapeaville III, cap. IX); *Chronicon Belgicum Magnum* (Pistorius 1654 p. 319, via Hecker app.); Petrus de Herentals (Mollat I, 465–467, s.a. **1375**); Trithemius, *Chron. Sponheim.* (1601) p. 332 | see § 2 below: "more than 500 dancers" in Cologne (Limburg); "in multorum milium multitudinem" at Liège (Radulphus); 1,100 at Metz (Hecker's source, **UNVERIFIED**); "sanati … plusquam tria milia" (Zantfliet, in Chapeaville's *Annotationes*); exorcisms at Liège; sect/possession/mania/fraud language; no deaths reported by the 14th-c. texts | **St John** ("Here sent Johan"; "chorea S. Johannis") | C | | 1374 | Strasbourg | — | **No record found**: Königshofen (CdS 9, pp. 866–867) records only floods and dearth for 1374; Midelfort 1999 p. 33 lists Strasbourg among 1373–74 places citing Liebscher 1931 — **UNVERIFIED** | — | S | | 1375, 1381 | France/Hainaut/Holland; Augsburg | Midelfort 1999 p. 33 (citing Liebscher 1931 pp. 7–15) | further outbreaks | — | **UNVERIFIED** | | 1418 or 1428 | Zurich, Wasserkirche | Rats- und Richtbücher (Vögelin 1848, via Martin 1914 pp. 225–226) | Heini Murer testifies he "in der Wasserkilchen stund und den armen Frowen zulugte, die da tanzeten"; Heini Harnischmacher pushed the crowd back "daß der Luft zu ihnen ginge". Vögelin dated it 1418; Martin found 1428 in the Usteri MSS and was told by the Staatsarchiv the entry lies between 1428 and 1418 material, "eher zu 1428". | not named (Martin conjectures a St Vitus altar) | C (year uncertain) | | 1418 | **Strasbourg** | Schilter 1698 p. 1085 ff. heading "St. Veits Tantz An. 1418"; Boersch 1836; Hecker 1832 pp. 7–8; Häser | verses and council ordinance that belong to **1518** (see § 3.1) | St Vitus | **S — spurious** | | 1428 | Schaffhausen, St Agnes convent | Midelfort 1999 p. 33 (citing Liebscher) | "a monk danced until he died" | — | **UNVERIFIED** | | 1452, 15 June | Zurich, Helmhaus (porch of the Wasserkirche) | Rats- und Richtbücher (Vögelin, via Martin p. 225) | Hans Schiltknecht: "ein armer Mensch [habe] an St. Vits Tag uf dem Helmhaus … getanzet"; the poor man called on him for help "in seinen Nöthen" and he danced with him; four fellows mocked him | **St Vitus's day** | C | | 1463/64 | Metz and "plussours lieux" | Husson, *Chronique de Metz*, ed. Michelant 1870, p. 97; a second Metz chronicle quoted in the teachers' dossier (probably Vigneulles — **UNVERIFIED**) | "moult de gens dansoient du bien sainct Jehan … le plus jonnes gens, hommes et femmes, et dansoient tant et si longuement que n'en pouvoient plus et chéoient par terre quasy comme morts, et s'en vint beaucoup en Mets; maix on les fit mener fuer et deffendre qu'ils ne revenissent plus"; "dansoient et tripoient qausy jour et nuyt, sans laichier, par X, par XII, et par grant troppeau" | **St John** ("le bien sainct Jehan") | C | | 1463 | Obernai (Oberehnheim) | Stadtrechnungen, ed. Clementz, cat. 2018 p. 136 no. 1, quoted Rohmann 2020 pp. 227–228 | "Item den siechen tantzenden luten, die von sant Johans zu Passel harkoment, geben 1 ß" — a shilling given to the sick dancing people who came from Saint-Jean-de-Bassel (Lorraine) | **St John** (priory of Saint-Jean-de-Bassel) | C | | 1463 | Eberhardsklausen (Moselle), pilgrimage shrine | Wilhelm von Bernkastel's miracle book (1491), ed. Hoffmann/Dohms 1988 pp. 110–11, via Midelfort 1999 pp. 32–33 | "hopping dancers from many lands came here to be healed"; "they called upon St. John the Baptist, whose disease [plagam] they said this was"; could not perceive red; saw the head of John the Baptist swimming in blood; coral given to drink and worn; "Some of them jumped until their ribs or loins broke, and they died"; illness lasted half a year for some | **St John** | C (record of 1491) | | 1463 | Luxembourg | Rohmann 2020 p. 228 ("Metz, Luxemburg und Eberhardsklausen", referring to Rohmann 2018) | — | — | **UNVERIFIED** | | 1518, c. 14/15 July – Sept. | Strasbourg | council records (AVES III 200/15 = old GUP 200; 1 MR 3 f. 72r; ADBR 12 J 1495); "Brant's annals" (Wencker's extracts); Gebwiler (Stenzel 1926 pp. 74–75); Imlin; Specklin c. 1580; Schadaeus; Kleinlawel 1625; Wencker 1637 | see the other notes; numbers: "uff fünfzig personen" (annals), 34 in four days then >200 (Schadaeus), ">400 Dantzer" in four weeks (Imlin), ">100 auff einmal" (Specklin). Deaths: none in contemporary records (Clementz); "Viel sind Todt drüber blieben" (Kleinlawel 1625); "Viel tanzten sich zu tode" (Specklin) | **St Vitus** at Hohlenstein/Saverne | C | | 1518 | Basel ("vereinzelt") | Rohmann 2020 p. 215 | — | — | **UNVERIFIED** (possibly Platter's case, below) | | 1533 (18 March) | Wittenberg (table talk) | WA TR 2 Nr. 1879, via Rohmann 2020 p. 215 | Melanchthon: "S[anct] veits tantz est mera obsessio Diaboli"; Luther: "Das gespenst nimpt seer ab" | St Vitus's dance as a term | C | | c. 1536–45 | Basel, Aeschenvorstadt | Felix Platter, *Observationes* (1614) and *Praxis medica*, via Martin 1914 pp. 124–125 | a woman danced c. a month, day and night, with strong men hired by the magistrate to dance with her in turns until she collapsed; taken to hospital and recovered (Gross 1614 adds: men in red clothes with white feathers) | none (civic "dancing-down") | C (memory of childhood) | | 16th c. (before 1584/1598), annual | Biesheim (Alsace, St John) and Wasenweiler (Kaiserstuhl, St Vitus) | Schenck von Grafenberg, *Observationes* (1584/1597; 1665 ed. p. 144), via Martin pp. 126–127 and Rohmann 2020 (who corrects Schenck's confusion of the two places) | every year on the eve of St John the sufferers of the Breisgau gather at the two shrines and dance "nach deutschem Reigen"; in the preceding month they feel "rupfende und gleichsam hüpfende Schmerzen"; after three hours of dancing they are free for the year | St John / St Vitus | C | | 16th c. | Ravensburg, Veitsberg chapel | Camerarius 1610, via Martin p. 125 | "die Schar der Tanzenden [brachte] gleichsam jenem Heiligen Opfer … und [war] gewohnt hierher mit Tanzen Zuflucht zu nehmen"; access later stopped | St Vitus | C | | (1547, 15 June) | Strasbourg | AMS X 140 (exhibited 2018) | ban on dances — not an outbreak | — | C | | (beyond 1550, for the ritual reading) | Breisach 1602 (Anna Schön, "St Johans Tanz": Rohmann 2020); Drefelhausen near Geislingen, women dancing every year at the St Vitus chapel around St Vitus's day (Horst 1625, via Martin p. 127); Echternach hopping procession (§ 7) | | | | | Not found in any source I read: a dancing episode dated 1463 *in Strasbourg*, or anything in Alsace between 1463 (Obernai) and 1518. --- ## 2. The 1374 outbreak: texts ### 2.1 Königshofen (Jakob Twinger von Königshofen, Strasbourg chronicle) — the 1374 entries Edition: *Die Chroniken der oberrheinischen Städte. Straßburg*, Bd. 2 (= *Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte* 9), ed. C. Hegel, Leipzig 1871, Fünftes Capitel, section "Grosse wassere" (Bl. 259b–261a), **pp. 866–867** (page images viewed: IA `diechronikender00kommgoog`, PDF pp. 372–373). The entry follows the 1343 floods and precedes 1385 and 1404: > Do men zalte 1374 jor, do hette es lange zit und vil geregent und entsprungent vil ertbrüche uf den bergen do das wasser herus lief, das boume und steine und hüser enweg fürte. hievon koment drü grosse wasser eines jores, die ein wenig minre worent denne die vorgeschriben wasser: das erste kam uf den zwelften dag, daz ander uf sant Agnesen dag, das dirte umb sant Veltins dag. ouch zwüschent disen drigen wassern do sü ingefallen worent, do was noch denne das wasser eines halben mannes höher denne sin gewönlich louf ist. dis werte wol ein viertel jores. das wasser was so gros, das men mit schiffen durch den Giessen für zü unser frowen brüder tor us¹. es ging ouch in die hüser am staden und do umb. [p. 867:] und wart ouch malen hiezwüschent dicke also türe, das men underwilent kein brot veil vant zü Strosburg. > > (margin: "vgl. Matth. Nuw. cont. 215 (294). Jan. 6. Jan. 21. Febr. 14."; ¹ "Auch Spitalthor, Stadtplan f.") Translation: "In the year 1374 it had rained for a long time and much, and many landslides broke out on the mountains where the water ran out, which carried away trees and stones and houses. From this came three great floods in one year, a little smaller than the floods described above: the first came on Twelfth Day [6 Jan.], the second on St Agnes's day [21 Jan.], the third about St Valentine's day [14 Feb.]. Also between these three floods, after they had fallen, the water still stood half a man's height above its usual course. This lasted a good quarter of a year. The water was so great that people went by boat through the Giessen out to the Carmelites' gate. It also entered the houses on the Staden and thereabouts. And meanwhile flour was often so dear that at times one found no bread for sale in Strasbourg." **No dancers entry.