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The Black Death,
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INTRODUCTION.
Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker was one of three
generations of distinguished professors of medicine.
His father, August Friedrich Hecker, a most in¬
dustrious writer, first practised as a physician in
Frankenhausen, and in 1790 was appointed Pro¬
fessor of Medicine at the University of Erfurt.
In 1805 he was called to the like professorship at
the University of Berlin. He died at Berlin
in 1811.
Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker was born at
Erfurt in January, 1795. He went, of course—
being then ten years old—with his father to Berlin
in 1805, studied at Berlin in the Gymnasium and
University, but interrupted his studies at the age
of eighteen to fight as a volunteer in the war for
a renunciation of Napoleon and all his works.
After Waterloo he went back to his studies, took
his doctor's degree in 1817 with a treatise on the
"Antiquities of Hydrocephalus," and became
6
INTRODUCTION.
privat-docent in the Medical Faculty of tlie Berlin
University. His inclination was strong from the
first towards the historical side of inquiries into
Medicine. This caused him to undertake a " His¬
tory of Medicine," of which the first volume
appeared in 1822. It obtained rank for him at
Berlin as Extraordinary Professor of the History
of Medicine. This office was changed into an
Ordinary professorship of the same study in 1834,
and Hecker held that office until his death in
1850.
The office was created for a man who had a
special genius for this form of study. It was de¬
lightful to himself, and he made it delightful to
others. He is regarded as the founder of historical
pathology. He studied disease in relation to the
history of man, made his study yield to men out¬
side his own profession an important chapter in
the history of civilisation, and even took into
account physical phenomena upon the surface of
the globe as often affecting the movement and
character of epidemics.
The account of " The Black Death " here trans¬
lated by Dr. Babington was Hecker's first important
work of this kind. It was published in 1832,
INTRODUCTION.
7
and was followed in the same year by his account
of "The Dancing Mania." The books here given
are the two that first gave Hecker a wide reputa¬
tion. Many other such treatises followed, among
them, in 1865, a treatise on the "Great Epidemics
of the Middle Ages." Besides his " History of Medi¬
cine," which, in its second volume, reached into the
fourteenth century, and all his smaller treatises,
Hecker wrote a large number of articles in Ency-
clopsedias and Medical Journals. Professor J. E. K.
Hecker was, in a more interesting way, as busy as
Professor A. F. Hecker, his father, had been. He
transmitted the family energies to an only son,
Karl von Hecker, born in 1827, who distinguished
himself greatly as a Professor of Midwifery, and
died in 1882.
Benjamin Guy Babington, the translator of
these books of Hecker's, belonged also to a family
in which the study of Medicine has passed from
father to son, and both have been writers. B. G.
Babington was the son of Dr. William Babington,
who was physician to Guy's Hospital for some
years before 1811, when the extent of his private
practice caused him to retire. He died in
1833. His son, Benjamin Guy Babington, was
8
INTRODUCTION.
educated at the Charterhouse, saw service as a
midshipman, served for seven years in India, re¬
turned to England, graduated as physician at
Cambridge in 1831. He distinguished himself by
inquiries into the cholera epidemic in 1832, and
translated these pieces of Hecker's in 1833, for
publication by the Sydenham Society. He after¬
wards translated Hecker's other treatises on epi¬
demics of the Middle Ages. Dr. B. G. Babington
was Physician to Guy's Hospital from 1840 to
1855, and was a member of the Medical Council of
the General Board of Health. He died on the 8th
of April, 1866.
H. M.
The Black Death.
CHAPTER I.
general observations.
That Omnipotence which has called the world with all
its living creatures into one animated being, especially
reveals Himself in the desolation of great pestilences.
The powers of creation come into violent collision; the
sultry dryness of the atmosphere; the subterraneous
thunders ; the mist of overflowing waters, are the har¬
bingers of destruction. Nature is not satisfied with
the ordinary alternations of life and death, and the
destroying angel waves over man and beast his flaming
sword.
These revolutions are performed in vast cycles,
which the spirit of man, limited, as it is, to a narrow
circle of perception, is unable to explore. They are,
however, greater terrestrial events than any of those
which proceed from the discord, the distress, or the
passions of nations. By annihilations they awaken
new life; and when the tumult above and below the
earth is past, nature is renovated, and the mind awakens
10
the black: death.
from torpor and depression to the consciousness of an
intellectual existence.
Were it in any degree within the power of human
research to draw up, in a vivid and connected form, an
historical sketch of such mighty events, after the
manner of the historians of wars and battles, and the
migrations of nations, we might then arrive at clear
views with respect to the mental development of the
human race, and the ways of Providence would be more
plainly discernible. It would then be demonstrable,
that the mind of nations is deeply affected by the de¬
structive conflict of the powers of nature, and that
great disasters lead to striking changes in general
civilisation. For all that exists in man, whether good
or evil, is rendered conspicuous by the presence of great
danger. His inmost feelings are roused—the thought
of self-preservation masters his spirit—self-denial is
put to severe proof, and wherever darkness and bar¬
barism prevail, there the affrighted mortal flies to the
idols of his superstition, and all laws, human and divine,
are criminally violated.
In conformity with a general law of nature, such a
state of excitement brings about a change, beneficial or
detrimental, according to circumstances, so that nations
either attain a higher degree of moral worth, or sink
deeper in ignorance and vice. All this, however, takes
place upon a much grander scale than through the
ordinary vicissitudes of war and peace, or the rise and
the black death.
11
fall of empires, because the powers of nature them¬
selves produce plagues, and subjugate the human will,
which, \n the contentions of nations, alone pre¬
dominates.
CHA;PTER II.
the disease.
The most memorable example of what has been
advanced is afforded by a great pestilence of the
fourteenth century, which desolated Asia, Europe, and
Africa, and of which the people yet preserve the remem¬
brance in gloomy traditions. It was an oriental plague,
marked by inflammatory boils and tumours of the
glands, such as break out in no other febrile disease. On
account of these inflammatory boils, and from the black
spots, indicatory of a putrid decomposition, which
appeared upon the skin, it was called in Germany and
in the northern kingdoms of Europe the Black Death,
and in Italy, la mortalega grande, the Great Mortality.
Few testimonies are presented to us respecting its
symptoms and its course, yet these are sufficient to
throw light upon the form of the malady, and they are
worthy of credence, from their coincidence with the
signs of the same disease in modern times.
The imperial writer, Kantakusenos, whose own son,
Andronikus, died of this plague in Constantinople,
12
THE BLACK DEATH.
notices great imposthumes of the thiglis and arms of
those affected, which, when opened, afforded relief by
the discharge of an offensive matter. Buboes, which
are the infallible signs of the oriental plague, are thus
plainly indicated, for he makes separate mention of
smaller boils on the arms and in the face, as also in
other parts of the body, and clearly distinguishes these
from the blisters, which are no less produced by
plague in all its forms. In many cases, black spots
broke out all over the body, either single, or united and
confluent.
These symptoms were not all found in every case.
In many, one alone was sufficient to cause death, while
some patients recovered, contrary to expectation, though
afflicted with all. Symptoms of cephalic affection were
frequent; many patients became stupefied and fell into
a deep sleep, losing also their speech from palsy of the
tongue; others remained sleepless and without rest.
The fauces and tongue were black, and as if suffused
with blood ; no beverage could assuage their burning
thirst, so that their sufferings continued without
alleviation until terminated by death, which many in
their despair accelerated with their own hands. Con¬
tagion was evident, for attendants caught the disease
of their relations and friends, and many houses in the
capital were bereft even of their last inhabitant. Thus
far the ordinary circumstances only of the oriental plague
occurred. Still deeper sufferings, however, were con-
THE BLACK DEATH.
13
nected with this pestilence, such as have not been felt
at other times ; the organs of respiration were seized
with a putrid inflammation ; a violent pain in the chest
attacked the patient; blood was expectorated, and the
breath diffused a pestiferous odour.
In the West, the following were the predominating
symptoms on the eruption of this disease. An ardent
fever, accompanied by an evaluation of blood, proved
fatal in the first three days. It appears that buboes and
inflammatory boils did not at first come out at all, but
that the disease, in the form of carbuncular (anthrax-
artigen) affection of the lungs, effected the destruction
of life before the other symptoms were developed.
Thus did the plague rage in Avignon for six or eight
weeks, and the pestilential breath of the sick, who ex¬
pectorated blood, caused a terrible contagion far and
near; for eren the vicinity of those who had fallen ill
of plague was certain death; so that parents abandoned
their infected children, and all the ties of kindred were
dissolved. After this period, buboes in the axilla and
in the groin, and inflammatory boils all over the body,
made their appearance ; but it was not until seven
months afterwards that some patients recovered with
matured buboes, as in the ordinary milder form of
plague.
Such is the report of the courageous Guy de Chauliac,
who vindicated the honour of medicine, by bidding de¬
fiance to danger; boldly and constantly assisting the
14
THE BLACK DEATH.
affected, and disdaining the excuse of his colleagues,
who held the Arabian notion, that medical aid was un¬
availing, and that the contagion justified flight. He
saw the plague twice in Avignon, first in the year 1348,
from January to August, and then twelve years later,
in the autumn, when it returned from Germany, and for
nine months spread general distress and terror. The first
time it raged chiefly among the poor, but in the year 1360,
more among the higher classes. It now also destroyed
a great many children, whom it had formerly spared,
and but few women.
The like was seen in Egypt. Here also inflam¬
mation of the lungs was predominant, and destroyed
quickly and infallibly, with burning heat and expectora¬
tion of blood. Here too the breath of the sick spread
a deadly contagion, and human aid was as vain as it
was destructive to those who approached the infected.
Boccacio, who was an eye-witness of its incredible
fatality in Florence, the seat of the revival of science,
gives a more lively description of the attack of the
disease than his non-medical contemporaries.
It commenced here, not as in the East, with bleeding
at the nose, a sure sign of inevitable death ; but there
took place at the beginning, both in men and women,
tumours in the groin and in the axilla, varying in cir¬
cumference up to the size of an apple or an egg, and
called by the people, pest-boils (gavoccioli). Then
there appeared similar tumours indiscriminately over
THE BLACK DEATH.
15
all parts of the body, and black or blue spots came out
on the arms or thighs, or on other parts, either single
and large, or small and thickly studded. These spots
proved equally fatal with the pest-boils, which had been
from the first regarded as a sure sign of death. No
power of medicine brought relief—almost all died
within the first three days, some sooner, some later,
after the appearance of these signs, and for the most
part entirely without fever or other symptoms. The
plague spread itself with the greater fury, as it com¬
municated from the sick to the healthy, like fire among
dry and oily fuel, and even contact with the clothes
and other articles which had been used by the infected,
seemed to induce the disease. As it advanced, not only
men, but animals fell sick and shortly expired, if they
had touched things belonging to the diseased or dead.
Thus Boccacio himself saw two hogs on the rags of a
person who had died of plague, after staggering about
for a short time, fall down dead as if they had taken
poison. In other places multitudes of dogs, cats, fowls,
and other animals, fell victims to the contagion ; and it
is to be presumed that other epizootes among animals
likewise took place, although the ignorant writers of
the fourteenth century are silent on this point.
In Germany there was a repetition in every respect of
the same phenomena. The infallible signs of the
oriental bubo-plague with its inevitable contagion were
found there as everywhere else ; but the mortality was
16
THE BLACK DEATH.
not nearly so great as in the other parts of Europe.
The accounts do not all make mention of the spitting
of blood, the diagnostic symptom of this fatal pesti¬
lence ; we are not, however, thence to conclude that
there was any considerable mitigation or modification
of the disease, for we must not only take into account
the defectiveness of the chronicles, but that isolated
testimonies are often contradicted by many others.
Thus the chronicles of Strasburg, which only take
notice of boils and glandular swellings in the axillae
and groins, are opposed by another account, according
to which the mortal spitting of blood was met with in
Germany ; but this again is rendered suspicious, as the
narrator postpones the death of those who were thus
affected, to the sixth, and (even the) eighth day,
whereas, no other author sanctions so long a course of
the disease ; and even in Strasburg, where a mitigation
of the plague may, with most probability, be assumed
since the year 1349, only 16,000 people were carried
off, the generality expired by the third or fourth day.
In Austria, and especially in "Vienna, the plague was
fully as malignant as anywhere, so that the patients
who had red spots and black boils, as well as those
afflicted with tumid glands, died about the third day ;
and lastly, very frequent sudden deaths occurred on the
coasts of the North Sea and in Westphalia, without any
further development of the malady.
To France, this plague came in a northern direction
THE BLACK DEATH.
17
from Avignon, and was there more destructive than in
Germany, so that in many places not more than two in
twenty of the inhabitants survived. Many were struck,
as if by lightning, and died on the spot, and this more
frequently among the young and strong than the old;
patients with enlarged glands in the axillas and groins
scarcely survive two or three days; and no sooner did
these fatal signs appear, than they bid adieu to the
world, and sought consolation only in the absolution
which Pope Clement VI. promised them in the hour
of death.
In England the malady appeared, as at Avignon,
with spitting of blood, and with the same fatality, so
that the sick who were afflicted either with this symp¬
tom or with vomiting of blood, died in some cases im¬
mediately, in others within twelve hours, or at the
latest in two days. The inflammatory boils and buboes
in the groins and axillse were recognised at once as
prognosticating a fatal issue, and those were past all
hope of recovery in whom they arose in numbers all
over the body. It was not till towards the close of the
plague that they ventured to open, by incision, these
hard and dry boils, when matter flowed from them in
small quantity, and thus, by compelling nature to a
critical suppuration, many patients were saved. Every
spot which the sick had touched, their breath, their
clothes, spread the contagion; and, as in all other
places, the attendants and friends who were either
L8
THE BLACK DEATH.
blind to their danger, or heroically despised it, fell a
(Sacrifice to their sympathy. Even the eyes of the
patient were considered as sources of contagion, which
had the power of acting at a distance, whether on
account of their unwonted lustre, or the distortion
which they always suffer in plague, or whether in con¬
formity with an ancient notion, according to which the
sight was considered as the bearer of a demoniacal en¬
chantment. Flight- from infected cities seldom availed
the fearful, for the germ of the disease adhered to
them, and they fell sick, remote from assistance, in the
solitude of their country houses.