** What I checked: (a) both OCR layers of CdS 8 and CdS 9 (Google OCR and IA hOCR) for *tanz/tantz/danz/dantz* and Fraktur-garbled variants: 0 hits; (b) Hegel's Glossar to CdS 8–9 (pp. 1087–1089 "D. T.", 1095–1099, 1110, 1122, 1125–1126): no *tanz/danz* lemma; (c) neither Hecker 1832 (pp. 1–8), Martin 1914, Midelfort 1999 nor Rohmann 2020 cites Königshofen for 1374. I therefore conclude that the request's premise (a Königshofen entry on the 1374 dancers) is mistaken, unless it hides in Königshofen's Latin recension or in the anonymous continuations, which I could not search page by page. The flood-and-dearth entry is nevertheless the relevant "weather context": all three 1374 witnesses (Königshofen, Limburg, Trithemius) record an exceptional Rhine flood in January–February 1374, five months before the dancing began. ### 2.2 The Limburg chronicle, § 97 (Tilemann Elhen von Wolfhagen) Edition: *Die Limburger Chronik des Tilemann Elhen von Wolfhagen*, ed. Arthur Wyss, MGH Deutsche Chroniken 4,1 (Hannover 1883), **§ 97, p. 64, lines 10–31** (MS fol. 24–24'), transcribed from the MDZ page image (scan 67). The preceding § 96 (p. 63–64) is the great flood of Shrovetide 1374 (Vogel's ed. dates it "Anno 1373"), followed by § 98, the song "Gepuret reine und suberlich", and § 99 (Friedrich von Saarwerden elected archbishop of Cologne, 1374): > 97. Item da man schreip druzenhondert jar unde in dem vir unde sibenzigesten jare zu mittesomer da irhup sich ein wunderlich gedinge uf ertrich unde sunderlichen in Duschem lande uf dem Rine unde uf der Moseln, also daz lude huben an zu danzen unde zu rasen, unde stunden i zwei gen ein unde danzeten uf einer stat einen halben dag, unde in dem danzen so filen si etwan dicke nider uf di erden unde ließen sich mit fußen dretten uf iren lip; da von namen si sich an, daz si genesen weren. Unde lifen von einer stat unde von einer kirchen zu der andern unde huben gelt von den luden, wo in daz sin mochte. Unde wart di dinge also vil, daz man zu Colne in der stat me dan funfhondert denzer fant. Unde fant man, daz ez duisserie was unde ketzerie, unde geschach umb geldes willen, daz ir endeiles frauwen unde manne in unkuscheit mochten leben unde di vollen zum bringen. Unde fant man, daz zu Collen me dan hondert frauwen unde dinstmeide, di nit eliche manne enhatten, di worden in der danzerie alle kinde tragen. Unde wanne daz si danzeten, so bonden unde knebelten si sich umb den lip hart zu, daz si deste geringer weren. Heruf sprechent endeiles meister, sunderlichen di guden arzide, daz endeiles worden danzen, di von heißer naturen waren, unde von anderen gebrechlichen naturlichen sachen. Danne der was wenig, den daz geschach. Di meister von der heiligen schrift di besworen der denzer endeiles, di meinten, daz si beseßen weren von dem bosen vigende. Also nam ez ein betrogen ende. Unde werte wol seszen wochen in disen landen oder in der maße. Auch namen di vurgenanten denzer, so manne so frauwen, sich ane, daz si kein rot gewant mochten gesehen. Unde was ez allez duisserie, unde ist ez vurbotschaft gewest Endecristes nach mime bedunken. Translation: "97. In the year 1374 at midsummer a strange thing arose on earth, and especially in German lands on the Rhine and on the Moselle, in that people began to dance and to rave, and they stood two facing each other and danced in one place half a day, and in the dancing they often fell down on the ground and let themselves be trodden on their bodies with feet; from that they claimed that they were healed. And they ran from one town and from one church to another and collected money from the people wherever they could get it. And the thing became so widespread that in the city of Cologne more than five hundred dancers were found. And it was found that it was a deception and heresy, and was done for money's sake, so that some of them, women and men, could live in unchastity and bring it about. And it was found that in Cologne more than a hundred women and maidservants who had no husbands all became pregnant in the dancing. And when they danced they bound and tied themselves hard around the body so that they would be thinner. On this some masters, especially the good physicians, said that some took to dancing who were of a hot nature, and from other infirm natural causes; but those to whom that happened were few. The masters of Holy Scripture exorcised some of the dancers, holding that they were possessed by the evil fiend. So it came to a deceitful end. And it lasted a good sixteen weeks in these lands or thereabouts. Also the aforesaid dancers, men as well as women, claimed that they could not look at red clothing. And it was all deception, and it was a forerunner of Antichrist in my opinion." (Vogel's 1828 edition, pp. 71–73, prints the same text in modernised form under "Anno 1374 zu mitten im Sommer"; Martin 1914 pp. 227–228 quotes it from Rössel 1860 p. 56 with the misprint "An. 1347".) ### 2.3 Radulphus de Rivo, dean of Tongeren (d. 1403), *Gesta pontificum Leodiensium*, on John of Arkel, cap. IX Edition read: Chapeaville, *Qui gesta pontificum … Leodiensium scripserunt auctores praecipui*, t. III (Liège 1616), cap. IX (page number not legible in the OCR; Martin cites "III, 19 ss."). Opening (normalised from the OCR; margin: "Daemoniaci ac tripudiantes Leodii, Traiecti, Tongris, & vicinis in partibus per saeculares sacerdotes liberantur"): > Hoc eodem anno 1374. mense Iulio, ipsa dedicationis Ecclesiae Aquensis, quae est altera divisionis Apostolorum, admirabilis hominum secta, ex superioribus Germaniae partibus primo Aquisgranum, inde Traiectum, & tandem circa mensem Septembrem Leodium advenit. Horum tale erat institutum. Utriusque sexus homines daemonibus possessi seminudi sertis capita cingebant, choreas non in plateis tantum, sed & in Ecclesiis & domibus absque ullo pudore ducebant, nomina Daemonum hactenus inaudita in carminibus suis usurpabant; choreis finitis eos Daemones gravissimis pectoris doloribus cruciabant, ita ut nisi nexibus quibusdam umbilicatim fortiter stringerentur, magnis furiosisque ululatibus se mori proclamarent. Haec secta a mense Septembri in Octobrem (mirum, verum tamen dictu) in multorum milium multitudinem excrevit: Nam & ex Germania huc quotidie chorisantes confluebant, & Leodii vicinisque in provinciis plurimi sani mentisque compotes extemplo a Daemonibus arripiebantur, aliis chorisantibus datis dextris se adiungentes. Causam huiusmodi sectae Diabolicae non aliam viri prudentes assignabant, quam fidei, & praeceptorum Dei, quae per id tempus regnabat, crassam ignorantiam. Non deerant tamen e vulgo qui in sacerdotes concubinarios culpam reiicerent, quod per eos minus recte pueri baptisarentur … Translation: "In this same year 1374, in the month of July, on the very day of the dedication of the church of Aachen, which is the day after the Division of the Apostles [i.e. 16 July], an astonishing sect of people came from the upper parts of Germany first to Aachen, then to Maastricht, and finally around September to Liège. Their custom was this: persons of both sexes possessed by demons, half naked, wreathed their heads with garlands, led dances not only in the streets but also in churches and houses without any shame, and used in their songs names of demons never heard before; when the dances were over, the demons tormented them with the most severe pains of the breast, so that unless they were tightly bound with certain bands about the navel they cried out with great furious howls that they were dying. This sect grew from September into October (marvellous but true to say) into a multitude of many thousands: for dancers flowed in daily from Germany, and in Liège and the neighbouring provinces very many sane people in possession of their minds were suddenly seized by demons and joined the other dancers hand in hand. Prudent men assigned no other cause of this diabolical sect than the gross ignorance of the faith and of God's commandments which reigned at that time. Yet there were some among the common people who threw the blame on concubinary priests, that through them children were baptised less than correctly …" The chapter continues (read in the OCR; German summary in Martin 1914 pp. 229–230, after Förstemann): the thurifer of Holy Cross, Liège, who "credo in diabolum", cured by the stole and the Church's exorcism; the dancers assembled at Herstal on All Saints' eve planning to kill the clergy of Liège, then submitting to exorcism; Dr Ludovicus Loves exorcising ten dancers in succession with "In principio erat verbum"; cures by the Host, holy water, the priest's finger, breathing; the demon's confession that "we possess only common people now, but would have entered the rich and powerful and driven the clergy from Liège"; the priest Simon at Aachen who immersed a possessed girl up to the mouth in holy water — the demon spoke like a trumpet, and after drownings in the Carlsbad (Aachen's hot bath) the bath was closed; the sect diminished within a year, with cases "for three or four years" after. Chapeaville's *Annotationes* to the chapter add the *Chronicon Belgicum* text and quote Zantfliet that "sanati [sunt] credo plusquam tria milia" (more than three thousand were healed, I believe) — the only numerical claim of that order. ### 2.4 Petrus de Herentals, prior of Floreffe, *Quinta vita Gregorii XI* Edition: Baluze, *Vitae paparum Avenionensium*, ed. G. Mollat, t. I (Paris 1914), **pp. 465–467** (mss A = Brussels, Bibl. royale lat. 12000 fol. 146; B = Paris BN lat. 4931A fol. 230). Note that this witness dates the sect to **1375**: > Ejus tempore, videlicet anno Domini MCCCLXXV, mira secta tam virorum quam mulierum venit Aquisgrani de partibus Alamannie, et ascendit usque Hannoniam seu Franciam; cujus talis fuit conditio. Nam homines utriusque sexus illudebantur a demonio taliter quod, tam in domibus quam in plateis et in ecclesiis, se invicem manibus tenentes chorizabant et in altum sic saltabant, ac quedam nomina demoniorum nominabant, videlicet Friskes et similia, nullam cognitionem in hujusmodi chorizatione nec verecundiam sui propter astantes populos habentes. Et in fine hujus chorizationis in tantum circa pectoralia torquebantur quod, nisi mappulis lineis a suis amicis per medium ventris fortiter stringerentur, quasi furiose clamabant se mori. Hii vero in Leodio per conjurationes sumptas de illis que in cathecismo ante baptismum fiunt, a demonio liberabantur, et sanati dicebant quod videbatur eis quod in hora hujus chorizationis erant in fluvio sanguinis et propterea sic in altum saltabant. Vulgus autem, apud Leodium, dicebat quod hujusmodi plaga populo contigisset eo quod populus male baptizatus erat, maxime a presbiteris suas tenentibus concubinas. Et propter hoc proposuerat vulgus insurgere in clerum eos occidendo et bona eorum diripiendo, nisi Deus de remedio providisset per conjurationes predictas. Quo viso, cessavit tempestas vulgi taliter quod clerus multo plus a populo fuit honoratus. > De ista autem chorizatione seu secta talia exstant rigmata: Oritur in seculo nova quedam secta / In gestis aut in speculo visa prius nec lecta. / Populus tripudiat nimium saltando. / Se unus alteri sociat leviter clamando. / Frisch friskes cum gaudio clamat uterque sexus / Cinctus manutergio et baculo connexus. / Capite fert pilleum desuper et sertum. / Cernit Marie filium et celum apertum. / Deorsum prosternitur. Dudum fit ululatus. / Calcato ventre, cernitur statim liberatus. / Vagatur loca varia pompose vivendo. / Mendicat necessaria propriis parcendo. / Spernit videre rubea et personam flentem. / Ad fidei contraria erigit hic gens mentem. / Noctis sub umbraculo ista perpetravit. / Cum naturali baculo subtus se calcavit. / Clerum habet odio. Non curat sacramenta. / Post sunt in Leodio remedia inventa, / Hanc nam fraudem qui suggessit Sathan est convictus. / Conjuratus evanescit. Hinc sit Christus benedictus. Amen. Translation (prose): "In his [Gregory XI's] time, namely in the year 1375, a wondrous sect of men as well as women came to Aachen from the parts of Germany and went up as far as Hainaut or France; its nature was this. Persons of both sexes were so deluded by a demon that in houses as in streets and churches they danced holding one another by the hands and leapt up high, and named certain names of demons, namely 'Friskes' and the like, having in this dancing no awareness and no shame before the bystanders. And at the end of the dancing they were so tortured about the chest that, unless they were tightly bound with linen cloths around the middle of the belly by their friends, they cried out as if raving that they were dying. In Liège these were freed from the demon by conjurations taken from those which are made in the catechism before baptism, and once healed they said it had seemed to them that at the hour of the dancing they were in a river of blood and that was why they leapt so high. The common people at Liège said this plague had befallen the people because the people had been badly baptised, above all by priests keeping concubines. And for this the crowd had intended to rise against the clergy, killing them and plundering their goods, had God not provided the remedy through the said conjurations. When this was seen the storm of the people ceased, so that the clergy were honoured by the people much more." (The verses: "A new sect arises in the world, never before seen in histories or read in the Mirror; the people dance, leaping excessively; they join hands, crying lightly; 'Frisch, friskes' cry both sexes with joy, girt with a towel and tied with a stick; on the head a hat and above it a garland; they see Mary's son and the open heaven; they throw themselves down, howling; when the belly is trodden they are at once seen freed; they roam here and there living in pomp, begging necessities and sparing their own; they scorn to see red or a weeping person; this folk raises its mind to what is contrary to the faith; under night's cover it did those things, treading itself beneath with the natural stick [obscene]; it hates the clergy, cares nothing for the sacraments. Afterwards in Liège remedies were found: Satan, who suggested this fraud, was convicted; conjured, he vanishes. Blessed be Christ for it. Amen.") — Martin 1914 p. 232 rightly observes that "Frisch, friskes" is the dancers' cry "frisch und fro" (Koelhoff: "Here sent Johan, so so, vrisch ind vro"), misread by the cleric as a demon's name. ### 2.5 *Chronicon Belgicum Magnum*, "De chorisantibus" (s.a. 1374) Edition: Pistorius, *Rerum familiarumque Belgicarum Chronicon magnum* (Frankfurt 1654), fol. p. 319; read in Hecker 1832, appendix pp. 84–85 (also Schilter 1698 pp. 1085–1087 with German translation, via Martin pp. 230–231): > Item Anno Dn. MCCCLXXIV. tempore pontificatus venerabilis Domini Joannis de Arckel Episcopi Leodiensis, in mense Julio in crastino divisionis Apostolorum visi sunt dansatores scilicet chorisantes, qui postea venerunt Trajectum, Leodium, Tungrim et alia loca istarum partium in mense Septembri. Et coepit haec daemoniaca pestis vexare in dictis locis et circumvicinis masculos et foeminas maxime pauperes et levis opinionis ad magnum omnium terrorem; pauci clericorum vel divitum sunt vexati. Serta in capitibus gestabant, circa ventrem mappa cum baculo se stringebant circa umbilicum, ubi post saltationem cadentes nimium torquebantur, et ne creparentur pedibus conculcabantur, vel contra creporem cum baculo ad mappam duriter se ligabant, vel cum pugno se trudi faciebant, rostra calceorum aliqui clamabant se abhorrere, unde in Leodio fieri tunc vetabantur. Ecclesias chorisando occupabant, et crescebant numerose de mense Septembri et Octobri, processiones fiebant ubique, litaniae et missae speciales. … Translation: "In the year 1374, in the time of the venerable lord John of Arkel, bishop of Liège, in July on the morrow of the Division of the Apostles, dancers — that is *chorisantes* — were seen, who afterwards came to Maastricht, Liège, Tongeren and other places of those parts in September. And this demonic plague began to torment, in the said places and round about, men and women, above all the poor and those of little repute, to the great terror of all; few clerics or rich people were tormented. They wore garlands on their heads; around the belly they bound themselves with a cloth and a stick about the navel, where, falling after the leaping, they were greatly tortured, and lest they should burst they were trodden with feet, or against the bursting they tied themselves hard with the stick to the cloth, or had themselves punched with the fist; some cried that they abhorred the beaks of shoes [poulaines], so these were then forbidden in Liège. They occupied churches with their dancing and grew numerous in September and October; processions were held everywhere, litanies and special masses. …" (The rest — thurifer at Holy Cross, Herstal conspiracy, canon Simon's ladder, the demon at St Bartholomew's who said "we were two … had one waited five or four weeks we would have entered the bodies of the rich and then of the princes" — parallels Radulphus; "Haec pestis in anno satis invaluit, sed postea in tribus vel quatuor annis omnino cessavit.") ### 2.6 Trithemius, *Chronicon Sponheimense*, s.a. 1374 Edition: *Opera historica* (Frankfurt 1601), "Chronicon