Thus did the plague spread over England with un¬
exampled rapidity, after it had first broken out in the
county of Dorset, whence it advanced through the
counties of Devon and Somerset, to Bristol, and thence
reached Gloucester, Oxford, and London. Probably few
places escaped, perhaps not any; for the annals of con¬
temporaries report that throughout the land only a
tenth part of the inhabitants remained alive.
From England the contagion was carried by a ship to
Bergen, the capital of Norway, where the plague then
broke out in its most frightful form, with vomiting of
blood; and throughout the whole country, spared not
more than a third of the inhabitants. The sailors found
no refuge in their ships; and vessels were often seen
driving about on the ocean and drifting on shore, whose
crews had perished to the last man.
THE BLACK DEATH.
19
In Poland the affected were attacked with spitting
of blood, and died in a few days in such vast numbers,
that, as it has been affirmed, scarcely a fourth of the
inhabitants were left,
v Finally, in Russia the plague appeared two years
later than in Southern Europe; yet here again, with
the same symptoms as elsewhere. Russian contem¬
poraries have recorded that it began with rigor, heat,
and darting pain in the shoulders and back; that it
was accompanied by spitting of blood, and terminated
fatally in two, or at most three days. It is not till the
year 1360 that we find buboes mentioned as occurring
in the neck, in the axillae, and in the groins, which are
stated to have broken out when the spitting of blood
had continued some time. According to the experience
of "Western Europe, however, it cannot be assumed that
these symptoms did not appear at an earlier period.
Thus much, from authentic sources, on the nature of
the Black Death. The descriptions which have been
communicated contain, with a few unimportant excep¬
tions, all the symptoms of the oriental plague which
have been observed in more modern times. No doubt
can obtain on this point. The facts are placed clearly
before our eyes. We must, however, bear in mind that
this violent disease does not always appear in the same
form, and that while the essence of the poison which it
produces, and which is separated so abundantly from
the body of the patient, remains unchanged, it is
20
THE BLACK DEATH.
proteiform in its varieties, from tlie almost imperceptible
vesicle, unaccompanied by fever, which exists for some
time before it extends its poison inwardly, and then
excites fever and buboes, to the fatal form in which
carbuncular inflammations fall upon the most important
viscera.
Such was the form which the plague assumed in the
fourteenth century, for the accompanying chest affec¬
tion which appeared in all the countries whereof we
have received any account, cannot, on a comparison
with similar and familiar symptoms, be considered as
any other than the inflammation of the lungs of modern
medicine, a disease which at present only appears spo¬
radically, and, owing to a putrid decomposition of the
fluids, is probably combined with hemorrhages from
the vessels of the lungs. Now, as every carbuncle,
whether it be cutaneous or internal, generates in abun¬
dance the matter of contagion which has given rise to it,
so, therefore, must the breath of the affected have been
poisonous in this plague, and on this account its power
of contagion wonderfully increased ; wherefore the
opinion appears incontrovertible, that owing to the
accumulated numbers of the diseased, not only indi¬
vidual chambers and houses, but whole cities were
infected, which, moreover, in the Middle Ages, were,
with few exceptions, narrowly built, kept in a filthy
state, and surrounded with stagnant ditches. Flight
was, in consequence, of no avail to the timid ; for even
THE BLACK DEATH.
21
though they had sedulously avoided all communicatiou
with the diseased and the suspected, yet their clothes
were saturated with the pestiferous atmosphere, and
every inspiration imparted to them the seeds of the
destructive malady, which, in the greater number of
cases, germinated with but too much fertility. Add
to which, the usual propagation of the plague through
clothes, beds, and a thousand other things to which the
pestilential poison adheres—a propagation which, from
want of caution, must have been infinitely multiplied ;
and since articles of this kind, removed from the access
of air, not only retain the matter of contagion for an
indefinite period, but also increase its activity and en¬
gender it like a living being, frightful ill-consequences
followed for many years after the first fury of the
pestilence was past.
The affection of the stomach, often mentioned in
vague terms, and occasionally as a vomiting of blood,
was doubtless only a subordinate symptom, even if it
be admitted that actual hematemesis did occur. For
the difficulty of distinguishing a flow of blood from the
stomach, from a pulmonic expectoration of that fluid, is,
to non-medical men, even in common cases, not incon¬
siderable. How much greater then must it have been
in so terrible a disease, where assistants could not
venture to approach the sick without exposing them¬
selves to certain death ? Only two medical descriptions
of the malady have reached us, the one by the brave
22
THE BLACK DEATH.
Guy de Chauliac, the other by Raymond Chalin de
Yinario, a very experienced scholar, who was well
versed in the learning of his time. The former takes
notice only of fatal coughing of blood; the latter,
besides this, notices epistaxis, hematuria, and fluxes of
blood from the bowels, as symptoms of such decided
and speedy mortality, that those patients in whom
they were observed usually died on the same or the
following day.
That a vomiting of blood may not, here and there,
have taken place, perhaps have been even prevalent in
many places, is, from a consideration of the nature of
the disease, by no means to be denied; for every putrid
decomposition of the fluids begets a tendency to hemorr¬
hages of all kinds. Here, however, it is a question of
historical certainty, which, after these doubts, is by no
means established. Had not so speedy a death fol¬
lowed the expectoration of blood, we should certainly
have received more detailed intelligence respecting
other hemorrhages; but the malady had no time to
extend its effects further over the extremities of the
vessels. After its first fury, however, was spent, the
pestilence passed into the usual febrile form of the
oriental plague. Internal carbuncular inflammations
no longer took place, and hemorrhages became pheno¬
mena, no more essential in this than they are in any
other febrile disorders. Chalin, who observed not only
the great mortality of 1348, and the plague of 1360,
THE BLACK DEATH.
23
but also that of 1373 and 1382, speaks moreover of
affections of the throat, and describes the black spots
of plague patients more satisfactorily than any of his
contemporaries. The former appeared but in few cases,
and consisted in carbuncular inflammation of the gullet,
with a difficulty of swallowing, even to suffocation, to
which, in some instances, was added inflammation of
the ceruminous glands of the ears, with tumours, pro¬
ducing great deformity. Such patients, as well as
others, were affected with expectoration of blood; but
they did not usually die before the sixth, and, some¬
times, even so late as the fourteenth day. The same
occurrence, it is well known, is not uncommon in other
pestilences; as also blisters on the surface of the body,
in different places, in the vicinity of which, tumid
glands and inflammatory boils, surrounded by dis¬
coloured and black streaks, arose, and thus indicated
the reception of the poison. These streaked spots were
called, by an apt comparison, the girdle, and this ap¬
pearance was justly considered extremely dangerous.
CHAPTER III.
CAUSE S.—S PKEAD.
An inquiry into the causes of the Black Death will
not be without important results in the study of the
24
THE BLACK DEATH.
plagues which have visited the world, although it can¬
not advance beyond generalisation without entering
upon a field hitherto uncultivated, and, to this hour
entirely unknown. Mighty revolutions in the organism
of the earth, of which we have credible information,
had preceded it. From China to the Atlantic, the
foundations of the earth were shaken—throughout Asia
and Europe the atmosphere was in commotion, and
endangered, by its baneful influence, both vegetable
and animal life.
The series of these great events began in the year
1333, fifteen years before the plague broke out in
Europe : they first appeared in China. Here a parch¬
ing drought, accompanied by famine, commenced in
the tract of country watered by the rivers Kiang and
Hoai. This was followed by such violent torrents of
rain, in and about Kingsai, at that time the capital of
the empire, that, according to tradition, more than
400,000 people perished in the floods. Finally the
mountain Tsincheou fell in, and vast clefts were formed
in the earth. In the succeeding year (1334), passing
over fabulous traditions, the neighbourhood of Canton
was visited by inundations ; whilst in Tche, after an
unexampled drought, a plague arose, which is said to
hsrve carried off about 5,000,000 of people. A few
months afterwards an earthquake followed, at and
near Kingsai; and subsequent to the falling in of the
monntains of Ki-ming-chan, a lake was formed of more
THE BLACK DEATH.
than a hundred leagues in circumference, where, again,
thousands found their grave. In Houkouang and
Honan, a drought prevailed for five months; and in¬
numerable swarms of locusts destroyed the vegetation ;
while famine and pestilence, as usual, followed in their
train. Connected accounts of the condition of Europe
before this great catastrophe are not to be expected
from the writers of the fourteenth century. It is re¬
markable, however, that simultaneously with a drought
and renewed floods in China, in 1336, many uncommon
atmospheric phenomena, and in the winter, frequent
thunderstorms, were observed in the north of France;
and so early as the eventful year of 1333 an eruption
of Etna took place. According to the Chinese annals,
about 4,000,000 of people perished by famine in the
neighbourhood of Kiang in 1337; and deluges, swarms
of locusts, and an earthquake which lasted six days,
caused incredible devastation. In the same year, the
first swarms of locusts appeared in Franconia, which
were succeeded in the following year by myriads of
these insects. In 1338 Kingsai was visited by an
earthquake of ten days' duration; at the same time
France suffered from a failure in the harvest; and
thenceforth, till the year 1342, there was in China a
constant succession of inundations, earthquakes, and
famines. In the same year great floods occurred in
the vicinity of the Rhine and in France, which could
not be attributed to rain alone ; for, everywhere, even
26
THE BLACK DEATH.
on the tops of mountains, springs were seen to burst
forth, and dry tracts were laid under water in an in¬
explicable manner. In the following year, the moun¬
tain Hong-tchang, in China, fell in, and caused a
destructive deluge ; and in Pien-tcheou and Leang-
tcheou, after three months' rain, there followed 1111-
heard-of inundations, which destroyed seven cities. In
Egypt and Syria, violent earthquakes took place; and
in China they became, from this time, more and more
frequent; for they recurred, in 1344, in Yen-tcheou,
where the sea overflowed in consequence ; in 1345, in
Ki-tcheou, and in both the following years in Canton,
with subterraneous thunder. Meanwhile, floods and
famine devastated various districts, until 1347, when
the fury of the elements subsided in China.
The signs of terrestrial commotions commenced in
Europe in the year 1348, after the intervening districts
of country in Asia had probably been visited in the
same manner.
On the island of Cyprus, the plague from the East
had already broken out; when an earthquake shook
the foundations of the island, and was accompanied by
so frightful a hurricane, that the inhabitants who had
slain their Mahometan slaves, in order that they might
not themselves be subjugated by them, fled in dismay,
in all directions. The sea overflowed—the ships were
dashed to pieces on the rocks, and few outlived the
terrific event, whereby this fertile and blooming island
THE BLACK" DEATH.
27
was converted into a desert. Before the earthquake, a
pestiferous wind spread so poisonous an odour, that
many, being overpowered by it, fell down suddenly and
expired in dreadful agonies.
This phenomenon is one of the rarest that has ever
been observed, for nothing is more constant than the
composition of the air; and in no respect has nature
been more careful in the preservation of organic life.
Never have naturalists discovered in the atmosphere
foreign elements, which, evident to the senses, and
borne by the winds, spread from land to land, carrying
disease over whole portions of the earth, as is recounted
to have taken place in the year 1348. It is, therefore,
the more to be regretted, that in this extraordinary
period, which, owing to the low condition of science,
was very deficient in accurate observers, so little that
can be depended on respecting those uncommon occur¬
rences in the air, should have been recorded. Yet,
German accounts say expressly, that a thick, stinking
mist advanced from the East, and spread itself over
Italy; and there could be no deception in so palpable
a phenomenon. The credibility of unadorned traditions,
however little they may satisfy physical research, can
scarcely be called in question when we consider the
connection of events; for just at this time earthquakes
were more general than they had been within the range
of history. In thousands of places chasms were formed,
from whence arose noxious vapours; and as at that
28
THE BLACK DEATH.
time natural occurrences were transformed into miracles,
it was reported, that a fiery meteor, which descended on
the earth far in the East, had destroyed everything
within a circumference of more than a hundred leagues,
infecting the air far and wide. The consequences of
innumerable floods contributed to the same effect;
vast river districts had been converted into swamps;
foul vapours arose everywhere, increased by the odour
of putrified locusts, which had never perhaps darkened
the sun in thicker swarms, and of countless corpses,
which, even in the well-regulated countries of Europe,
they knew not how to remove quickly enough out of
the sight of the living. It is probable, therefore, that
the atmosphere contained foreign, and sensibly per¬
ceptible, admixtures to a great extent, which, at least
in the lower regions, could not be decomposed, or
rendered ineffective by separation.
Now, if we go back to the symptoms of the disease,
the ardent inflammation of the lungs points out, that
the organs of respiration yielded to the attack of an
atmospheric poison—a poison which, if we admit the
independent origin of the Black Plague at any one
place on the globe, which, under such extraordinary
circumstances, it would be difficult to doubt, attacked
the course of the circulation in as hostile a manner as
that which produces inflammation of the spleen, and
other animal contagions that cause swelling and in¬
flammation of the lymphatic glands.
THE BLACK DEATH.
29
Pursuing the course of these grand revolutions
further, we find notice of an unexampled earthquake,
■which, on the 25th of January, 1348, shook Greece,
Italy, and the neighbouring countries. Naples, Rome,
Pisa, Bologna, Padua, Yenice, and many other cities,
suffered considerably; whole villages were swallowed
up. Castles, houses, and churches were overthrown,
and hundreds of people were buried beneath their
ruins. In Carinthia, thirty villages, together with all
the churches, were demolished; more than a thousand
corpses were drawn out of the rubbish; the city of
Villach was so completely destroyed that Arery few of
its inhabitants were saved; and when the earth ceased
to tremble it was found that mountains had been moved
from their positions, and that many hamlets were left
in ruins. It is recorded that during this earthquake
the wine in the casks became turbid, a statement which
may be considered as furnishing a proof that changes
causing a decomposition of the atmosphere had taken
place; but if we had no other information from which
the excitement of conflicting powers of nature during
these commotions might be inferred, yet scientific ob¬
servations in modern times have shown that the rela¬
tion of the atmosphere to the earth is changed by vol¬
canic influences. Why then, may we not, from this
fact, draw retrospective inferences respecting those
extraordinary phenomena?
Independently of this, however, we know that during
30
THE BLACK DEATH.
this earthquake, the duration of which is stated by some
to have been a week, and by others a fortnight, people
experienced an unusual stupor and headache, and that
many fainted away.