Trithemii", **p. 332**, viewed as page image. Under MCCCLXXIV (Philip abbot of Sponheim's 24th and last year), margins "Aquarum inundatio magna" and "Chorisatio S. Ioannis dicta S. Veits Tantz": > Eodem anno in mense Februario nimia fuit inundatio aquarum: Rhenus enim in tantum excrevit, ut muros civitatis Coloniensis transcenderet, oppidum quoque Bingionum pro maiori parte aquis fuit oppletum, in tantum, quod omnes portae versus Rhenum & Naham clausae fuerunt & aquis opertae usque ad summitatem murorum. Haec inundatio Rheni multa mala fecit & damna hominibus iuxta Rhenum morantibus: nam villas subvertit & homines submersit, templa & multa aedificia prostravit, vineas, hortos, sepes & vias circa Rhenum ad nihilum redegit. > Eodem quoque anno maniaca passio multos homines infecit (quam passionem homines choream S. Iohannis appellant) quae multos, tam mulieres & virgines, quam viros & iuvenes invadens, profugos ex patria & cognatione fecit & insanos, qui primum cadentes in terram spumabant, postea surgentes usque ad defectionem saltabant, nisi fortissima ligatura per alios stringerentur. Multae etiam tali occasione deceptiones fiebant, nam plures ut vel pecuniam mendicando perciperent, vel ut luxuriam suam explerent liberius, morbum fingebant. Translation: "In the same year in February there was an excessive flood: the Rhine rose so high that it overtopped the walls of the city of Cologne, and the town of Bingen was for the greater part filled with water, so that all the gates towards the Rhine and the Nahe were closed and covered with water up to the top of the walls. This flood of the Rhine did much harm and damage to the people dwelling by the Rhine: it overturned villages and drowned people, threw down churches and many buildings, and reduced vineyards, gardens, hedges and roads about the Rhine to nothing. — In the same year a maniac affliction infected many people (which affliction people call St John's dance), which, attacking many, women and maidens as well as men and youths, made them fugitives from their homeland and kin, and insane: first falling to the ground they foamed, then rising they leapt until they collapsed, unless they were bound tightly by others with a very strong ligature. Many deceptions also occurred on this occasion, for many feigned the disease, either to get money by begging or to satisfy their lust more freely." This is the earliest text I found that (in a marginal gloss, printed 1601 from Trithemius's autograph of c. 1500–1509 — whether the gloss is Trithemius's own I could not verify) equates *chorea S. Iohannis* with "S. Veits Tantz". Martin 1914 p. 232 likewise found the name "Johannistanz" first in Trithemius and noted that no contemporary of 1374 gave the disease any saint's name in the chronicles except through the invocation "Here sent Johan". ### 2.7 Koelhoff's Cologne chronicle (1499) *Die Cronica van der hilliger Stat van Coellen* (Cologne 1499), fol. 277 = *Chroniken der deutschen Städte* 14, p. 715 — quoted from Martin 1914 pp. 226–227 (I could not obtain CdS 14): > In dem seluen iair stonde eyn groisse kranckheit vp vnder den mynschen, ind was doch niet vill me gesyen dese selue kranckheit vur off nae ind quam van natuerlichen ursachen as die meyster schrijuen, ind noemen sij maniam, dat is raserie off unsynnicheit. Ind vill lüde beyde man ind frauwen junck ind alt hadden die kranckheit. Ind gyngen vyss huyss ind hoff, dat deden ouch junge meyde, die verliessen yr alderen, vrunde ind maege ind lantschaff. Disse vurß mynschen zo etzlichen tzijden as sij die kranckheit anstiesse, so hadden sij eyn wonderlich bewegung yrre lychamen. Sij gauen vyss kryschende vnd grusame stymme, ind mit den wurpen sij sich haestlich up die erden, vnd gyngen liggen up yren rugge, ind beyde man ind vrauwen moist men vmb yren buych ind vmp lenden gurdelen vnd kneuelen mit twelen vnd mit starcken breyden benden, asso stijff vnd harte als men mochte. Item asso gegurt mit den twelen dantzten sij in kyrchen ind in clusen ind vp allen gewijeden steden. As sij dantzten, so sprungen sij allit vp ind rieffen: Here sent Johan, so so, vrisch ind vro, here sent Johan. Item die ghene die die kranckheit hadden wurden gemeynlichen gesunt bynnen V V. dagen. Zom lesten geschiede vill bouerie vnd droch dae mit. … Die selue dentzer quamen ouch zo Coellen tusschen tzwen vnser lieuven frauwen missen Assumptionis ind Natiuitatis [15 Aug.–8 Sept.]. Translation: "In the same year a great sickness arose among the people, and this same sickness was not much seen before or after, and it came from natural causes as the masters write, and they call it *mania*, that is raving or madness. And many people, men and women, young and old, had the sickness, and went out of house and home; young maids did so too, who left their parents, friends, kin and country. When the sickness struck these people they had a strange movement of their bodies. They gave out shrieking and horrible cries and threw themselves hastily on the ground and lay on their backs, and both men and women had to be girded and tied around belly and loins with towels and strong broad bands, as stiff and hard as one could. Thus girded with the towels they danced in churches and in hermitages and in all consecrated places. As they danced they leapt up and cried: 'Lord St John, so so, fresh and glad, Lord St John.' Those who had the sickness commonly got well within [five?] days. In the end much roguery and deceit went on with it. … The same dancers also came to Cologne between the two feasts of Our Lady, Assumption and Nativity." ### 2.8 Synthesis of the 1374 witnesses - **Chronology and geography.** Aachen at the church's dedication feast (15/16 July 1374) → Maastricht, Utrecht → Cologne (15 Aug.–8 Sept.) → Liège, Tongeren, Herstal (Sept.–Oct.) → Hainaut, "France"; Rhine and Moselle valleys, Lahn (Limburg); Metz (Hecker: 1,100 dancers, source not verified). Duration "wol seszen wochen" (16 weeks) at Limburg; "in anno satis invaluit … in tribus vel quatuor annis omnino cessavit" (Chron. Belg.). Nothing for Strasbourg or Alsace. - **Numbers.** >500 dancers in Cologne (Limburg); >100 pregnant women there (Limburg); "many thousands" at Liège (Radulphus); >3,000 healed (Zantfliet, later); 1,100 at Metz (via Hecker, UNVERIFIED). - **Deaths.** None of the 14th-century texts reports deaths. The dancers fear bursting ("ne creparentur") and cry that they are dying; Zantfliet/Radulphus mention people drowned in Aachen's bath, blamed on the demon. - **Symptoms and behaviour.** Frenzied leaping dance, holding hands or "two facing each other"; falling and foaming (Trithemius); collapse followed by trampling of the belly and tight binding with towels and sticks; chest/belly pain after dancing; shrieking; garlands; nakedness; aversion to red and to pointed shoes; visions of the heaven opened, of Mary's son, of a river of blood; the cry "Here sent Johan, so so, vrisch ind vro"; begging; wandering from church to church; alleged sexual licence and fraud. - **Interpretive vocabulary.** *secta* ("mira/admirabilis/nova secta", "secta diabolica"), *pestis daemoniaca*, *illudebantur a demonio*, *daemonibus possessi* (clerical Liège sources); *kranckheit … maniam, dat is raserie off unsynnicheit … van natuerlichen ursachen as die meyster schrijuen* (Koelhoff); "wunderlich gedinge", *duisserie unde ketzerie*, "vurbotschaft Endecristes", with physicians blaming "heiße Natur" and theologians exorcising (Limburg); *maniaca passio … chorea S. Iohannis* (Trithemius). Thus already in 1374 three competing readings coexist — illness (physicians), possession/heresy (clergy), fraud (chroniclers) — exactly the triad that recurs at Strasbourg in 1518. - **Cures.** Exorcism with the stole and the baptismal conjurations, "In principio erat verbum", the Host, holy water, the priest's finger, breathing, prayer and fasting (Liège); processions, litanies, special masses; trampling and binding (folk); no saint's shrine is named for 1374 — the dancers themselves invoke St John. - **Weather.** Rhine floods January–February 1374 at Strasbourg (Königshofen: 6 Jan., 21 Jan., 14 Feb., three months of high water, dearth of bread), on the Lahn (Limburg § 96: Thursday before Shrovetide 1374, "der groste snie … binnen hondert jaren", flood of more than five days), at Cologne and Bingen (Trithemius: February 1374, walls overtopped). Hecker (1832) and Häser built their explanation on these floods plus the interdict, the plague memory and Midsummer fires; Martin 1914 pp. 233–234 objects that no source mentions the St John's fire and that the flagellants of 1349 were penitents, not sick. --- ## 3. 1418 and 1463 ### 3.1 The "Strasbourg 1418" outbreak — spurious - Hecker 1832 pp. 7–8: "Strafsburg wurde von der 'Tanzplage' im Jahr 1418 heimgesucht …" with the verses "Viel hundert fingen zu Straßburg an / Zu tantzen und springen, Fraw und Mann …" and the statement that the sick were sent "zu den Kapellen des heiligen Veit nach Zabern und Rotestein", citing Schilter's annotation to Königshofen (1698), pp. 1085 ff. Babington's English (1859) repeats "Strasburg was visited by the 'Dancing Plague' in the year 1418". - Martin 1914 pp. 114–116 (read) dismantles this: Schilter printed the verses under the heading "St. Veits Tantz An. 1418" from a lost "Chron. M.S. Argent. p. 318"; Kleinlawel's printed chronicle (1625) has the same verses under "Vitsdantz **1518**" ("Ein Seltzam sucht ist zu der zeit / Vnder dem Volck vmbgangen, / Dan viel Leut auß Vnsinnigkeit / Zu Dantzen angefangen. / Welches sie allzeit Tag und Nacht / Ohn vnterlaß getrieben, / Biß das sie fielen in ohnmacht, / Viel sind Todt drüber blieben"); Boersch (1836) inserted "vierzehnhundert" into his French rendering of the council instruction dated "Veneris post Magdalene etc. XVIII"; Häser turned it into "14..". The original in the Strasbourg archive (GUP 200, now AVES III 200/15) reads only "etc. XVIII" in a 16th-century hand, and Wilhelm Rem's Augsburg chronicle (CdS 25) independently dates the Strasbourg dance to 1518. Schilter also misread *Holenstein* as *Rotenstein*, whence Hecker's "Zabern und Rotestein" (two chapels that never existed). Midelfort 1999 p. 33 n. 22 agrees: "Martin mercilessly disposes of ignorant suggestions that this major outburst occurred one hundred years earlier, in 1418." - Specklin's *Collectanea* (c. 1580) and Wencker (1637) place the dance in 1518 only; the OCR of Schilter pp. 1079–1105, Kleinlawel 1625 and Hertzog 1592 (under `../sources/`) yielded no 1418 entry when grepped (Fraktur OCR — weak evidence). - The error is still alive: Bartholomew 2000 p. 44 writes "during a dance frenzy at Strasbourg in 1418, 'many of them went without food for days and nights' (Rust 1969, 20)", and the teachers' dossier map (2018) marks "Zurich – 1418", which is the only genuine 1418 (or 1428) record. ### 3.2 Zurich 1418/1428 and 1452 Both entries come from the Zurich Rats- und Richtbücher as printed by Salomon Vögelin, *Geschichte der Wasserkirche* (1848), and are quoted by Martin 1914 pp. 225–226 (Vögelin's OCR being unusable, I rely on Martin): (a) women dancing inside the Wasserkirche, the crowd pushed back "daß der Luft zu ihnen ginge" — dated 1418 by Vögelin, 1428 by the Usteri manuscripts and probably by the archive's foliation; (b) 1452: a poor man dancing "an St. Vits Tag uf dem Helmhaus", Hans Schiltknecht dancing with him "durch Gottes und seiner lieben Mutter Willen" to help him "in seinen Nöthen" and being mocked for it. Entry (b) is the earliest Upper-Rhine record I found linking the dance to **St Vitus's day** (15 June) and showing the therapeutic logic (dancing *with* the sufferer as an act of charity) later used by the Strasbourg council with hired dancers. ### 3.3 The 1463 cluster (St John) - **Metz** (Husson, ed. Michelant 1870 p. 97, read; original above in the table): many people "dansoient du bien sainct Jehan", the young especially, until they fell "quasy comme morts"; many came into Metz and the city had them led out and banned. The teachers' dossier quotes a second Metz chronicle ("dansoient et tripoient … par X, par XII, et par grant troppeau, tant qu'il estoient sy lassez qu'il ne se povoient soustenir") without naming it — presumably Philippe de Vigneulles (t. II of Bruneau's edition, not on archive.org): **UNVERIFIED**. - **Obernai** (Stadtrechnungen 1463; Clementz, Documents no. 1, cat. 2018 p. 136; Rohmann 2020 pp. 227–228): "Item den siechen tantzenden luten, die von sant Johans zu Passel harkoment, geben 1 ß." Rohmann links it to a late-15th-century pilgrim woodcut originally for "Pasel" (Saint-Jean-de-Bassel) re-labelled for Biesheim, suggesting a network of St John shrines from Lorraine to the Kaiserstuhl. - **Eberhardsklausen** (Midelfort pp. 32–33 quoting Hoffmann/Dohms 1988 pp. 110–11): the prior Wilhelm von Bernkastel, writing 1491, recorded the 1463 "plaga" of hopping dancers who "called upon St. John the Baptist, whose disease they said this was", could not see red, saw the Baptist's head swimming in blood, drank powdered coral, and of whom "some … jumped until their ribs or loins broke, and they died" — the only 15th-century text reporting deaths. - **Luxembourg**: named by Rohmann 2020 p. 228 (referring to his 2018 article) — no text seen. So the 1463 episode is a Moselle–Lorraine–Alsace phenomenon under St John's patronage, with pilgrims travelling to shrines (Saint-Jean-de-Bassel → Obernai; Eberhardsklausen). Martin 1914 does not know it; the 2018 catalogue (Clementz) introduced Obernai into the literature. --- ## 4. The St Vitus shrine at Saverne (Zabern) / Hohlenstein — dossier ### 4.1 Names and site - "Holenstein/Hohlenstein" (the original of the 1518 council instruction: "Dantzende arme personen so zu Sanct Vit zum Holenstein geschickt" — GUP 200 verso, Martin p. 124), "Hohenstein" (Brant's annals), "Rotenstein" (Schilter's misreading), "hellensteg" (Wencker 1637: the path up to the grotto), "Veitsberg/Vixberg" (Fischer 1868, via Martin p. 117; Midelfort p. 37): a sandstone promontory 399 m high west of Saverne with a grotto 4 m high, 7 m wide, 13 m deep (Fischer) — modern description: 10 m wide, 8–10 m high, 26 m deep (lieux-insolites.fr). Reached by "ein schmaler ansteigender Pfad". Martin: "Die Grotte war als Kapelle eingerichtet, in ihr nahm man das Grab des [Heiligen an]" — "Sant Fitts Grab under dem Felsen" (Adam 1897, via Martin). - Pilgrimage days (Fischer/Adam via Martin; Midelfort p. 37): Easter Monday and 15 June (St Vitus). Clientele (Midelfort p. 37, from Fischer/Adam): epileptics, infertile and "hysterical" women, peasants with sick cattle, and sufferers from St Vitus's dance. Later, offerings of iron toads and grotesque figures (banned 1758). ### 4.2 Chronology (from lieux-insolites.fr, mythische-orte.de, fr.wikipedia via page fetch, the 2018 press kit; the underlying archival references are in Adam 1897 / Fischer 1876 / Vonau 1979, which I could not read — treat dates as **UNVERIFIED at the primary level** unless noted) - 1338: first mention of the grotto (lieux-insolites). - Before the 15th c.: origin of the pilgrimage unknown but earlier ("l'origine du pèlerinage est inconnue, mais il est antérieur au XVe siècle"); the teachers' dossier: "Saverne, Hohlenstein – documenté depuis le XVe siècle". - 1508: donation register "Registrum Sancti Viti onirifici martiris", "Renovatum per me Jeronimum Crattenhover anno … (1508)", earliest donors Ludwig (d. 1471) and Jakob (d. 1480) von Lichtenberg — Archives municipales de Saverne, "Livre de donations, 1508, liasse 295", lent to the 2018 exhibition (press kit p. 8). In the 16th century the register shows donors from more than 130 parishes of Alsace, Lorraine and beyond. - 1518: first mention of a chapel, in "Brant's annals" (lieux-insolites; the annals' phrase is "zu dem lieben heil. St. Vit im Hohenstein bei Zabern", Martin p. 116). The council decision of "Dienstag post Adolphi" 1518 speaks of a wax image to be honoured in the Münster "bis die neu capell ausgemacht, dann einen altar in derselben capellen in St. Viten ehren weyhen lassen" (Martin p. 122) — a new chapel in St Vitus's honour under construction (where is not stated). - 1520: first named hermit, Diebold von Furchhausen; 1541 hermitage house; 1542 new door and a chapel inside the grotto ("Sant Trügen/Trilgen Kapelle" — St Gertrude?); 1554 further mention; 1581 chapel rebuilt by bishop Johann von Manderscheid; 1590 hermitage rebuilt; 1604 the grotto chapel named for St Aurelia of Strasbourg. - 1758: Cardinal de Rohan's visitation forbids the practices (purification of the oratory, no mass in the grotto, removal of iron toads/grotesque ex-votos). - 1792: two chapels (grotto and rock) and a hermitage, episcopal property; 1793 turned into a farm; 1796 sold as *bien national* to Maurice Kolb; 1818 pilgrimage restored and grotto refitted; 1865 fire; 1946–48 restoration by Joseph Klein and the Amis de la grotte Saint-Vit; bell-tower 1994. - Objects: relief "Vierge à l'Enfant, saint Guy et un saint pape", polychrome wood, Musée du Château des Rohan, Saverne, inv. D10 (exhibited 2018); lithograph "Chapelle de Saint Vit" (Muller; CE.XXXIV.43 per press kit — from my earlier reading, exact attribution UNVERIFIED); Charles Spindler, "La Danse de Saint-Guy", copper engraving, *Images alsaciennes* no. 2 (1893). - Literature (not retrieved): A. Fischer, *Das alte Zabern* (1868); A. Fischer, "Die Burg Greifenstein und der St-Veitsberg" (1876); [D.?] Adam, *Der St.