These destructive earthquakes extended as far as
the neighbourhood of Basle, and recurred until the
year 1360 throughout Germany, France, Silesia, Poland,
England, and Denmark, and much further north.
Great and extraordinary meteors appeared in many
places, and were regarded with superstitious horror.
A pillar of fire, which on the 20tli of December, 1348,
remained for an hour at sunrise over the pope's palace
in Avignon; a fireball, which in August of the same
year was seen at sunset over Paris, and was distin¬
guished from similar phenomena by its longer duration,
not to mention other instances mixed up with wonder¬
ful prophecies and omens, are recorded in the chronicles
of that age.
The order of the seasons seemed to be inverted;
rains, floods, and failures in crops were so general that
few places were exempt from them; and though an
historian of this century assures us that there was an
abundance in the granaries and storehouses, all his con¬
temporaries, with one voice, contradict him. The con¬
sequences of failure in the crops were soon felt, espe¬
cially in Italy and the surrounding countries, where, in
tins year, a rain, which continued for four months, had
destroyed the seed. In the larger cities they were com-
THE BLACK DEATH.
31
pelled, in the spring of 1347, to have recourse to a dis¬
tribution of bread among the poor, particularly at
Florence, where they erected large bakehouses, from
which, in April, ninety-four thousand loaves of bread,
each of twelve ounces in weight, were daily dispensed.
It is plain, however, that humanity could only partially
mitigate the general distress, not altogether obviate it.
Diseases, the invariable consequence of famine, broke
out in the country as well as in cities ; children died of
hunger in their mother's arms—want, misery, and
despair were general throughout Christendom.
Such are the events which took place before the
eruption of the Black Plague in Europe. Contempora¬
ries have explained them after their own manner, and
have thus, like their posterity, under similar circum¬
stances, given a proof that mortals possess neither
senses nor intellectual powers sufficiently acute to
comprehend the phenomena produced by the earth's
organism, much less scientifically to understand their
effects. Superstition, selfishness in a thousand forms,
the presumption of the schools, laid hold of uncon¬
nected facts. They vainly thought to comprehend the
whole in the individual, and perceived not the universal
spirit which, in intimate union with the mighty powers
of nature, animates the movements of all existence,
and permits not any phenomenon to originate from
isolated causes. To attempt, five centuries after that
age of desolation, to point out the causes of a cosmical
THE BLACK DEATH.
commotion, whicli lias never recurred to an equal extent,
to indicate scientifically the influences which called
forth so terrific a poison in the bodies of men and
animals, exceeds the limits of human understanding.
If we are even now unable, with all the varied resources
of an extended knowledge of nature, to define that con¬
dition of the atmosphere by which pestilences are
generated, still less can we pretend to reason retro¬
spectively from the nineteenth to the fourteenth cen¬
tury ; but if we take a general view of the occurrences,
that century will give us copious information, and, as
applicable to all succeeding times, of high importance.
In the progress of connected natural phenomena from
east to west, that great law of nature is plainly revealed
which has so often and evidently manifested itself in
the earth's organism, as well as in the state of nations
dependent upon it. In the inmost depths of the globe
that impulse was given in the year 1333, which in un¬
interrupted succession for six and twenty years shook
the surface of the earth, even to the western shores of
Europe. From the very beginning the air partook of
the terrestrial concussion, atmospherical waters over¬
flowed the land, ox* its plants and animals perished
under the scorching heat. The insect k-ibe was won¬
derfully called into life, as if animated beings were
destined to complete the destruction which asiral and
telluric powers had begun. Thus did this dreadful
work of nature advance from year to year; it was a
THE BLACK DEATH.
33
progressive infection of the zones, which exerted a
powerful influence both above and beneath the surface
of the earth; and after having been perceptible in
slighter indications, at the commencement of the ter¬
restrial commotions in China, convulsed the whole
earth.
The nature of the first plague in China is unknown.
We have no certain intelligence of the disease until
it entered the western countries of Asia. Here it
showed itself as the Oriental plague, with inflammation
of the lungs; in which form it probably also may have
begun in China, that is to say, as a malady which
spreads, more than any other, by contagion—a con¬
tagion that, in ordinary pestilences, requires immediate
contact, and only under unfavourable circumstances of
rare occurrence is communicated by the mere approach
to the sick. The share which this cause had in the
spreading'of the plague over the tvhole earth was cer¬
tainly very great; and the opinion that the Black
Death might have been excluded from Western Europe
by good regulations, similar to those which are now in
use, would have all the support of modern experience,
provided it could be proved that this plague had been
actually imported from the East, or that the Oriental
plague in general, whenever it appears in Europe, has
its origin in Asia or Egypt. Such a proof, however,
can by no means be produced so as to enforce convic¬
tion ; for it would involve the impossible assumption,
B—118
34
THE BLACK DEATH.
either that there is no essential difference between
the degree of civilisation of the European nations, in
the most ancient and in modern times, or that detri¬
mental circumstances, -which have yielded only to the
civilisation of human society and the regular cultiva¬
tion of countries, could not formerly keep up the
glandular plague.
The plague was, however, known in Europe before
nations were united by the bonds of commerce and
social intercourse; hence there is ground for supposing
that it sprang up spontaneously, in consequence of the
rude manner of living and the uncultivated state of
the earth, influences which peculiarly favour the origin
of severe diseases. Now we need not go back to the
earlier centuries, for the fourteenth itself, before it had
half expired, was visited by five or six pestilences.
If, therefore, we consider the peculiar property of the
plague, that in countries which it has once visited it
remains for a long time in a milder form, and that the
epidemic influences of 1342, when it had appeared for
the last time, were particularly favourable to its un-
perceived continuance, till 1348, we come to the notion
that in this eventful year also the germs of plague
existed in Southern Europe, which might be vivified by
atmospherical deteriorations; and that thus, at least
in part, the Black Plague may have originated in
Europe itself. The corruption of the atmosphere
came from the East; but the disease itself came not
THE BLACK DEATH.
35
upon the wings of the wind, but was only excited and
increased by the atmosphere where it had previously
existed.
This source of the Black Plague was not, however,
the only one; for far more powerful than the excite¬
ment of the latent elements of the plague by atmo¬
spheric influences was the effect of the contagion com¬
municated from one people to another on the great
roads and in the harbours of the Mediterranean. From
China the route of the caravans lay to the north of
the Caspian Sea, through Central Asia, to Tauris.
Here ships were ready to take the produce of the
East to Constantinople, the capital of commerce, and
the medium of connection between Asia, Europe, and
Africa. Other caravans went from India to Asia
Minor, and touched at the cities south of the Caspian
Sea, and, lastly, from Bagdad through Arabia to Egypt;
also the maritime communication on the Red Sea,
from India to Arabia and Egypt, was not inconsider¬
able. In all these directions contagion made its way;
and, doubtless, Constantinople and the harbours of
Asia Minor are to be regarded as the foci of infection,
whence it radiated to the most distant seaports and
islands.
To Constantinople the plague had been brought from
the northern coast of the Black Sea, after it had de¬
populated the countries between those routes of com¬
merce, and appeared as early as 1347 in Cyprus. Sicily,
36
THE BLACK DEATH.
Marseilles, and some of the seaports of Italy. The
remaining islands of the Mediterranean, particularly
Sardinia, Corsica, and Majorca, were visited in suc¬
cession. Foci of contagion existed also in full activity
along the whole southern coast of Europe ; when, iu
January, 1348, the plague appeared in Avignon, and in
other cities in the south of France and north of Italy,
as well as in Spain.
The precise days of its eruption in the individual
towns are no longer to be ascertained; but it was not
simultaneous ; for in Florence the disease appeared iu
the beginning of April, in Oesena the 1st of June, and
place after place was attacked throughout the whole
year; so that tlie plague, after it had passed through
the whole of France and Germany—where, however, it
did not make its ravages until the following year—did
not break out till August in England, where it advanced
so gradually, that a period of three months elapsed
before it reached London. The northern kingdoms-
were attacked by it in 1349 : Sweden, indeed, not until
November of that year, almost two years after its erup¬
tion in Avignon. Poland received the plague in 1349,
probably from Germany, if not from the northern
countries; but in Russia it did not make its appear¬
ance until 1351, more than three years after it had
broken out in Constantinople. Instead of advancing in
a north-westerly direction from Tauris and from the
Caspian Sea, it had thus made the great circuit of the
THE BLACK DEATH.
37
Black Sea, by way of Constantinople, Southern and
Central Europe, England, the northern kingdoms, and
Poland, before it reached the Russian territories, a
phenomenon which has not again occurred with respect
to more recent pestilences originating in Asia.
Whether any difference existed between the indi¬
genous plague, excited by the influence of the atmo¬
sphere, and that which was imported by contagion, can
no longer be ascertained from facts; for the contem¬
poraries, who in general were not competent to make
accurate researches of this kind, have left no data on
the subject. A milder and a more malignant form
certainly existed, and the former was not always
derived from the latter, as is to be supposed from this
circumstance—that the spitting of blood, the infallible
diagnostic of the latter, on the first breaking out of
the plague, is not similarly mentioned in all the
reports; and it is therefore probable that the milder
form belonged to the native plague—the more malig¬
nant, to that introduced by contagion. Contagion
was, however, in itself, only one of many causes which
gave rise to the Black Plague.
This disease was a consequence of violent com¬
motions in the earth's organism—if any disease of
cosmical origin can be so considered. One spring set
a thousand others in motion for the annihilation of
living beings, transient or permanent, of mediate or
immediate effect. The most powerful of all was
38
the black death.
contagion; for in the most distant countries, which
had scarcely yet heard the echo of the first concus¬
sion, the people fell a sacrifice to organic poison—the
untimely offspring of vital energies thrown into
violent commotion.
CHAPTER IY.
MORTALITY.
We have no certain measure by which to estimate the
ravages of the Black Plague, if numerical statements
were wanted, as in modern times. Let us go back for
a moment to the fourteenth century. The people were
yet but little civilised. The Church had indeed
subdued them; but they all suffered from the ill
consequences of their original rudeness. The dominion
of the law was not yet confirmed. Sovereigns had
everywhere to combat powerful enemies to internal
tranquillity and security. The cities were fortresses
for their own defence. Marauders encamped on the
roads. The husbandman was a feudal slave, without
possessions of his own. Rudeness was general,
humanity as yet unknown to the people. Witches
and heretics were burned alive. Gentle rulers were
contemned as weak ; wild passions, severity and
cruelty, everywhere predominated. Human life was
little regarded. Governments concerned not themselves
THE BLACK DEATH.
3D
about the numbers of their subjects, for whose
welfare it was incumbent on them to provide. Thus,
the first requisite for estimating the loss of human
life, namely, a knowledge of the amount of the
population, is altogether wanting; and, moreover,
the traditional statements of the amount of this loss
are so vague, that from this source likewise there is
only room for probable conjecture.
Cairo lost daily, when the plague was raging with
its greatest violence, from 10,000 to 15,000; being
as many as, in modern times, great plagues have
carried off during their whole course. In China,
more than thirteen millions are said to have died;
and this is in correspondence with the certainly
exaggerated accounts from the rest of Asia. India
was depopulated. Tartary, the Tartar kingdom of
Kaptschak, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, were covered
with dead bodies—the Kurds fled in vain to the
mountains. In Caramania and Caesarea none were
left alive. On the roads—in the camps—in the
caravansaries—unburied bodies alone were seen;
and a few cities only (Arabian historians name Maara-
el-Nooman, Schisur, and Harem) remained, in an
unaccountable manner, free. In Aleppo, 500 died
daily; 22,000 people, and most of the animals, were
carried off in Gaza, within six weeks. Cyprus lost
almost all its inhabitants ; and ships without crews
were often seen in the Mediterranean, as afterwards
40
THE BLACK DEATH.
in the North Sea, driving about, and spreading the
plague wherever they went on shore. It was reported
to Pope Clement, at Avignon, that throughout the
East, probably with the exception of China, 23,840,000
people had fallen victims to the plague. Considering
the occurrences of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen¬
turies, we might, on first view, suspect the accuracy of
this statement. How (it might be asked) could such
great wars have been carried on — such powerful
efforts have been made ; how could the Greek Empire,
only a hundred years later, have been overthrown,
if the people really had been so utterly destroyed ?
This account is nevertheless rendered credible by
the ascertained fact, that the palaces of princes are
less accessible to contagious diseases than the dwell¬
ings of the multitude; and that in places of im¬
portance, the influx from those districts which have
suffered least, soon repairs even the heaviest losses.
We must remember, also, that we do not gather much
from mere numbers without an intimate knowledge
of the state of society. We will therefore confine
ourselves to exhibiting some of the more credible
accounts relative to European cities.
In Florence there died of the Black Plague... 00,000
In Venice... ... 100,000
In Marseilles, in one month ... ... ... 1G 000
In Siena To'oOO
In Paris 50,000
THE BLACK DEATH.
41
In St. Denys 14,000
In Avignon 60,000
In Strasburg 16,000
In Lubeck 9;000
In Basle 14,000
In Erfurt, at least 16,000
In "Weimar 5,000
In Limburg 2,500
In London, at least ... ... ... ... 100,000
In Norwich ... ... ... 51,100
To which may be added—
Franciscan Friars in Germany 124,434
Minorites in Italy ... ... 30,000
This short catalogue might, by a laborious and
uncertain calculation, deduced from other sources,
be easily further multiplied, but would still fail to
give a true picture of the depopulation which
took place. Lubeck, at that time the Venice of the
North, which could no longer contain the multitudes
that flocked to it, was thrown into such consternation
on the eruption of the plague, that the citizens de¬
stroyed themselves as if in frenzy.
Merchants whose earnings and possessions were
unbounded, coldly and willingly renounced their
earthly goods. They carried their treasures to
monasteries and churches, and laid them at the foot
of the altar; but gold had no charms for the monks,
for it brought them death. They shut their gates;
yet, still it was cast to them over the convent walls.
People would brook no impediment to the last pious
42
THE BLACK DEATH.
work to which they were driven by despair. WheD
the plague ceased, men thought they were still
wandering among the dead, so appalling was the livid
aspect of the survivors, in consequence of the anxiety
they had undergone, and the unavoidable infection
of the air. Many other cities probably presented a
similar appearance; and it is ascertained that a great
number of small country towns and villages, which
have been estimated, and not too highly, at 200,000,
were bereft of all their inhabitants.