-Veitsberg …* (Saverne: Gilliot 1897, 71 pp.); M. Barth, *Handbuch der elsässischen Kirchen im Mittelalter* (1960); P. Vonau, *Pays d'Alsace* IV/109 (1979) pp. 1–5; Heitz 1979; Georger-Vogt 1979; Ettwiller 2008 (bibliographies of DHIALSACE and fr.wikipedia). ### 4.3 The 1518 rite at the shrine — the texts 1. Council instruction (Strasbourg, Archives de la Ville, GUP 200 = AVES III 200/15; printed Martin 1914 Anlage II pp. 123–124; exhibited 2018 as "instructions concernant les personnes envoyées à Saverne"): "Instruction der armen dantzen[den] Personen so zu Sant Vit geschickt. Veneris post Magdalene etc. XVIII" [Friday after St Mary Magdalene = 23 July 1518]. The wagons (three, each with three horses, from the Spital and the Frauenhaus) are to ride into Zabern; one man rides ahead to engage "drei oder vier Priester mit Rat des Dechanten von Zabern", who are to sing an office for each *Rotte* (group) separately; "Nach jedem Amt sollten die armen Leute um den Altar geführt werden und jeder Kranke 1 Pfennig opfern"; what is left of the alms money goes into the offering box (Martin p. 117, paraphrasing the German; the original's closing lines: "Daryn jdes armes mensch 1 pfennig in den stock geben, vnd solchs von dem almusen gelt, so den armen lüten geben ist, ußrichten. Vnd was uberig blibt in den stock ouch stossen." — Martin p. 124). Verso: "Dantzende arme personen so zu Sanct Vit zum Holenstein geschickt." 2. "Brant's annals" (Wencker's extracts from the lost council minutes; Dacheux 1892/1899, via Martin p. 116): "1518. Als diss jars um Margarethen ein schwäre erschreckliche krankheit mit St. Vitstanz erhub, also dass uff fünfzig personen damit behafft tag und nacht tantzeten dass jämmerlich zu sehen war, wurden dieselben alle in der Stattcosten verwahrt und zu dem lieben heil. St. Vit im Hohenstein bei Zabern geführt und fast erledigt [vollständig frei von der Krankheit]." Later decisions: "4a post Laurentii" [11 Aug.] the guilds and confraternities to keep their sick at home "oder zu den heyligen schickten"; undated proclamations (six copies) ordering the confraternities' *Büchsenmeister* to see that their sick "nyder getüschet oder zu dem heiligen sant Viten gefürt werden, und inen keynerley seytten oder fröydenspiel gebrachen, cleynötter oder hübsche cleyder uff oder anthün, ouch sie nirgent lossen uff den gassen louffen" (Martin p. 121; in one copy "dem heiligen Sant Viten" is struck out and replaced by "den heiligen, wo inen geliebt" — from my earlier reading of Martin, p. 121); "Dienstag post Adolphi" [Tuesday after "Adolphi" — my inference: St Adelphus of Metz, venerated at Neuwiller near Saverne, 29 Aug., a Sunday in 1518 → Tuesday 31 Aug. 1518, which is the date Clementz gives (Rue89); Martin's bracket "21./22. September" does not fit]: "den zentner wachs zu einer kerzen machen und zu dem lieben heyligen mit dem Rentmeister schicken, und ein singent erlich ampt und 3 neben messen lassen lesen von wegen des ganzen Raths und gemeiner Statt wegen" (Martin p. 122). 3. Hieronymus Gebwiler (contemporary; Stenzel 1926 pp. 74–75, in Midelfort's translation p. 34): "they danced day and night with those poor people, but toward evening they tied them all onto wagons and took them to St. Vitus of Hohlenstein. And after their pilgrimage there was finished and they were all danced out, they took them home again." 4. Daniel Specklin, *Collectanea* (c. 1580; Reuss/Dacheux 1890 no. 2216, pp. 488–489; Martin p. 119): "Do schickte man sie hinder Zabern zu St. Veit, zum holen stein, auf waegen; da gab man ihnen creuzle und rothe schuh, und macht mess über sie. An den schuhen war unten und oben creutz mit dem chrisam gemacht und mit weywasser besprengt in St. Veits nahmen, das halff ihn vast allen. Und kam solches viel leuth an, denen man St. Veitstantz fluchte, lieff auch viel schelmenwerk mit unter." ("They sent them beyond Zabern to St Vitus at the Hohlenstein on wagons; there they were given little crosses and red shoes, and mass was said over them. On the shoes, below and above, crosses were made with chrism and sprinkled with holy water in St Vitus's name; that helped almost all of them. And this befell many people whom others had cursed with St Vitus's dance, and much roguery went with it.") 5. Wencker (1637, via Martin p. 119): many were sent to St Vitus, others ran there themselves "und also dantzend vor dem bild niederfielen" (and thus fell down dancing before the image); and (Martin p. 120) "Da mans anfing aus Gottes wort zu widerlegen, liss alles nach" (when people began to refute it from God's word, it all subsided) — the Protestant chronicler's gloss. 6. Schadaeus (17th c., via Boersch/Martin p. 116): the first woman "tanzte vier ganze Tage. Der Magistrat ließ sie zur Kapelle des heiligen Veit nach Zabern führen, und sie blieb ruhig"; Imlin family chronicle (contemporary; Martin p. 118): "da leiss sey meine [gnädigen Herren] nach St. Vit gehn Zabern füren da war sey still … vnd an dem and[ern] tag da leiss man sey alle nach S. Vit füren vnd da dantz, und in 4 Wochen wurden Ir mehr denn 400 Dantzer." Martin p. 120 adds two inferences from the instruction: no priests lived at the shrine (hence the council's order to fetch three or four from Zabern), and the dancing around the altar in consecrated red shoes was itself "zu Heilzwecken" — a healing dance performed at the saint's altar, while those who ran there on their own "fielen tanzend vor dem Bild des Heiligen nieder … ohne gottesdienstliche Handlung". The rite thus combines (a) a votive pilgrimage organised and paid for by the city, (b) sung offices and a circumambulation of the altar with a pfennig offering (documented 1518), (c) — only in Specklin two generations later — consecrated red shoes with chrism crosses, holy water "in St Vitus's name" and a mass "over" the sick, (d) the city's hundredweight candle and offices (1518). Red is a recurring motif: aversion to red in 1374 and 1463, red shoes at the shrine, men in red (Basel, per Gross 1614), the physicians' ban on "timbales et fifres" but not strings (ADBR 12 J 1495). --- ## 5. St Vitus as sender and healer; the ritual reading and its evidence ### 5.1 Curse formulas and the saint who sends the dance - **Rottweil town law, 1485** (Greiner 1900, via Martin p. 121): "Item welcher den andern unzüchtigklich schultet oder fluchet, den ritten [das Fieber] sant Vitstantz oder derglychen wort, der sol verfallen sin 3 sh. h." — "whoever abuses or curses another indecently, [wishing him] the fever, St Vitus's dance, or similar words, shall forfeit 3 shillings." This is the earliest dated use of "sant Vitstantz" as a disease-curse that I have seen (1485, Swabia). - Martin 1914 p. 120 (read): "Man hatte ihnen St. Veitstanz geflucht. 'Gott geb dir Sankt Veit' oder 'Dass dich Sankt Veit ankäme', waren damals sehr gebräuchliche Verwünschungsformeln. Die letztere Formel kommt bei elsässer Schriftstellern des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts häufig vor" (citing Adam 1897 and Fischer 1868, whom I could not read; Martin gives no earlier dated instance than Rottweil 1485). Clementz (DHIALSACE, via page fetch): "La malédiction *Daß dich der St. Veiztanz ankäme* est souvent citée aux XVe et XVIe siècles", including in Brant. **Check:** the Bibliotheca Augustana e-text of the whole *Narrenschiff* (112 chapters) contains no "Vit/Veit/Vitus"; ch. 61 "Von dantzen" derives dance from the devil ("Wie dantz / mit sund entsprungen sy / Vnd ich kan mercken / vnd betracht / Das es der tufel hat vff bracht / Do er das gulden kalb erdaht … Vß dantzen vil vnratts entspringt / Do ist hochfart / vnd uppikeyt / Vnd fur louff der vnlutterkeyt … Do dantzen pfaffen / mynch / vnd leyen") without naming St Vitus. If Brant used the curse it is in another work (**UNVERIFIED**). Geiler's *Emeis* (1517) OCR: no St Vitus; Murner not retrieved. - Specklin (above): "viel leuth …, denen man St. Veitstantz fluchte" — in Strasbourg memory the dance struck those on whom it had been wished. - The 2018 exhibition (press kit, unit 5): "Car s'ils sont réputés soigner le mal, ces saints [Guy, 15 juin; Jean-Baptiste, 24 juin] peuvent aussi en être la cause, capables par leur malédiction de provoquer les transes redoutées" — and "leur culte prend le plus souvent la forme de rites thérapeutiques annuels, destinés tout autant à la prévention qu'à la guérison." - Naming history: 1374 sources — no name or St John; Trithemius (c. 1500, printed 1601) — "chorea S. Iohannis", glossed "S. Veits Tantz"; Rottweil 1485 — "sant Vitstantz"; Zurich 1452 — St Vitus's day; Strasbourg 1518 — "St. Vitstanz" (annals) but Martin p. 232 notes that the contemporary council texts avoid the name and speak of "die kranckheit des dantzens"; Spangenberg 1561 (Ehespiegel): "weren taub vnd vnsinnig, vnd tanzten S. Veits tantz"; Spangenberg 1591: "man nante es S. Veits Tantz"; Camerarius 1610: "morbus S. Viti vel Modesti … Veitstanz"; Schenck (1584–97): sufferers "zum heiligen Veit oder zu Johannes dem Täufer ihre Zuflucht"; Melanchthon 1533: "mera obsessio Diaboli"; Cynosura ecclesiastica 1638: "St. Veitstanz soll propter concurrentem superstitionem nicht geduldet werden" (Martin p. 236). Martin p. 237 rejects the Swantewit (Slavic Svantovit) etymology as "Spielerei eines Gelehrten". ### 5.2 Rohmann's argument - 2009 (*Medieval History Journal* 12/1, abstract via Crossref): dancing mania "has until recently remained an enigma … because scholars tend to view it as an invariable medical syndrome instead of examining it as an example of the historicity of illness as semantic network. Taking the latter approach allows for grasping the phenomenon as a form of insanity specific to the Rhine basin of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though one whose roots can be traced to the early medieval reception of platonic cosmology and 'theurgy'. This paper examines the legend of the Kölbigk dancers … and establishes that its chief motif goes back to Sulpicius Severus' reception of 'Iamblichus' 'de mysteriis'. Thus, dancing mania appears to have been a form of insanity, indeed, but one constructed through religious narratives." - 2013, *Tanzwut. Kosmos, Kirche und Mensch in der Bedeutungsgeschichte eines mittelalterlichen Krankheitskonzepts* (Göttingen: V&R, 712 pp.). Knäble's H-Soz-Kult review (08.05.2013, via page fetch): the book makes the *Tanzwut* readable as a "kulturell konstruierte Krankheit …, die sich aus der Auseinandersetzung des mittelalterlichen Christentums mit antiken Mythen speist"; Vitus and John serve "als Mittler zwischen Immanenz und Transzendenz für den Status zwischen Heilsferne und Erlösung"; the review notes the book does not treat 1518 in detail. Rohmann himself (GMX interview): "Ich habe in meinem Buch eigentlich nur die Vorgeschichte behandelt." - 2018, "Tanz als Krankheit, Tanz als Therapie …", *Das Mittelalter* 23/2, 281–307 (title verified; not read) and 2020, ZGO 168, 215–241 (read): the dance is simultaneously symptom and therapy in the Platonic sense of a divinely sent *mania* that the rite discharges; the 16th–17th-century "Tanzwallfahrten" (Biesheim, Wasenweiler, Drefelhausen, Breisach 1602) show the same structure; p. 215: "Im Sommer 1518 … hatten in Straßburg (und vereinzelt auch in Basel) Hunderte wochenlang auf den Straßen und Plätzen der Stadt getanzt" (for which he cites the 2018 catalogue); plague is expressly no factor. - GMX interview (2019?): "Der Begriff 'Tanzwut' wurde im 19. Jahrhundert als Bezeichnung für verschiedene quellenmäßig nachweisbare Phänomene im 14. bis 17. Jahrhundert geprägt"; "Die Quellen sind so vielgestaltig, dass eine monokausale Identifikation mit einem heute bekannten Syndrom nicht möglich ist"; "Schon seit der Antike war der unfreiwillige Tanz, die Gefangenschaft in einem unendlichen Reigen, als Chiffre für die Abwendung von Gott, für einen Zustand der Entfernung vom Seelenheil, geläufig"; "Wir wissen noch nicht, was konkret passiert ist." - 2023, "Die armen Veitigen" (title from his publication list; not read). ### 5.3 Bartholomew 2000 (*Skeptical Inquirer* 24/4, pp. 42–47) "Based on an examination of a representative sample of medieval chronicles, it is evident that these episodes are best explained as deviant religious sects who gained adherents as they made pilgrimages through Europe during years of turmoil in order to receive divine favor. Their symptoms (visions, fainting, tremor) are predictable for any large population engaging in prolonged dancing, emotional worship, and fasting" (p. 46). His "representative sample" is Backman 1952 in English; he repeats "Strasbourg in 1418" and the "chapel dedicated to St. Vitus" at the 1278 bridge, and his three "fallacies" (mass hysteria, female susceptibility, stress) are aimed at psychiatric textbooks rather than at the sources. ### 5.4 What the ritual reading rests on, and what it does not explain Evidence in its favour (all read in the texts cited above): the Kölbigk legend's structure (curse → compulsory dance → release at a saint's intervention); the dancers' own invocation of St John in 1374 and 1463 and their pilgrimages to his shrines (Eberhardsklausen, Saint-Jean-de-Bassel → Obernai); Zurich 1452 on St Vitus's day; the annual, calendrically fixed "Tanzwallfahrten" of the Breisgau, Ravensburg and Drefelhausen, whose participants feel premonitory pains for a month and are "free for the year" after dancing at the shrine; the Strasbourg council's immediate recourse to St Vitus at Hohlenstein and the shrine's rite; the curse formulas; the medieval theological commonplace of the endless *chorea* as damnation (Brant ch. 61; Trithemius; Melanchthon). Martin 1914 (pp. 235–239), decades before Rohmann, already argued that dance at the saints' shrines was "der Veitstanz selbst … im Sinne des Bewegungskrankheiten vorbeugenden und heilenden Tanzes". Against or beyond it: the 1374 chroniclers, the Cologne physicians ("maniam … van natuerlichen ursachen") and the Strasbourg physicians of 1518 ("eine natürlich krankheit, die von hitzigem Geblüt komme"; "conjonction astrale et … chaleur du moment", ADBR 12 J 1495) describe an unheard-of illness, not a rite; the Strasbourg council's *first* remedy was secular (guild halls, platforms on the Rossmarkt and Kornmarkt, hired dancers, fifes and drums — Specklin; "5a Mariae Magdalenae … soll die termen abstellen und heimlich seitenspiel haben", annals), and the bishop's vicar thought a mass "unnot" because the physicians had called it natural (annals, Martin p. 118); the Liège clergy treated it as possession, the Limburg chronicler as heresy and fraud; and Rohmann's own admission that the 2013 book covers only the "Vorgeschichte". In short, the ritual reading explains the *form* the behaviour took and the *therapy* chosen; it does not by itself say why fifty (or two hundred) Strasbourgeois began in July 1518. --- ## 6. The 2018 Strasbourg exhibition and recent scholarship ### 6.1 The exhibition and catalogue - "1518, la fièvre de la danse", Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame – Arts du Moyen Âge, Strasbourg, 20 Oct. 2018 – 24 Feb. 2019; curator Cécile Dupeux; scientific collaboration Georges Bischoff (prof. emeritus, medieval history) and Élisabeth Clementz (maître de conférences, Institut d'Histoire d'Alsace). Seven units; unit 5 "les saints patrons de la danse" (text above); unit 6 "la manie dansante vue par les siècles suivants" (the chronicles' amplifications). - Catalogue: *1518. La fièvre de la danse*, dir. C. Dupeux (Éditions des Musées de Strasbourg, 2018), 152 pp., ISBN 978-2-35125-161-4: prefaces (Roland Ries, Robert Herrmann, Paul Lang, C. Dupeux — AGORHA); É. Clementz, "La danse de 1518 à l'épreuve des sources" (pp. 33–63 per Rohmann 2020); G. Bischoff, "Vérités historiques"; R. Poma, "Paracelse et la danse de Saint-Guy" (pp. 99–118); K. Gotman, "Danse et désordre"; É. Clementz, "Documents concernant la danse de Saint-Guy (Veitstanz) à Strasbourg ou dans sa région, rassemblés, transcrits et traduits" (pp. 136–152) — the first edition of all the 1518 archival pieces since Martin. - Lenders/shelfmarks (press kit p. 7–8): Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin, **12 J 1495** (letter of the magistrate to bishop Wilhelm [von Honstein], 25 July 1518, and the physicians' advice); Archives de la Ville et de l'Eurométropole de Strasbourg, **Série III 200/15** (deliberations of the council commission, 23 July 1518; note to the confraternities; instructions for those sent to Saverne — Martin's GUP 200), **1 MR 3, f° 72 r** (ban on dances, 2 Aug. 1518, in Sebastian Brant's hand), **AMS X 140** (ban on dances, 15 June 1547); BNU Strasbourg: Schilter 1698 (M 2.893.2), Spangenberg, *Ehespiegel* 1561 (R 11 104), Kleinlawel 1625 (R 102 687), Charcot 1887 (Bh 10 452); Bibl. de médecine: Hecker 1832 (J 119 956), Paracelsus, *Bücher und Schrifften* I (Basel 1589), Roth 1850; Saverne, Musée du Château des Rohan, relief inv. D10; Archives municipales de Saverne, Livre de donations 1508, liasse 295; Spindler 1893. Images of AVES 1 MR 3 f. 72r are reproduced on Rue89 (2018). - Press: Rue89 Strasbourg, 18 Oct. 2018 (P. Ruhlmann, interview with Clementz); *Le Monde*, 28 July 2014 (Sandrine Cabut) cited in the teachers' dossier; DNA coverage not retrieved. ### 6.2 The historians' conclusions - **Numbers.