In many places in France, not more than two out
of twenty of the inhabitants were left alive, and the
capital felt the fury of the plague, alike in the palace
and the cot.
Two queens, one bishop, and great numbers of other
distinguished persons, fell a sacrifice to it, and more
than 500 a day died in the Hotel Dieu, under the
faithful care of the sisters of charity, whose dis¬
interested courage, in this age of horror, displayed the
most beautiful traits of human virtue. For although
they lost their lives, evidently from contagion, and
their numbers were several times renewed, there was
still no want of fresh candidates, who, strangers to the
unchristian fear of death, piously devoted themselves
to their holy calling.
The churchyards were soon unable to contain the
dead, and many houses, left without inhabitants, fell
to ruins.
THE B-LACK DEATH.
43
In Avignon, the Pope found it necessary to con¬
secrate the Rhone, that bodies might be thrown into
the river without delay, as the churchyards would
no longer hold them; so likewise, in all populous
cities, extraordinary measures were adopted, in order
i speedily to dispose of the dead. In Yienna, where
for some time 1,200 inhabitants died daily, the inter¬
ment of corpses in the churchyards and within the
churches was forthwith prohibited; and the dead
were then arranged in layers, by thousands, in six
large pits outside the city, as had already been done
in Cairo and Paris. Yet, still many were secretly
buried; for at all times the people are attached to
the consecrated cemeteries of their dead, and will not
renounce the customary mode of interment.
In many places it was rumoured that plague
patients were buried alive, as may sometimes happen
through senseless alarm and indecent haste ; and thus
the horror of the distressed people was everywhere
increased. In Erfurt, after the churchyards were
filled, 12,000 corpses were thrown into eleven great
pits; and the like might, more or less exactly, be
stated with respect to all the larger cities. Funeral
ceremonies, the last consolation of the survivors, were
everywhere impracticable.
In all Germany, according to a probable calculation,
there seem to have died only 1,244,434 inhabitants;
this country, however, was more spared than others :
u
THE BLACK DEATH.
Italy, on the contrary, was most severely visited.
It is said to have lost half its inhabitants; and this ac¬
count is rendered credible from the immense losses of
individual cities and provinces : for in Sardinia and
Corsica, according to the account of the distinguished
Florentine, John Villani, who was himself carried off
by the Black Plague, scarcely a third part of the
population remained alive ; and it is related of the
Venetians, that they engaged ships at a high rate
to retreat to the islands ; so that after the plague had
carried off three-fourths of her inhabitants, that proud
city was left forlorn and desolate. In Padua, after
the cessation of the plague, two-thirds of the inhabit¬
ants were wanting; and in Florence it was prohibited
to publish the numbers of the dead, and to toll the
bells at their funerals, in order that the living might
not abandon themselves to despair.
We have more exact accounts of England; most of
the great cities suffered incredible losses; above all,
Yarmouth, in which 7,052 died: Bristol, Oxford,
Norwich, Leicester, York, and London, where, in one
burial ground alone, there were interred upwards of
50,000 corpses, arranged in layers, in large pits. It is
said that in the whole country scarcely a tenth part
remained alive; but this estimate is evidently too
high. Smaller losses were sufficient to cause those
convulsions, whose consequences wore felt for some
centuries, in a false impulse given to civil life, and
THE BLACK DEATH.
45
whose indirect influence, unknown to the English, has.
perhaps extended even to modern times.
Morals were deteriorated everywhere, and the service
of God was in a great measure laid aside; for, in
many places, the churches were deserted, being bereft
of their priests. The instruction of the people was
impeded; covetousness became general; and when
tranquillity was restored, the great increase of law¬
yers was astonishing, to whom the endless disputes
regarding inheritances offered a rich harvest. The
want of priests too, throughout the country, operated
very detrimentally upon the people (the lower classes
being most exposed to the ravages of the plague, whilst
the houses of the nobility were, in proportion, much
more spared), and it was no compensation that whole
bands of ignorant laymen, who had lost their wives
during the pestilence, crowded into the monastic
orders, that they might participate in the respectability
of the priesthood, and in the rich heritages which
fell in to the Church from all quarters. The sittings
of Parliament, of the King's Bench, and of most of
the other courts, were suspended as long as the malady
raged. The laws of peace availed not during the
dominion of death. Pope Clement took advantage of
this state of disorder to adjust the bloody quarrel
between Edward III. and Philip YI.; yet he only
succeeded during the period that the plague com¬
manded peace. Philip's death (1350) annulled all
46
THE BLACK DEATH.
treaties; and it is related that Edward, with other
troops indeed, but with the same leaders and knights,
again took the field. Ireland was much less heavily
visited than England. The disease seems to have scarcely
reached the mountainous districts of that kingdom;
and Scotland too would perhaps have remained free,
had not the Scots availed themselves of the discom¬
fiture of the English to make an irruption into their
territory, which terminated in the destruction of their
army, by the plague and by the sword, and the ex¬
tension of the pestilence, through those who escaped,
over the whole country.
At the commencement, there was in England a
superabundance of all the necessaries of life; but the
plague, which seemed then to be the sole disease, was
soon accompanied by a fatal murrain among the cattle.
"Wandering about without herdsmen, they fell by
thousands; and, as has likewise been observed in
Africa, the birds and beasts of prey are said not to
have touched them. Of what nature this murrain may
have been, can no more be determined, than whether it
originated from communication with plague patients,
or from other causes ; but thus much is certain, that
it did not break out until after the commencement of
the Black Death. In consequence of this murrain,
and the impossibility of removing the corn from the
fields, there was everywhere a great rise in the price of
food, which to many was inexplicable, because the
THE BLACK DEATH.
47
harvest had been plentiful; by others it was attributed
to the wicked designs of the labourers and dealers;
but it really had its foundation in the actual deficiency
arising from circumstances by which individual classes
at all times endeavour to profit. For a whole year,
until it terminated in August, 1349, the Black Plague
prevailed in this beautiful island, and everywhere
poisoned the springs of comfort and prosperity.
In other countries, it generally lasted only half a
year, but returned frequently in individual places ; on
which account, some, without sufficient proof, assigned
to it a period of seven years.
Spain was uninterruptedly ravaged by the Black
Plague till after the year 1350, to which the frequent
internal feuds and the wars with the Moors not a little
contributed. Alphonso XI., whose passion for war
carried him too far, died of it at the siege of Gibraltar,
on the 26th of March, 1350. He was the only king
in Europe who fell a sacrifice to it; but even before
this period, innumerable families had been thrown into
affliction. The mortality seems otherwise to have been
smaller in Spain than in Italy, and about as con¬
siderable as in France.
The whole period during which the Black Plague
raged with destructive violence in Europe was, with
the exception of Russia, from the year 1347 to 1350.
The plagues which in the sequel often returned until
the year 1383, we do not consider as belonging to
48
THE BLACK DEATH.
"the Great Mortality." They were rather common
pestilences, without inflammation of the lungs, such as
in former times, and in the following centuries, were
excited by the matter of contagion everywhere existing,
and which, on every favourable occasion, gained
ground anew, as is usually the case with this frightful
disease.
The concourse of large bodies of people was especi¬
ally dangerous; and thus the premature celebration
of the Jubilee to which Clement VI. cited the faithful
to Rome (1350) during the great epidemic, caused a
new eruption of [the plague, from which it is said that
scarcely one in a hundred of the pilgrims escaped.
Italy was, in consequence, depopulated anew; and
those who returned, spread poison and corruption of
morals in all directions. It is therefore the less
apparent how that Pope, who was in general so wise
and considerate, and who knew how to pursue the path
of reason and humanity under the most difficult cir¬
cumstances, should have been led to adopt a measure
so injurious; since lie himself was so convinced of
the salutary effect of seclusion, that during the plague
in Avignon he kept up constant fires, and suffered no
one to approach him ; and in other respects gave
such orders as averted, or alleviated, much misery.
The changes which occurred about this period in the
north of Europe are sufficiently memorable to claim a
few moments' attention. In Sweden two princes died
THE BLACK DEATH.
49
—Haken and Knut, lialf-brothers of King Magnus;
and in Westgothland alone, 466 priests. The inhabit¬
ants of Iceland and Greenland found in the coldness
of their inhospitable climate no protection against the
southern enemy who had penetrated to them from
happier countries. The plague caused great havoc
among them. Nature made no allowance for their
constant warfare with the elements, and the parsimony
with which she had meted out to them the enjoyments
of life. In Denmark and Norway, however, people
were so occupied with their own misery, that the
accustomed voyages to Greenland ceased. Towering
icebergs formed at the same time on the coast of East
Greenland, in consequence of the general concussion
of the earth's organism; and no mortal, from that
time forward, has ever seen that shore or its in¬
habitants.
It has been observed above, that in Russia the
Black Plague did not break out until 1351, after it had
already passed through the south and north of Europe.
In this country also, the mortality was extraordinarily
great; and the same scenes of affliction and despair
were exhibited, as had occurred in those nations which
had already passed the ordeal: the same mode of
burial—the same horrible certainty of death—the same
torpor and depression of spirits. The wealthy aban¬
doned their treasures, and gave their villages and
estates to the churches and monasteries; this being,
50
THE BLACK DEATH.
according to the notions of the age, the surest way of
securing the favour of Heaven and the forgiveness of
past sins. In Russia, too, the voice of nature was
silenced by fear and horror. In the hour of danger,
fathers and mothers deserted their children, and
children their parents.
Of all the estimates of the number of lives lost in
Europe, the most probable is, that altogether a fourth
part of the inhabitants were carried off. Now, if
Europe at present contain 210,000,000 inhabitants, the
population, not to take a higher estimate, which might
easily be justified, amounted to at least 105,000,000 in
the sixteenth century.
It may therefore be assumed, without exaggeration,
that Europe lost during the Black Death 25,000,000
of inhabitants.
That her nations could so quickly overcome such a
fearful concussion in their external circumstances,
and, in general, without retrograding more than they
actually did, could so develop their energies in the
following century, is a most convincing proof of the
indestructibility of human society as a whole. To
assume, however, that it did not suffer any essential
change internally, because in appearance everything
remained as before, is inconsistent with a just view of
cause and effect. Many historians seem to have
adopted such an opinion; accustomed, as usual, to
judge of the moral condition of the people solely
THE BLACK DEATH.
51
according to the vicissitudes of earthly power, the events
of battles, and the influence of religion, but to pass
over with indifference the great phenomena of nature,
which modify, not only the surface of the earth, but
also the human mind. Hence, most of them have
touched but superficially on the " Great Mortality " of
the fourteenth century. We, for our parts, are con¬
vinced that in the history of the world the Black
Death is one of the most important events which have
prepared the way for the present state of Europe.
He who studies the human mind with attention, and
forms a deliberate judgment on the intellectual powers
which set people and States in motion, may perhaps
find some proofs of this assertion in the following
observations :—at that time, the advancement of the
hierarchy was, in most countries, extraordinary; for
the Church acquired treasures and large properties in
land, even to a greater extent than after the Crusades ;
bat experience has demonstrated that such a state of
things is ruinous to the people, and causes them to
retrograde, as was evinced on this occasion.
After the cessation of the Black Plague, a greater
fecundity in women was everywhere remarkable—a
grand phenomenon, which, from its occurrence after
every destructive pestilence, proves to conviction, if
any occurrence can do so, the prevalence of a higher
power in the direction of general organic life. Mar¬
riages were, almost without exception, prolific; and
52
THE BLACK DEATH.
double and triple births were more frequent than at
other times; under which head, we should remember
the strange remark, that after the " Great Mortality "
the children were said to have got fewer teeth than
before; at which contemporaries were mightily shocked,
and even later writers have felt surprise.
If we examine the grounds of this oft-repeated as¬
sertion, we shall find that they were astonished to see
children cut twenty, or at most, twenty-two teeth,
xinder the supposition that a greater number had
formerly fallen to their share. Some writers of
■authority, as, for example, the physician Savonarola, at
Ferrara, who probably looked for twenty-eight teeth
in children, published their opinions on this subject.
Others copied from them, without seeing for them¬
selves, as often happens in other matters which are
equally evident; and thus the world believed in the
miracle of an imperfection in the human body which
had been caused by the Black Plague.
The people gradually consoled themselves after the
sufferings which they had undergone; the dead were
lamented and forgotten; and, in the stirring vicissitudes
of existence, the world belonged to the living.
the black death.
53
CHAPTER Y.
moral effects.
The mental shock sustained by all nations during tlio
prevalence of the Black Plague is without parallel
and beyond description. In the eyes of the timorous,
danger was the certain harbinger of death; many fell
victims to fear on the first appearance of the dis¬
temper, and the most stout-hearted lost their confidence.
Thus, after reliance on the future had died away, the
spiritual union which binds man to his family and his
fellow-creatures was gradually dissolved. The pious
closed their accounts with the world—eternity pre¬
sented itself to their view—their only remaining
desire was for a participation in the consolations of
religion, because tto them death was disarmed of its.
sting.
Repentance seized the transgressor, admonishing him.
to consecrate his remaining hours to the exercise of
Christian virtues. All minds were directed to the
contemplation of futurity ; and children, who manifest
the more elevated feelings of the soul without alloy,
were frequently seen, while labouring under the plague,
breathing out their spirit with prayer and songs of
thanksgiving.
An awful sense of contrition seized Christians of
every communion ; they resolved to forsake their vices,
54
THE BLACK DEATH.
to make restitution for past offences, before they were
summoned hence, to seek reconciliation with their
Maker, and to avert, by self-chastisement, the punish¬
ment due to their former sins. Human nature would
be exalted, could the countless noble actions which,
in times of most imminent danger, were performed in
secret, be recorded for the instruction of future genera¬
tions. They, however, have no influence on the course
of worldly events. They are known only to silent eye¬
witnesses, and soon fall into oblivion. But hypocrisy
illusion, and bigotry stalk abroad undaunted; they
desecrate what is noble, they pervert what is divine, to
the unholy purposes of selfishness, which hurries along
every good feeling in the false excitement of the age.
Thus it was in the years of this plague. In the four¬
teenth century, the monastic system was still in its
full vigour, the power of the ecclesiastical orders and
brotherhoods was revered by the people, and the hier¬
archy was still formidable to the temporal power. It
was therefore in the natural constitution of society
that bigoted zeal, which in such times makes a show
of public acts of penance, should avail itself of the
semblance of religion. But this took place in such a
manner, that unbridled, self-willed penitence, degene¬
rated into lukewarmness, renounced obedience to the
hierarchy, and prepared a fearful opposition to the
Church, paralysed as it was by antiquated forms.