** Clementz (catalogue extract, press kit p. 9): "Au mois de juillet 1518 … Quelque cinquante personnes se mettent à danser jusqu'à épuisement dans les rues de la ville"; the basis is the annals' "uff fünfzig personen". Later figures (34 → 200 Schadaeus; 400 Imlin; "plus d'une centaine" Specklin) come from chronicles "avec lesquelles il faut être très prudent" (Rue89). Only five individual cases are documented, because their families testified to obtain support: "le fils d'un instituteur, le fils d'un valet, la femme d'un journalier, la fille d'un mendiant et le fils d'un 'pauvre compagnon'" (Rue89) — cf. Martin's Anlage I: Staden Jerg, Balthasar Burgawer, Antheng Silinger's wife Apolonia ("von Sanct Martzolff [epilepsy] beladen"), Hans Eckart of Brussels's daughter, Karle Schansleben. - **Deaths.** "Aucun mort n'est mentionné par les archives de l'époque, aucun bilan de malades n'est fait non plus" (Clementz, Rue89); Clementz 2016 (review of Waller, *Revue d'Alsace* 142, via page fetch): "aucun auteur contemporain n'évoque de décès" — the deaths appear first in Kleinlawel (1625) and Specklin (c. 1580). - **Chronology** (Clementz): first woman 15 July (annals "um Margarethen"; Imlin/Schadaeus "8 tag vor S. Maria Magdalena" = 14 July); 23 July commission and first convoys to "Saint-Guy du Holenstein"; 25 July letter to the bishop: the physicians call it "une maladie naturelle due à une conjonction astrale et à la chaleur du moment", it "touche néanmoins à sa fin", the sick "conduits chez saint Guy"; physicians' regimen: no wine, barley water, barley/oat porridge, music "uniquement avec des cithares, violons, luths ou orgues positifs", not "timbales et fifres"; 2 Aug. ban on dancing until Michaelmas (1 MR 3); 11 Aug. ordinance "la maladie est à nouveau apparue"; 31 Aug. candle and masses; end undated ("tout l'été"). - **Causes.** Clementz (Rue89): ergotism dismissed — Strasbourg had a hospital specialised in ergotism that could have recognised it, and ergotism's convulsions "ne prennent pas vraiment la forme d'une danse"; Bischoff (catalogue): "Frau Trofféa n'a jamais existé … Son patronyme est une invention pédante de Paracelse (1493–1541), à partir du substantif grec *tropaia* … sa première mention n'apparaît qu'en 1565, dans la publication posthume de son traité sur les causes et les origines des maladies … Rien ne permet de dire s'il se rapporte, explicitement, au cas observé à Strasbourg en 1518, mais c'est possible … le séjour de Paracelse à Strasbourg n'eut lieu qu'à la fin 1526"; Poma: Paracelsus c. 1537 on the "unsinnigen tanz … S. Veits tanz" as a disease "never described by medicine", associated with St Vitus in German lands "au moins depuis le XVe siècle"; Gotman: the "myth of dancing mania" as a 19th-century discourse on enthusiasm/contagion. Gebwiler (contemporary, Stenzel pp. 74–75): a divine warning — "Il faudrait se souvenir de ces événements pendant mille ans, et limiter les danses, en particulier les danses obscènes et indécentes" (dossier); Midelfort p. 34: "By this account, the dancing mania was a moral message straight from God." - **Precedents as seen in 2018** (teachers' dossier map): Kölbigk "1018" [sic], Erfurt 1237, Maastricht/Utrecht 1278, 1374 (Ghent, Aachen, Cologne, Maastricht, Liège, Metz), Zurich 1418 and 1452, Metz 1463, Obernai 1463, Strasbourg 1518, Basel c. 1536; annual pilgrimages: Echternach, Saverne-Hohlenstein "documenté depuis le XVe siècle", Molenbeek (St John), Drefelhausen (Horst), Breisgau (Schenck). - Other recent work: L. J. Miller, "Divine Punishment or Disease? Medieval and Early Modern Approaches to the 1518 Strasbourg Dancing Plague", *Dance Research* 35/2 (2017) 149–164 (Crossref-verified; not read); Rohmann 2018, 2020, 2023 (above); Midelfort 1999 pp. 32–37 (read) remains the best English account of the sources before Waller. --- ## 7. Parallels (one page) - **Tarantism (Apulia).** Ernesto De Martino, *La terra del rimorso* (Milan 1961; English *The Land of Remorse*, trans. D. L. Zinn, 2005): field study of Salento tarantism in 1959 — the bite of the *taranta*, the annual crisis around 29 June, the music-and-dance cure and the chapel of St Paul at Galatina where the *tarantate* converge (Wikipedia; De Martino's book itself not read — **UNVERIFIED** beyond the bibliography). Already the 16th-century physicians used the comparison: Schenck likened the *Veitstanz* to the tarantula's bite (Rohmann 2020 p. 220), and Hecker 1832 devoted his part II to "Tanzwuth in Italien. Tarantismus". Structural parallel with the Rhineland: a saint who both sends and cures, a fixed feast, music as therapy, mostly poor participants, and a "rimorso" that returns every year. Difference: the Italian aetiology is a bite, not a curse. - **Echternach.** Thiofrid of Echternach (d. 1110), *Vita Willibrordi*, describes the Pentecost-week concourse "ex tota Francorum et Germanorum provincia" to the saint's tomb "nach ewigem Ritus" (Martin pp. 234–235 quoting Thiofrid; Martin reads Thiofrid's *tripudium* as dance); the Prüm procession is said by the chronicler Heinrich Brandt (1628) to have existed under abbot Heinrich von Schöneck (d. 1342), i.e. before 1374 (Martin p. 234); the *Cynosura ecclesiastica* (1638) wanted "St. Veitstanz" suppressed "propter concurrentem superstitionem". UNESCO (inscribed 2010): the hopping procession takes place on Whit Tuesday, "documented since 1100", with some 8,000 dancers in 45 groups moving to a polka-like tune to the tomb of St Willibrord. Martin's thesis (p. 235): the procession "war schon vor der Epidemie von 1374 der Veitstanz selbst (hier Willibrordstanz genannt) im Sinne des Bewegungskrankheiten vorbeugenden und heilenden Tanzes" — a preventive/therapeutic dance sanctioned by the Church, the mirror image of the cursed dance. - **Kölbigk.** The oldest narrative: Otbert's *relatio* (Schröder, ZKG 17 [1897] p. 101): "Ego peccator nomine Otbertus, etsi vellem tegere peccatum meum, indicium esset mearum inquietudo venarum et motus membrorum … Eramus X et VIII, XV viri et tres mulieres, in villa Colbizce regionis Saxonicae, ubi sanctus Magnus martirium consummavit. Qui in sanctissima nativitate Domini expletis matutinis cum missarum sollempniis interesse deberemus, suadente diabolo choros in cimiterio duximus. Presbiter vero nomine Ruthbertus iam primam missam inchoaverat, sed heu! ita nostra cantilena impediebatur … Spretus ergo a nobis hac imprecatus est voce: 'Utinam potentia Dei et merito sancti Magni martiris sic inquieti annum cantando ducatis.'" ("I, a sinner named Otbert, even if I wished to hide my sin, the restlessness of my veins and the trembling of my limbs would betray it … We were eighteen, fifteen men and three women, in the village of Kölbigk in Saxony where St Magnus was martyred. When on the most holy Nativity of the Lord, matins over, we should have attended the solemn masses, at the devil's prompting we led dances in the churchyard. The priest Ruthbert had begun the first mass, but alas, our song so hindered it … Scorned by us he cursed us with these words: 'Would that by God's power and St Magnus's merit you might pass a year restlessly singing thus.'") The Erfurt *Cronica minor* (MGH SS rer. Germ. 42, p. 628) tells the same under Emperor Henry II: the curse "Velit Deus propter merita sancti Magni martiris … ut sic incessanter usque ad annum integrum continue corizetis", a year of dancing "sine cibo et potu, absque tecto et sompno", release by Archbishop Heribert of Cologne, "IIIIor ex ipsis statim mortui sunt, alii refocillati resumpserunt vires et egerunt penitentiam". Martin p. 239: "Schon im 12. Jahrhundert kommt also das Anwünschen der Tanzkrankheit vor, und zwar mit Erfolg." Rohmann 2009 traces the legend's motif to Sulpicius Severus and Iamblichus. Kölbigk supplies the template of the *cursed* dance that the Strasbourg curse formulas ("Dass dich St. Veit ankomme") still presuppose in 1518. --- ## 8. Open questions and unverified items - Whether any Strasbourg or Alsatian source before 1463 mentions the dance (Hegel's CdS 8–9 has none that I could find; the Latin Königshofen and the chronicle continuations were not searched page by page). - The second Metz chronicle of 1463 (Vigneulles?) and Rohmann's Luxembourg 1463 reference. - Fischer 1868/1876, Adam 1897, Barth 1960: the primary references for the shrine's 1338/1508/1520–1604 chronology and the pilgrimage days. - The provenance of Trithemius's marginal "S. Veits Tantz" (author's autograph or 1601 editor?). - Whether the Strasbourg annals' "Dienstag post Adolphi" = 31 Aug. (Rue89) or Martin's "21./22. Sept." — Adolph of Osnabrück's feast is 29 Aug.; Rue89's 31 Aug. fits. - Rohmann 2013 and 2018 in full; Miller 2017; Backman 1952 (used only via Bartholomew/Midelfort).