"While all countries were filled with lamentations
THE BLACK DEATH.
55
and woe, there first arose in Hnngary, and afterwards
in Germany, the Brotherhood of the Flagellants, called
also the Brethren of the Cross, or Cross-bearers, who
took upon themselves the repentance of the people for
the sins they had committed, and offered prayers and
supplications for the averting of this plague. This
Order consisted chiefly of persons of the lower class,
who were either actuated by sincere contrition, or who
joyfully availed themselves of this pretext for idleness,
and were hurried along with the tide of distracting
frenzy. But as these brotherhoods gained in repute,
and were welcomed by the people with veneration and
enthusiasm, many nobles and ecclesiastics ranged them¬
selves under their standard; and their bands were
not unfrequently augmented by children, honourable
women, and nuns; so powerfully were minds of the
most opposite temperaments enslaved by this infatua¬
tion. They marched through the cities, in well-organ¬
ised processions, with leaders and singers; their heads
covered as far as the eyes; their look fixed on the
ground, accompanied by every token of the deepest
contrition and mourning. They were robed in sombre
garments, with red crosses on the breast, back, and
cap, and bore triple scourges, tied in three or four
knots, in which points of iron were fixed. Tapers and
magnificent banners of velvet and cloth of gold were
carried before them ; wherever they made their appear¬
ance, they were welcomed by the ringing of the bells,
56
THE BLACK DEATH.
and the people flocked from all quarters to listen to
their hymns and to witness their penance with devo¬
tion and tears.
In the year 1349, two hundred Flagellants first
•entered Strasburg, where they were received with great
joy, and hospitably lodged by the citizens. Above a
thousand joined the brotherhood, which now assumed
the appearance of a wandering tribe, and separated
into two bodies, for the purpose of journeying to the
north and to the south. For more than half a year,
new parties arrived weekly; and on each arrival adults
and children left their families to accompany them;
till at length their sanctity was questioned, and tlio
doors of houses and churches were closed against them.
At Spires, two hundred boys, of twelve years of age
and under, constituted themselves into a Brotherhood
of the Cross, in imitation of the children who, about a
hundred years before, had united, at the instigation of
some fanatic monks, for the purpose of recovering the
Holy Sepulchre. All the inhabitants of this town
were carried away by the illusion ; they conducted the
strangers to their houses with songs of thanksgiving,
to regale them for the night. The women embroidered
banners for them, and all were anxious to augment
their pomp; and at every succeeding pilgrimage their
influence and reputation increased.
It was not merely some individual parts of the
country that fostered them : all Germany, Hungarv,
THE BLACK DEATH.
57
Poland, Bohemia, Silesia, and Flanders, did homage to
the mania; and they at length became as formidable to
the secular as they were to the ecclesiastical power.
The influence of this fanaticism was great and threaten¬
ing, resembling the excitement which called all the
inhabitants of Europe into the deserts of Syria and
Palestine about two hundred and fifty years before.
The appearance in itself was not novel. As far back
as the eleventh century, many believers in Asia and
Southern Europe afflicted themselves with the punish¬
ment of flagellation. Dominicus Loricatus, a monk of
St. Croce d'Avellano, is mentioned as the master and
model of this species of mortification of the flesh; which,
according to the primitive notions of the Asiatic
Anchorites, was deemed eminently Christian. The
author of the solemn processions of the Flagellants is
said to have been St. Anthony; for even in his time
(1231) this kind of penance was so much in vogue,,
that it is recorded as an eventful circumstance in the
history of the world. In 1260, the Flagellants appeared
in Italy as Devoti. " When the land was polluted by
vices and crimes, an unexampled spirit of remorse
suddenly seized the minds of the Italians. The fear of
Christ fell upon all: noble and ignoble, old and young,
and even children of five years of age, marched through
the streets with no covering but a scarf round the waist.
They each carried a scourge of leathern thongs, which
they applied to their limbs, amid sighs and tears, with
58
THE BLACK DEATH.
such violence that the blood flowed from the wounds.
Not only during the day, but even by night, and in
the severest winter, they traversed the cities with
burning torches and banners, in thousands and tens
of thousands, headed by their priests, and prostrated
themselves before the altars. They proceeded in the
same manner in the villages : and the woods and moun¬
tains resounded with the voices of those whose cries
were raised to God. The melancholy chaunt of the
penitent alone was heard. Enemies were reconciled;
men and women vied with each other in splendid
works of charity, as if they dreaded that Divine
Omnipotence would pronounce on them the doom of
annihilation."
The pilgrimages of the Flagellants extended through¬
out all the provinces of Southern Germany, as far as
Saxony, Bohemia, and Poland, and even further ; but
at length the priests resisted this dangerous fanaticism,
without being able to extirpate the illusion, which was
advantageous to the hierarchy as long as it submitted
to its sway. Regnier, a hermit of Perugia, is recorded
as a fanatic preacher of penitence, with whom the ex¬
travagance originated. In the year 1296 there was a
great procession of the Flagellants in Strasburg; and
in 1334, fourteen years before the Great Mortality, the
sermon of Venturinus, a Dominican friar of Bergamo,
induced above 10,000 persons to undertake a new pil¬
grimage. They scourged themselves in the churches,
THE BLACK DEATH.
59
and were entertained in the market-places at the public
expense. At Rome, Venturinus was derided, and ban¬
ished by the Pope to the mountains of Ricondona. He
patiently endured all—went to the Holy Land, and
died at Smyrna, 1346. Hence we see that this fanati¬
cism was a mania of the middle ages, which, in the
year 1349, on so fearful an occasion, and while still so
fresh in remembrance, needed no new founder; of
whom, indeed, all the records are silent. It probably
arose in many places at the same time; for the terror
of death, which pervaded all nations and suddenly set
such powerful impulses in motion, might easily conjure
up the fanaticism of exaggerated and overpowering
repentance.
The manner and proceedings of the Flagellants of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries exactly resemble
each other. But, if during the Black Plague, simple
credulity came to their aid, which seized, as a con¬
solation, the grossest delusion of religious enthusiasm,
yet it is evident that the leaders must have been inti¬
mately united, and have exercised the power of a secret
association. Besides, the rude band was generally
under the control of men of learning, some of whom at
least certainly had other objects in view independent
of those which ostensibly appeared. Whoever was
desirous of joining the brotherhood, was bound to
remain in it thirty-four days, and to have fourpence
per day at his own disposal, so that he might not be
60
THE BLACK DEATH.
burthensome to any one; if married, lie was obliged to
have tbe sanction of bis wife, and give the assurance
that he was reconciled to all men. The Brothers of
the Cross were not permitted to seek for free quarters,
or even to enter a house without having been invited;
they were forbidden to converse with females; and if
they transgressed these rules, or acted without dis¬
cretion, they were obliged to confess to the Superior,
who sentenced them to several lashes of the scourge,
by way of penance. Ecclesiastics had not, as such,
any pre-eminence among them; according to their
original law, which, however, was often transgressed,
they could not become Masters, or take part in the
Secret Councils. Penance was performed twice every
day : in the morning and evening they went abroad in
pairs, singing psalms amid the ringing of the bells;
and when they arrived at the place of flagellation,
they stripped the upper part of their bodies and put off
their shoes, keeping on only a linen dress, reaching
from the waist to the ankles. They then lay down in
a large circle, in different positions, according to the
nature of their crime : the adulterer with his face to
the ground; the perjurer on one side, holding up three
of his fingers, &c., and were then castigated, some
more and some less, by the Master, who ordered them
to rise in the words of a prescribed form. Upon this
they scourged themselves, amid the singing of psalms
and loud supplications for the averting of the plague,
THE BLACK DEATH.
61
with genuflexions and other ceremonies, of which con¬
temporary writers give various accounts; and at the
same time constantly boasted of their penance, that the
blood of their wounds was mingled with that of the
Saviour. One of them, in conclusion, stood up to read
a letter, which it was pretended an angel had brought
from heaven to St. Peter's Church, at Jerusalem,
stating that Christ, who was sore displeased at the
sins of man, had granted, at the intercession of the
Holy Yirgin and of the angels, that all who should
wander about for thirty-four days and scourge them¬
selves, should be partakers of the Divine grace. This
scene caused as great a commotion among the believers
as the finding of the holy spear once did at Antioch;
and if any among the clergy inquired who had sealed
the letter, he was boldly answered, the same who had
sealed the Gospel!
All this had so powerful an effect, that the Church
was in considerable danger ; for the Flagellants gained
more credit than the priests, from whom they so
entirely withdrew themselves, that they even absolved
each other. Besides, they everywhere took possession
of the churches, and their new songs, which went from
mouth to mouth, operated strongly on the minds of the
people. Great enthusiasm and originally pious feel¬
ings are clearly distinguishable in these hymns, and
especially in the chief psalm of the Cross-bearers,
which is still extant, and which was sung all over
62
THE BLACK DEATH.
Germany in different dialects, and is probably of a
more ancient date. Degeneracy, however, soon crept
in; crimes were everywhere committed; and there was
no energetic man capable of directing the individual
excitement to purer objects, even had an effectual re¬
sistance to the tottering Church been at that early
period seasonable, and had it been possible to restrain
the fanaticism. The Flagellants sometimes undertook
to make trial of their power of working miracles; as
in Strasburg, where they attempted, in their own
circle, to resuscitate a dead child: they, however, failed,
and their unskilfulness did them much harm, though
they succeeded here and there in maintaining some
confidence in their holy calling, by pretending to have
the power of casting out evil spirits.
The Brotherhood of the Cross announced that the
pilgrimage of the Flagellants was to continue for a
space of thirty-four years; and many of the Masters
had doubtless determined to form a lasting league
against the Church ; but they had gone too far. So
early as the first year of their establishment, the
general indignation set bounds to their intrigues: so
that the strict measures adopted by the Emperor
Charles IV., and Pope Clement, who, throughout the
whole of this fearful period, manifested prudence and
noble-mindedness, and conducted himself in a manner
every way worthy of his high station, were easily put
into execution.
THE BLACK DEATH.
63
The Sorbonne, at Paris, and the Emperor Charles,
had already applied to the Holy See for assistance
against these formidable and heretical excesses, which
had well-nigh destroyed the influence of the clergy in
every place; when a hundred of the Brotherhood of
the Cross arrived at Avignon from Basle, and desired
admission. The Pope, regardless of the intercession
of several cardinals, interdicted their public penance,
which he had not authorised; and, on pain of excom¬
munication, prohibited throughout Christendom the
continuance of these pilgrimages. Philip VI., sup¬
ported by the condemnatory judgment of the Sorbonne,
forbade their reception in France. Manfred, King of
Sicily, at the same time threatened them with punish¬
ment by death: and in the East they were withstood
by several bishops, among whom was Janussius, of
Gnesen, and Preczlaw, of Breslau, who condemned to
death one of their Masters, formerly a deacon; and, in
conformity with the barbarity of the times, had him
publicly burnt. In Westphalia, where so shortly
before they had venerated the Brothers of the Cross,
they now persecuted them with relentless severity;
and in the Mark, as well as in all the other countries
of Germany, they pursued them as if they had been
the authors of every misfortune.
The processions of the Brotherhood of the Cross un¬
doubtedly promoted the spreading of the plague; and
it is evident that the gloomy fanaticism which gave
64
THE BLACK DEATH.
rise to them would infuse a new poison into the already
desponding minds of the people.
Still, however, all this was within the bounds of
barbarous enthusiasm; but horrible were the perse¬
cutions of the Jews, which were committed in most
countries, with even greater exasperation than in the
twelfth century, during the first Crusades. In every
destructive pestilence the common people at first attri¬
bute the mortality to poison. No instruction avails;
the supposed testimony of their eyesight is to them a
proof, and they authoritatively demand the victims of
their rage. On whom, then, was it so likely to fall as
on the Jews, the usurers and the strangers who lived
at enmity with the Christians P They were everywhere
suspected of having poisoned the wells or infected the
air. They alone were considered as having brought
this fearful mortality upon the Christians. They were,
in consequence, pursued with merciless cruelty; and
either indiscriminately given up to the fury of the
populace, or sentenced by sanguinary tribunals, which,
with all the forms of law, ordered them to be burnt
alive. In times like these, much is indeed said of
guilt and innocence; but hatred and revenge bear
down all discrimination, and the smallest probability
magnifies suspicion into certainty. These bloody scenes,
which disgraced Europe in the fourteenth century, are
a counterpart to a similar mania of the age, which was
manifested in the persecutions of witches and sorcerers;
THE BLACK DEATH.
65
and, like these, they prove that enthusiasm, associated
with hatred, and leagued with the baser passions, may-
work more powerfully upon whole nations than religion
and legal order ; nay, that it even knows how to profit
by the authority of both, in order the more surely
to satiate with blood the sword of long-suppressed
revenge.
The persecution of the Jews commenced in September
and October, 1348, at Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva,
where the first criminal proceedings were instituted
against them, after they had long before been accused
by the people of poisoning the wells; similar scenes
followed in Bern and Freyburg, in January, 1349.
Under the influence of excruciating suffering, the
tortured Jews confessed themselves guilty of the
crime imputed to them; and it being affirmed that
poison had in fact been found in a well at Zoffingen,
this was deemed a sufficient proof to convince the
world; and the persecution of the abhorred culprits
thus appeared justifiable. Now, though we can take
as little exception at these proceedings as at the multi¬
farious confessions of witches, because the interro¬
gatories of the fanatical and sanguinary tribunals were
so complicated, that by means of the rack the required
answer must inevitably be obtained; and it is, besides,
conformable to human nature that crimes which are in
everybody's mouth may, in the end, be actually com¬
mitted by some, either from wantonness, revenge, or
c—118
66
THE BLACK DEATH.
desperate exasperation : yet crimes and accusations
are, under circumstances like these, merely the offspring
of a revengeful, frenzied spirit in the people; and the
accusers, according to the fundamental principles of
morality, which are the same in every age, are the
more guilty transgressors.
Already in the autumn of 1348 a dreadful panic,
caused by this supposed empoisonment, seized all
nations; in Germany especially the springs and wells
were built over, that nobody might drink of them or
employ their contents for culinary purposes; and for
a long time the inhabitants of numerous towns and
villages used only river and rain water. The city gates
were also guarded with the greatest caution: only
confidential persons were admitted; and if medicine
or any other article, which might be supposed to be
poisonous, was found in the possession of a stranger—
and it was natural that some should have these things
by them for their private use—they were forced to
swallow a portion of it. By this trying state of pri¬
vation, distrust, and suspicion, the hatred against the
supposed poisoners became greatly increased, and often
broke out in popular commotions, which only served
still further to infuriate the wildest passions. The
noble and the mean fearlessly bound themselves by an
oath to extirpate the Jews by fire and sword, and to
snatch them from their protectors, of whom the number
was so small, that throughout all Germany but few
THE BLACK DEATH.
67
places can be mentioned where these unfortunate
people were not regarded as outlaws and martyred and
burnt. Solemn summonses were issued from Bern to
the towns of Basle, Freyburg in the Breisgau, and
Strasburg, to pursue the Jews as poisoners. The burgo¬
masters and senators, indeed, opposed this requisition;
but in Basle the populace obliged them to bind them¬
selves by an oath to burn the Jews, and to forbid
persons of that community from entering their city
for the space of two hundred years. Upon this all the
Jews in Basle, whose number could not have been in¬
considerable, were enclosed iia. a wooden building, con¬
structed for the purpose, and burnt together with it,
upon the mere outcry of the people, without sentence
or trial, which, indeed, would have availed them no¬
thing. Soon after the same thing took place at Frey¬
burg. A regular Diet was held at Bennefeld, in
Alsace, where the bishops, lords, and barons, as also
deputies of the counties and towns, consulted how they
should proceed with regard to the Jews; and when
the deputies of Strasburg—not indeed the bishop of
this town, who proved himself a violent fanatic—spoke
in favour of the persecuted, as nothing criminal was
substantiated against them, a great outcry was raised,
and it was vehemently asked, why, if so, they had
covered their wells and removed their buckets. A
sanguinary decree was resolved upon, of which the
populace, who obeyed the call of the nobles and
68
THE BLACK DEATH.
superior clergy, became but the too willing execu¬
tioners. Wherever the Jews were not burnt, they
were at least banished; and so being compelled to
wander about, they fell into the hands of the country
people, who, without humanity, and regardless of all
laws, persecuted them with fire and sword. At Spires,
the Jews, driven to despair, assembled in their own
habitations, which they set on fire, and thus consumed
themselves with their families. The few that remained
were forced to submit to baptism: while the dead
bodies of the murdered, which lay about the streets,
were put into empty wine-casks and rolled into the
Rhine, lest they should infect the air. The mob was
forbidden to enter the ruins of the habitations that
were burnt in the Jewish quarter; for the senate itself
caused search to be made for the treasure, which is
said to have been very considerable. At Strasburg
two thousand Jews were burnt alive in their own
burial-ground, where a largo scaffold had been erected:
a few who promised to embrace Christianity were
spared, and their children taken from the pile. The
youth and beauty of several females also excited some
commiseration, and they were snatched from death
against their will: many, however, who forcibly made
their escape from the flames were murdered in the
streets.
The senate ordered all pledges and bonds to be
returned to the debtors, and divided the money among
THE BLACK DEATH.
69
the work-people. Many, however, refused to accept
the base price of blood, and, indignant at the scenes of
bloodthirsty avarice, which made the infuriated multi¬
tude forget that the plague was raging around them,
presented it to monasteries, in conformity with the
advice of their confessors. In all the countries on the
Rhine, these cruelties continued to be perpetrated
during the succeeding months ; and after quiet was in
some degree restored, the people thought to render an
acceptable service to God, by taking the bricks of the
destroyed dwellings, and the tombstones of the Jews,
to repair churches and to erect belfries.
In Mayence alone, 12,000 Jews are said to have been
put to a cruel death. The Flagellants entered that
place in August; the Jews, on this occasion, fell out
with the Christians and killed several; but when they
saw their inability to withstand the increasing superi-
©rity of their enemies, and that nothing could save
them from destruction, they consumed themselves and
their families by setting fire to their dwellings. Thus
also, in other places, the entry of the Flagellants gave
rise to scenes of slaughter ; and as thirst for blood
was everywhere combined with an unbridled spirit of
proselytism, a fanatic zeal arose among the Jews to
perish as martyrs to their ancient religion. And how
was it possible that they could from the heart embrace
Christianity, when its precepts were never more out¬
rageously violated? At Eslingen the whole Jewish
70
THE BLACK DEATH.
community burned themselves in their synagogue, and
mothers were often seen throwing their children on the
pile, to prevent their being baptised, and then precipi¬
tating themselves into the flames. In short, whatever
deeds fanaticism, revenge, avarice and desperation, in
fearful combination, could instigate mankind to per¬
form,—and where in such a case is the limit ?—were
executed in the year 1349 throughout Germany, Italy,
and France, with impunity, and in the eyes of all the
world. It seemed as if the plague gave rise to scan¬
dalous acts and frantic tumults, not to mourning and
grief : and the greater part of those who, by their edu¬
cation and rank, were called upon to raise the voice of
reason, themselves led "on the savage mob to murder
and to plunder. Almost all the Jews who saved their
lives by baptism were afterwards burnt at different
times; for they continued to be acccused of poisoning
the water and the air. Christians also, whom philan¬
thropy or gain had induced to offer them protection,
were put on the rack and executed with them. Many
Jews who had embraced Christianity repented of their
apostacy, and, returning to their former faith, sealed
it with their death.
The humanity and prudence of Clement YI. must,
on this occasion, also be mentioned to his honour; but
even the highest ecclesiastical power was insufficient to
restrain the unbridled fury of the people. He not only
protected the Jews at Avignon, as far as lay in his
THE BLACK DEATH.
71
power, but also issued two bulls, in which be declared
them innocent; and admonished all Christians, though
without success, to cease from such groundless perse¬
cutions. The Emperor Charles IY. was also favour¬
able to them, and sought to avert their destruction
wherever he could; but he dared not draw the sword
of justice, and even found himself obliged to yield to
the selfishness of the Bohemian nobles, who were un¬
willing to forego so favourable an opportunity of re¬
leasing themselves from their Jewish creditors, under
favour of an imperial mandate. Duke Albert of
Austria burnt and pillaged those of his cities which
had persecuted the Jews—a vain and inhuman pro¬
ceeding, which, moreover, is not exempt from the sus¬
picion of covetousness; yet he was unable, in his own
fortress of Kyberg, to protect some hundreds of Jews,
who had been received there, from being barbarously
burnt by the inhabitants. Several other princes and
counts, among whom was Ruprecht von der Pfalz,
took the Jews under their protection, on the payment
of large sums : in consequence of which they were
called " Jew-masters," and were in danger of being
attacked by the populace and by their powerful neigh¬
bours. These persecuted and ill-used people, except
indeed where humane individuals took compassion on
them at their own peril, or when they could command
riches to purchase protection, had no place of refuge
left but the distant country of Lithuania, where
72
THE BLACK DEATH.
Boleslav V., Duke of Poland (1227—1279) had before
granted them liberty of conscience ; and King Casimir
the Great (1333—1370), yielding to the entreaties of
Esther, a favourite Jewess, received them, and granted
them further protection: on which account, that
country is still inhabited by a great number of Jews,
who by their secluded habits have, more than any
people in Europe, retained the manners of the Middle
Ages.
But to return to the fearful accusations against the
Jews; it was reported in all Europe that they 'were in
connection with secret superiors in Toledo, to whose
decrees they were subject, and from whom they had re¬
ceived commands respecting the coining of base money,
poisoning, the murder of Christian children, &c.; that
they received the poison by sea from remote parts, and
also prepared it themselves from spiders, owls, and
other venomous animals; but, in order that their secret
might not be discovered, that it was known only to
their Rabbis and rich men. Apparently there were
but few who did not consider this extravagant accusa¬
tion well founded; indeed, in many writings of the
fourteenth century, we find great acrimony with
regard to the suspected poison-mixers, which plainly
demonstrates the prejudice existing against them.
Unhappily, after the confessions of the first victims in
Switzerland, the rack extorted similar ones in various
places. Some even acknowledged having receivod
THE BLACK DEATH.
73
poisonous po-wder in bags, and injunctions from Toledo,
by secret messengers. Bags of this description were
also often found in wells, though it was not un-
frequently discovered that the Christians themselves
had thrown them in; probably to give occasion to
murder and pillage; similar instances of which may
be found in the persecutions of the witches.
This picture needs no additions. A lively image of
the Black Plague, and of the moral evil which followed
in its train, will vividly represent itself to him who
is acquainted with nature and the constitution of
society. Almost the only credible accounts of the
manner of living, and of the ruin which occurred in
private life during this pestilence, are from Italy;
and these may enable us to form a just estimate of the
general state of families in Europe, taking into con¬
sideration what is peculiar in the manners of each
country.
" When the evil had become universal" (speaking of
Florence), " the hearts of all the inhabitants were closed
to feelings of humanity. They fled from the sick and
all that belonged to them, hoping by these means to
save themselves. Others shut themselves up in their
houses, with their wives, their children and households,
living on the most costly food, but carefully avoiding
all excess. None were allowed access to them ; no in¬
telligence of death or sickness was permitted to reach
their ears; and they spent their time in singing and
74
THE BLACK DEATH.
music, and other pastimes. Others, on the contrary,
considered eating and drinking to excess, amusements
of all descriptions, the indulgence of every gratifi¬
cation, and an indifference to -what was passing around
them, as the best medicine, and acted accordingly.
They wandered day and night from one tavern to
another, and feasted without moderation or bounds. In
this way they endeavoured to avoid all contact with
the sick, and abandoned their houses and property to
chance, like men whose death-knell had already tolled.
" Amid this general [lamentation and woe, the in¬
fluence and authority of every law, human and divine,
vanished. Most of those who were in office had been
carried off by the plague, or lay sick, or had lost so
many members of their family, that they were unable
to attend to their duties; so that thenceforth every one
acted as he thought proper. Others in their mode of
living chose a middle course. They ate and drank
what they pleased, and walked abroad, carrying odori¬
ferous flowers, herbs, or spices, which they smelt to
from time to time, in order to invigorate the brain,
and to avert the baneful influence of the air, in¬
fected by the sick and by the innumerable corpses
of those who had died of the plague. Others carried
their precaution still further, and thought the surest
way to escape death was by flight. They therefore
left the city; women as well as men abandoning
their dwellings and their relations, and retiring
THE BLACK DEATH.
75
into the country. But of these also many were
carried off, most of them alone and deserted by all the
world, themselves having previously set the example.
Thus it was that one citizen fled from another—a
neighbour from his neighbours — a relation from his
relations; and in the end, so completely had terror ex¬
tinguished every kindlier feeling, that the brother for¬
sook the brother—the sister the sister—the wife her
husband; and at last, even the parent his own offspring,
and abandoned them, unvisited and unsoothed, to their
fate. Those, therefore, that stood in need of assistance
fell a prey to greedy attendants, who, for an exorbitant
recompense, merely handed the sick their food and
medicine, remained with them in their last moments,
and then not unfrequently became themselves victims
to their avarice and lived not to enjoy their extorted
gain. Propriety and decorum were extinguished among
the helpless sick. Females of rank seemed to forget
their natural bashfulness, and committed the care of
their persons, indiscriminately, to men and women of
the lowest order. No longer were women, relatives or
friends, found in the house of mourning, to share the
grief of the survivors—no longer was the corpse ac¬
companied to the grave by neighbours and a numerous
train of priests, carrying wax tapers and singing psalms,
nor was it borne along by other citizens of equal rank.
Many breathed their last without a friend to soothe
their dying pillow; and few indeed were they who
76
THE BLACK DEATH.
departed amid the lamentations and tears of their
friends and kindred. Instead of sorrow and mourn¬
ing, appeared indifference, frivolity and mirth; this
being considered, especially by the females, as condu¬
cive to health. Seldom was the body followed by even
ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual
bearers and sextons, mercenaries of the lowest of the
populace undertook the office for the sake of gain; and
accompanied by only a few priests, and often without
a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church,
and lowered into the first grave that was not already
too full to receive it. Among the middling classes,
and especially among the poor, the misery was still
greater. Poverty or negligence induced most of these
to remain in their dwellings, or in the immediate neigh¬
bourhood ; and thus they fell by thousands; and many-
ended their lives in the streets by day and by night.
The stench of putrefying corpses was often the first
indication to their neighbours that more deaths had
occurred. The survivors, to preserve themselves from
infection, generally had the bodies taken out of the
houses and laid before the doors; where the early
morning found them in heaps, exposed to the affrighted
gaze of the passing stranger. It was 110 longer possible
to have a bier for every corpse—three or four were
generally laid together—husband and wife, father and
mother, with two or three children, were frequently
borne to the grave on the same bier; and it often
THE BLACK DEATH.
77
happened that two priests would accompany a coffin,
bearing the cross before it, and be joined on the way
by several other funerals; so that instead of one, there
were five or six bodies for interment."
Thus far Boccacio. On the conduct of the priests,
another contemporary observes : " In large and small
towns they had withdrawn themselves through fear,
leaving the performance of ecclesiastical duties to the
few who were found courageous and faithful enough to
undertake them." But we ought not on that account
to throw more blame on them than on others; for we
find proofs of the same timidity and heartlessness in
every class. During the prevalence of the Black
Plague, the charitable orders conducted themselves
admirably, and did as much good as can be done by
individual bodies in times of great misery and de¬
struction, when compassion, courage, and the nobler
feelings are found but in the few, while cowardice,
selfishness and ill-will, with the baser passions in their
train, assert the supremacy. In place of virtue which
had been driven from the earth, wickedness everywhere
reared her rebellious standard, and succeeding genera¬
tions were consigned to the dominion of her baleful
tyranny.
78
the black death.
CHAPTER YI.
physicians.
If we now turn to the medical talent wliicli encoun¬
tered the " Great Mortality," the Middle Ages must
stand excused, since even the moderns are of opinion
that the art of medicine is not able to cope with the
Oriental plague, and can afford deliverance from it
only under particularly favourable circumstances. We
must bear in mind, also, that human science and art
appear particularly weak in great pestilences, because
they have to contend with the powers of nature, of
which they have no knowledge ; and which, if they had
been, or could be, comprehended in their collective
effects, would remain uncontrollable by them, princi¬
pally on account of the disordered condition of human
society. Moreover, every new plague has its pecu¬
liarities, which are the less easily discovered 011 first
view because, during its ravages, fear and consterna¬
tion humble the proud spirit.
The physicians of the fourteenth century, during
the Black Death, did what human intellect could do in
the actual condition of the healing art; and their know¬
ledge of the disease was by no means despicable. They,
like the rest of mankind, have indulged in prejudices,
and defended them, perhaps, with too much obstinacy :
some of these, however, were founded on the mode of
the black x-eath.
79
thinking of the age, and passed current in those days
as established truths; others continue to exist to the
present hour.
Their successors in the nineteenth century ought
not therefore to vaunt too highly the pre-eminence of
their knowledge, for they too will be subjected to the
severe judgment of posterity—they too will, with
reason, be accused of human weakness and want of
foresight.
The medical faculty of Paris, the most celebrated of
the fourteenth century, were commissioned to deliver
their opinion on the causes of the Black Plague, and
to furnish some appropriate regulations with regard to
living during its prevalence. This document is suffi¬
ciently remarkable to find a place here.
" We, the Members of the College of Physicians of
Paris, have, after mature consideration and consultation
on the present mortality, collected the advice of our old
masters in the art, and intend to make known the
causes of this pestilence more clearly than could be
done according to the rules and principles of astro¬
logy and natural science; we, therefore, declare as
follows :—
" It is known that in India and the vicinity of the
Great Sea, the constellations which combated the rays
of the sun, and the warmth of the heavenly fire,
exerted their power especially against that sea, and
struggled violently with its waters. (Hence vapours
80
THE BLACK DEATH.
often originate which envelop the sun, and convert his
light into darkness.) These vapours alternately rose
and fell for twenty-eight days; but, at last, sun ami
fire acted so powerfully upon the sea that they attracted
a great portion of it to themselves, and the waters of
the ocean arose in the form of vapour; thereby the
waters were in some parts so corrupted that the fish
which they contained died. These corrupted waters,
however, the heat of the sun could not consume, neither
could other wholesome water, hail or snow and dew,
originate therefrom. On the contrary, this vapour
spread itself through the air in many places 011 the
earth, and enveloped them in fog.
" Such was the case all over Arabia, in a part of
India, in Crete, in the plains and valleys of Macedonia,
in Hungary, Albania, and Sicily. Should the same
thing occur in Sardinia, not a man will be left alive, and
the like will continue so long as the sun remains in the
sign of Leo, on all the islands and adjoining countries
to which this corrupted sea-wind extends, or has
already extended, from India. If the inhabitants of
those parts do not employ and adhere to the following
or similar means and precepts, we announce to them
inevitable death, except the grace of Christ preserve
their lives.
" We are of opinion that the constellations, with the
aid of nature, strive by virtue of their Divine might,
to protect and heal the human race; and to this end, in
THE BLACK DEATH.
81
union with the rays of the sun, acting through the
power of fire, endeavour to break through the mist.
Accordingly, within the next ten days, and until the
17th of the ensuing month of July, this mist will be
converted into a stinking deleterious rain, whereby the
air will be much purified. Now, as soon as this rain
shall announce itself by thunder or hail, every one of
you should protect himself from the air; and, as well
before as after the rain, kindle a large fire of vine-wood,
green laurel, or other green wood; wormwood and
camomile should also be burnt in great quantity in the
market-places, in other densely inhabited localities, and
in the houses. Until the earth is again completely dry,
and for three days afterwards, no one ought to go
abroad in the fields. During this time the diet should
be simple, and people should be cautious in avoiding
exposure in the cool of the evening, at night, and in
the morning. Poultry and water-fowl, young pork, old
beef, and fat meat in general, should not be eaten ; but,
on the contrary, meat of a proper age, of a warm and
dry, but on no account of a heating and exciting
nature. Broth should be taken, seasoned with ground
pepper, ginger, and cloves, especially by those who are
accustomed to live temperately, and are yet choice in
their diet. Sleep in the day-time is detrimental; it
should be taken at night until sunrise, or somewhat
longer. At breakfast one should drink little; supper
should be taken an hour before sunset, when more may
82
THE BLACK DEATH.
be drunk than in the morning. Clear light wine,
mixed with a fifth or six part of water, should be used
as a beverage. Dried or fresh fruits, with wine, are
not injurious, but highly so without it. Beet-root and
other vegetables, whether eaten pickled or fresh, are
hurtful; on the contrary, spicy pot-herbs, as sage or
rosemary, are wholesome. Cold, moist, watery food
is in general prejudicial. Going out at night, and
even until three o'clock in the morning, is dangerous,
on account of the dew. Only small river fish should
be used. Too much exercise is hurtful. The body
should be kept warmer than usual, and thus protected
from moisture and cold. Rain-water must not be em¬
ployed in cooking, and every one should guard against
exposure to wet weather. If it rain, a little fine treacle
should be taken after dinner. Fat people should not
sit in the sunshine. Good clear wine should be selected
and drunk often, but in small quantities, by day. Olive
oil as an article of food is fatal. Equally injurious
are fasting and excessive abstemiousness, anxiety of
mind, anger, and immoderate drinking. Young people,
in autumn especially, must abstain from all these
things if they do not wish to run a risk of dying of
dysentery. In order to keep the body properly open,
an enema, or some other simple means, should be em¬
ployed when necessary. Bathing is injurious. Men
must preserve chastity as they value their lives. Every
one should impress this on his recollection, but espe-
THE BLACK DEATH.
83
cially those who reside on the coast, or upon an island
into which the noxious wind has penetrated."
On what occasion these strange precepts were de¬
livered can no longer be ascertained, even if it were an
object to know it. It must be acknowledged, however,
that they do not redound to the credit either of the
faculty of Paris, or of the fourteenth century in
general. This famous faculty found themselves under
the painful necessity of being wise at command, and of
firing a point-blank shot of erudition at an enemy who
enveloped himself in a dark mist, of the nature of which
they had no conception. In concealing their ignorance
by authoritative assertions, they suffered themselves,
therefore, to be misled; and while endeavouring to
appear to the world with eclat, only betrayed to the in¬
telligent their lamentable weakness. Now some might
suppose that, in the condition of the sciences of the four¬
teenth century, no intelligent physicians existed; but
this is altogether at variance with the laws of human
advancement, and is contradicted by history. The real
knowledge of an age is shown only in the archives of its
literature. Here alone the genius of truth speaks
audibly—here alone men of talent deposit the results
of their experience and reflection without vanity or a
selfish object. There is no ground for believing that
in the fourteenth century men of this kind were pub¬
licly questioned regarding their views: and it is,
therefore, the more necessary that impartial history
84
THE BLACK DEATH.
should take up their cause, and do justice to their
merits.
The first notice on this subject is due to a very cele¬
brated teacher in Perugia, Gentilis of Foligno, who, ou
the 18th of June, 1348, fell a sacrifice to the plague,
in the faithful discharge of his duty. Attached to
Arabian doctrines, and to the universally respected
Galen, he, in common with all his contemporaries, be¬
lieved in a putrid corruption of the blood in the lungs
and in the heart, which was occasioned by the pestilen¬
tial atmosphere, and was forthwith communicated to
the whole body. He thought, therefore, that everything
depended upon a sufficient purification of the air, by
means of large blazing fires of odoriferous wood, in the
vicinity of the healthy as well as of the sick, and also
upon an appropriate manner of living, so that the
putridity might not overpower the diseased. In con¬
formity with notions derived from the ancienis, he de¬
pended upon bleeding and purging, at the commence¬
ment of the attack, for the purpose of purification;
ordered the healthy to wash themselves frequently with
vinegar or wine, to sprinkle their dwellings with vine¬
gar, and to smell often to camphor, or other volatile
substances. Hereupon he gave, after the Arabian
fashion, detailed rules, with an abundance of different
medicines, of whose healing powers wonderful things
were believed. He laid little stress upon super-lunar
influences, so far as respected the malady itself; on
THE BLACK DEATH.
85
which account, he did not enter into the great contro¬
versies of the astrologers, but always kept in view, as
an object of medical attention, the corruption of the
blood in the lungs and heart. He believed in a pro¬
gressive infection from country to country, according
to the notions of the present day; and the contagious
power of the disease, even in the vicinity of those
affected by plague, was, in his opinion, beyond all
doubt. On this point intelligent contemporaries were
all agreed; and, in truth, it required no great genius to
be [convinced of so palpable a fact. Besides, correct
notions of contagion have descended from remote an¬
tiquity, and were maintained unchanged in the four¬
teenth century. So far back as the age of Plato a
knowledge of the contagious power of malignant inflam¬
mations of the eye, of which also no physician of the
Middle Ages entertained a doubt, was general among
the people; yet; in modern times surgeons have filled
volumes with partial controversies on this subject.
The whole language of antiquity has adapted itself to
the notions of the people respecting the contagion of
pestilential diseases; and their terms were, beyond
comparison, more expressive than those in use among
the moderns.
Arrangements for the protection of the healthy
against contagious diseases, the necessity of which is
shown from these notions, were regarded by the an¬
cients as useful; and by many, whose circumstances
86
THE BLACK DEATH.
permitted it, were carried into effect in their houses.
Even a total separation of the sick from the healthy, that
indispensable means of protection against infection by
contact, was proposed by physicians of the second cen¬
tury after Christ, in order to check the spreading of
leprosy. But it was decidedly opposed, because, as it
was alleged, the healing art ought] not to be guilty of
such harshness. This mildness of the ancients, in
whose manner of thinking inhumanity was so often
and so undisguisedly conspicuous, might excite surprise
if it were anything more than apparent. The true
ground of the neglect of public protection against pes¬
tilential diseases lay in the general notion and constitu¬
tion of human society—it lay in the disregard of
human life, of which the great nations of antiquity
have given proofs in every page of their history. Let
it not be supposed that they wanted knowledge re¬
specting the propagation of contagious diseases. On
the contrary, they were as well informed on this
subject as the moderns; but this was shown where in¬
dividual property, not where human life, on the grand
scale was to be protected. Hence the ancients made a
general practice of arresting the progress of murrains
among cattle by a separation of the diseased from the
healthy. Their herds alone enjoyed that protection
which they held it impracticable to extend to human
society, because they had no wish to do so. That the
governments in the fourteenth century were not yet so
THE BLACK DEATH.
87
far advanced as to put into practice general regulations
for checking the plague needs no especial proof. Phy¬
sicians could, therefore, only advise public purifications
of the air by means of large fires, as had often been
practised in ancient times; and they were obliged to
leave it to individual families either to seek safety in
flight, or to shut themselves up in their dwellings, a
method which answers in common plagues, but which
here afforded no complete security, because such was
the fury of the disease when it was at its height, that
the atmosphere of whole cities was penetrated by the
infection.
Of the astral influence which was considered to have
originated the " Great Mortality," physicians and
learned men were as completely convinced as of the
fact of its reality. A grand conjunction of the three
superior planets, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, in the sign
of Aquarius, which took place, according to Guy de
Chauliac, on the 24th of March, 1345, was generally
received as its principal cause. In fixing the day,
this physician, who was deeply versed in astrology, did
not agree with others; whereupon there arose various
disputations, of weight in that age, but of none in ours.
People, however, agreed in this—that conjunctions of
the planets infallibly prognosticated great events; great
revolutions of kingdoms, new prophets, destructive
plagues, and other occurrences which bring distress
and horror on mankind. No medical author of the
88
THE BLACK DEATH.
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries omits an oppor¬
tunity of representing them as among the general
prognostics of great plagues; nor can we, for our part,
regard the astrology of the Middle Ages as a mere off¬
spring of superstition. It has not only, in common
with all ideas which inspire and guide mankind, a
high historical importance, entirely independent of its
error or truth—for the influence of both is equally
powerful—but there are also contained in it, as in
alchemy, grand thoughts of antiquity, of which modern
natural philosophy is so little ashamed that she claims
them as her property. Foremost among these is the
idea of the general life which diffuses itself throughout
the whole universe, expressed by the greatest Greek
sages, and transmitted to the Middle Ages, through the
new Platonic natural philosophy. To this impression
of an universal organism, the assumption of a reciprocal
influence of terrestrial bodies could not be foreign, nor
did this cease to correspond with a higher view of
nature, until astrologers overstepped the limits of
human knowledge with frivolous and mystical calcu¬
lations.
Guy de Chauliac considers the influence of tho con¬
junction, which was held to be all-potent, as the chief
general cause of the Black Plague; and the diseased
state of bodies, the corruption of the fluids, debility,
obstruction, and so forth, as the especial subordinate
causes. By these, according to his opinion, the quality
THE BLACK DEATH.
89
of the air, and of the other elements, was so altered
that they set poisonous fluids in motion towards the
inward parts of the body, in the same manner as the
magnet attracts iron; whence there arose in the com¬
mencement fever and the spitting of blood; afterwards,
however, a deposition in the form of glandular
swellings and inflammatory boils. Herein the notion
of an epidemic constitution was set forth clearly, and
conformably to the spirit of the age. Of contagion,
Guy de Chauliac was completely convinced. Ho
sought to protect himself against it by the usual means ;
and it was probably he who advised Pope Clement YI.
to shut himself up while the plague lasted. The
preservation of this Pope's life, however, was most
beneficial to the city of Avignon, for he loaded the
poor with judicious acts of kindness, took care to have
proper attendants provided, and paid physicians him¬
self to afford assistance wherever human aid could
avail—an advantage which, perhaps, no other city
enjoyed. Nor was the treatment of plague-patients in
Avignon by any means objectionable; for, after the
usual depletions by bleeding and aperients, where
circumstances required them, they endeavoured to
bring the buboes to suppuration; they made incisions
into the inflammatory boils, or burned them with a
red-hot iron, a practice which at all times proves
salutary, and in the Black Plague saved many lives.
In this city, the Jews, who lived in a state of the
90
THE BLACK DEATH.
greatest filth, were most severely visited, as also the
Spaniards, -whom Chalin accuses of great intemperance.
Still more distinct notions on the causes of the
plague were stated to his contemporaries in the four¬
teenth century by Galeazzo di Santa Sofia, a learned
man, a native of Padua, who likewise treated plague-
patients at Vienna, though in what year is un¬
determined. He distinguishes carefully pestilence
from epidemy and endemy. The common notion of
the two first accords exactly with that of an epidemic
constitution, for both consist, according to him, in an
unknown change or corruption of the air; with this
difference, that pestilence calls forth diseases of dif¬
ferent kinds; epidemy, on the contrary, always the
same disease. As an example of an epidemy, he
adduces a cough (influenza) which was observed in all
climates at the same time without perceptible cause;
but he recognised the approach of a pestilence, in¬
dependently of unusual natural phenomena, by the
more frequent occurrence of various kinds of fever, to
which the modern physicians would assign a nervous
and putrid character. The endemy originates, accord¬
ing to him, only in local telluric changes—in deleterious
influences which develop themselves in the earth and
in the water, without a corruption of the air. These
notions were variously jumbled together in his time,
like everything which human understanding separates
by too fine a line of limitation. The estimation of
THE BLACK DEATH.
91
cosmical influences, however, in the epidemy and
pestilence, is well worthy of commendation; and Santa
Sofia, in this respect, not only agrees with the most
intelligent persons of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, but he has also promulgated an opinion
which must, even now, serve as a foundation for our
scarcely commenced investigations into cosmical in¬
fluences. Pestilence and epidemy consist not in
alterations of the four primary qualities, but in a
corruption of the air, powerful, though quite im¬
material, ard not cognoscible by the senses—(corruptio
a'eris non substantialis, sed qualitativa) in a dispro¬
portion of the imponderables in the atmosphere, as it
would be expressed by the moderns. The causes of
the pestilence and epidemy are, first of all, astral
influences, especially on occasion of planetary con¬
junctions ; then extensive putrefaction of animal and
vegetable bodies, and terrestrial corruptions (corruptio
in terra): to which also bad diet and want may con¬
tribute. Santa Sofia considers the putrefaction of
locusts, that had perished in the sea and were again
thrown up, combined with astral and terrestrial in¬
fluences, as the cause of the pestilence in the eventful
year of the " Great Mortality."
All the fevers which were called forth by the
pestilence are, according to him, of the putrid kind;
for they originate principally from putridity of the
heart's blood, which inevitably follows the inhalation
92
THE BLACK DEATH.
of infected air. The Oriental Plague is, sometimes,
but by no means always occasioned by pestilence (?),
which imparts to it a character (qualitas occulta) hostile
to human nature. It originates frequently from other
causes, among which this physician was aware that con¬
tagion was to be reckoned; and it deserves to be re¬
marked that he held epidemic small-pox and measles
to be infallible forerunners of the plague, as do the
physicians and people of the East at the present day.
In the exposition of his therapeutical views of the
plague, a clearness of intellect is again shown by Santa
Sofia, which reflects credit on the age. It seemed to
him to depend, 1st, on an evacuation of putrid matters
by purgatives and bleeding; yet he did not sanction
the employment of these means indiscriminately and
without consideration; least of all where the condition
of the blood was healthy. He also declared himself
decidedly against bleeding ad deliquium (vence sectio
cradicativa). 2nd, Strengthening of the heart and pre¬
vention of putrescence. 3rd, Appropriate regimen.
4th, Improvement of the air. 5th, Appropriate treat¬
ment of tumid glands and inflammatory boils, witli
emollient, or even stimulating poultices (mustard, lily-
bulbs), as well as with red-hot gold and iron. Lastly,
6th, Attention to prominent symptoms. The stores of
the Arabian pharmacy, which he brought into action to
meet all these indications, were indeed very consider¬
able ; it is to be observed, however, that, for the most
THE BLACK DEATH.
93
part, gentle means were accumulated, which, in case of
abuse, would do no harm: for the character of the
Arabian system of medicine, whose principles were
everywhere followed at this time, was mildness and
caution. On this account, too, we cannot believe that
a very prolix treatise by Marsigli di Santa Sofia, a
contemporary relative of Galeazzo, on the prevention
and treatment of plague, can have caused much harm,
although perhaps, even in the fourteenth century, an
agreeable latitude and confident assertions respecting
things which no mortal has investigated, or which it
is quite a matter of indifference to distinguish, were
considered as proofs of a valuable practical talent.
The agreement of contemporary and later writers,
shows that the published views of the most celebrated
physicians of the fourteenth century were those
generally adopted. Among these, Chalin de Yinario
is the most experienced. Though devoted to astrology
still more than his distinguished contemporary, he
acknowledges the great power of terrestrial influences,
and expresses himself very sensibly on the indisput¬
able doctrine of contagion, endeavouring thereby to
apologise for many surgeons and physicians of his
time who neglected their duty. He asserted boldly
and with truth, " that all epidemic diseases might
become contagious, and all fevers epidemic," which
attentive observers of all subsequent ages have con¬
firmed.
94
THE BLACK DEATH.
He delivered liis sentiments on blood-letting with
sagacity, as an experienced physician; yet he was
unable, as may be imagined, to moderate the desire for
bleeding shown by the ignorant monks. He was
averse to draw blood from the veins of patients under
fourteen years of age ; but counteracted inflammatory
excitement in them by cupping, and endeavoured to
moderate the inflammation of the tumid glands by-
leeches. Most of those who were bled, died; he there¬
fore reserved this remedy for the plethoric; especially
for the papal courtiers and the hypocritical priests,
whom he saw gratifying their sensual desires, and
imitating Epicurus, whilst they pompously pretended
to follow Christ. He recommended burning the boils
with a red-hot iron only in the plague without fever,
which occurred in single cases; and was always ready
to correct those over-hasty surgeons who, with fire and
violent remedies, did irremediable injury to their
patients. Michael Savonarola, professor in Ferrara
(1462), reasoning on the susceptibility of the human
frame to the influence of pestilential infection, as the
cause of such various modifications of disease, expresses
himself as a modern physician would on this point;
and an adoption of the principle of contagion was the
foundation of his definition of the plague. No less
worthy of observation are the views of the celebrated
Yalescus of Taranta, who, during the final visitation of
the Black Death, in 1382, practised as a physician at
THE BLACK DEATH.
95
Montpellier, and lianded down to posterity what has
been repeated in innumerable treatises on plague,
which were written during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries,
Of all these notions and views regarding the plague,
whose development we have represented, there are
two especially, which are prominent in historical
importance:—1st, The opinion of learned physicians,
that the pestilence, or epidemic constitution, is the
parent of various hinds of disease; that the plague
sometimes, indeed, but by no means always, originates
from it: that, to speak in the language of the moderns,
the pestilence bears the same relation to contagion
that a predisposing cause does to an occasional cause;
and 2ndly, the universal conviction of the contagious
power of that disease.
Contagion gradually attracted more notice : it was
thought that in it the most powerful occasional cause
might be avoided; the possibility of protecting whole
cities by separation became gradually more evident;
and so horrifying was the recollection of the eventful
year of the " Great Mortality," that before the close
of the fourteenth century, ere the ill effects of the
Black Plague had ceased, nations endeavoured to
guard against the return of this enemy by an earnest
and effectual defence.
The first regulation which was issued for this
purpose, originated with Yiscount Bernabo, and
96
THE BLACK DEATH.
is dated the 17th January, 1374. "Every plague-
patient was to be taken out of the city into the fields,
there to die or to recover. Those who attended upon
a plague-patient, were to remain apart for ten days
before they again associated with anybody. The
priests were to examine the diseased, and point out to
special commissioners the persons infected, under
punishment of the confiscation of their goods and
of being burned alive. Whoever imported the plague,
the state condemned his goods to confiscation. Finally,
none except those who were appointed for that pur¬
pose 'were to attend plague-patients, under penalty of
death and confiscation.
These orders, in correspondence with the spirit of
the fourteenth century, are sufficiently decided to in¬
dicate a recollection of the good effects of confine¬
ment, and of keeping at a distance those suspected
of having plague. It was said that Milan itself, by
a rigorous barricade of three houses in which the
plague had broken out, maintained itself free from
the " Great Mortality" for a considerable time; and
examples of the preservation of individual families,
by means of a strict separation, were certainly very
frequent. That these orders must have caused
universal affliction from their uncommon severity,
as we know to have been especially the case in the city
of Reggio, may be easily conceived ; but Bernabo did
not suffer himself to be deterred from his purpose by
THE BLACK DEATH.
97
fear—on the contrary, when the plague returned in
the year 1383, he forbade the admission of people from
infected places into his territories on pain of death.
We have now, it is true, no account how far he suc¬
ceeded ; yet it is to be supposed that he arrested the
disease, for it had long lost the property of the Black
Death, to spread abroad in the air the contagious
matter which proceeded from the lungs, charged with
putridity, and to taint the atmosphere of whole cities
by the vast numbers of the sick. Now that it had
resumed its milder form, so that it infected only by
contact, it admitted being confined within individual
dwellings, as easily as in modern times.
Bernabo's example was imitated; nor was there
any century more appropriate for recommending to
governments strong regulations against the plague
than the fourteenth ; for when it broke out in Italy, in
the year 1399, and still demanded new victims, it was
for the sixteenth time, without reckoning frequent
visitations of measles and small-pox. In this same
year, Yiscount John, in milder terms than his pre¬
decessor, ordered that no stranger should be admitted
from infected places, and that the city gates should be
strictly guarded. Infected houses were to be ventilated
for at least eight or ten days, and purified from noxious
vapours by fires, and by fumigations with balsamic and
aromatic substances. Straw, rags, and the like were
to be burned ; and the bedsteads which had been used,
D—118
98 THE BLACK DEATH.
set out for four days in the rain or the sunshine,
so that by means of the one or the other, the morbific
vapour might be destroyed. No one was to venture
to make use of clothes or beds out of infected dwellings
unless they had been previously washed and dried
either at the fire or in the sun. People were, like¬
wise, to avoid, as long as possible, occupying houses
which had been frequented by plague-patients.
We cannot precisely perceive in these an advanco
towards general regulations ; and perhaps people were
convinced of the insurmountable impediments which
opposed the separation of open inland countries, where
bodies of people connected together could not bo
brought, even by the most obdurate severity, to re¬
nounce the habit of a profitable intercourse.
Doubtless it is nature which has done the most to
banish the Oriental plague from western Europe,
where the increasing cultivation of the earth, and the
advancing order in civilised society, have prevented it
from remaining domesticated, which it most probably
was in the more ancient times.
In the fifteenth century, during which it broke
out seventeen times in different places in Europe,
it was of the more consequence to oppose a barrier
to its entrance from Asia, Africa, and Greece (which
had become Turkish); for it would have been difficult
for it to maintain itself indigenously any longor.
Among the southern commercial states, however,
THE BLACK DEATH.
99
which were called on to make the greatest exertions
to this end, it was principally Venice, formerly so
severely attacked by the Black Plague, that put tlie
necessary restraint upon the perilous profits of the
merchant. Until towards the end of the fifteenth
century, the very considerable intercourse with the
East was free and unimpeded. Ships of commercial
cities had often brought over the plague : nay, the
former irruption of the " Great Mortality " itself had
ibeen occasioned by navigators. For, as in the latter
end of autumn, 1347, four ships full of plague-patients
returned from the Levant to Genoa, the disease spread
itself there with astonishing rapidity. On this ac¬
count, in the following year, the Genoese forbade the
entrance of suspected ships into their port. These
sailed to Pisa and other cities on the coast, where
already nature had made such mighty preparations for
the reception of the Black Plague, and what we have
already described took place in consequence.
In the year 1485, when, among the cities of northern
Italy, Milan especially felt the scourge of the plague,
a special Council of Health, consisting of three nobles,
was established at Yenice, who probably tried every¬
thing in their power to prevent the entrance of this
disease, and gradually called into activity all those
regulations which have served in later times as a
pattern for the other southern states of Europe. Their
endeavours were, however, not crowned with complete
,100
THE BLACK DEATH.
success ; 011 which account their powers were increased,
in the year 1504, by granting them the right of life
and death over those who violated the regulations.
Bills of health were probably first introduced in
the year 1527, during a fatal plague which visited
Italy for five years (1525—30), and called forth re¬
doubled caution.
The first lazarettos were established upon islands
•at some distance from the city, seemingly as early
as the year 1485. Here all strangers coming from
places where the existence of plague was suspected
were detained. If it appeared in the city itself, the
sick were despatched with their families to what was
called the Old Lazaretto, were there furnished witli
provisions and medicines, and when they were cured,
were detained, together with all those who had had
"intercourse with them, still forty days longer in the
JMew Lazaretto, situated on another island. All these
regulations were every year improved, and their
needful rigour was increased, so that from the year
1585 onwards, no appeal was allowed from the sentence
of the Council of Health; and the other commercial
nations gradually came to the support of the Yene-
tians, by adopting corresponding regulations. Bills
of health, however, were not general until the year
1665.
The appointment of a forty days' detention, whence
quarantines derive their name, was not dictated by
THE BLACK DEATH.
101
caprice, but probably bad a medical origin, which is
derivable in part from the doctrine of critical days ;
for the fortieth day, according to the most ancient
notions, has been always regarded as the last of ardent
diseases, and the limit of separation between these and
those which are chronic. It was the custom to subject
lying-in women for forty days to a more exact super¬
intendence. There wa3 a good deal also said in medi¬
cal works of forty-day epochs in the formation of the
foetus, not to mention that the alchemists expected
more durable revolutions in forty days, which period
they called the philosophical month.
This period being generally held to prevail in natural
processes, it appeared reasonable to assume, and legally
to establish it, as that required for the development of
latent principles of contagion, since public regulations
cannot dispense with decisions of this kind, even
though they should not be wholly justified by the
nature of the case. Great stress has likewise been
laid on theological and legal grounds, which were cer¬
tainly of greater weight in the fifteenth century than
in more modern times.
On this matter, however, we cannot decide, since our
only object here is to point out the origin of a poli¬
tical means of protection against a disease which has
been the greatest impediment to civilisation within the
memory of man; a means that, like Jenner s vaccine,
after the small-pox had ravaged Europe for twelve
102
THE BLACK DEATH.
hundred years, has diminished the check "which mor¬
tality puts on the progress of civilisation, and thus
given to the life and manners of the nations of this
part of the world a new direction, the result of which
we cannot foretell.
THE DANCING MANIA.
The Dancing Mania.
CHAPTER I.
the dancing mania in germany and the
netherlands.
Sect. I.—St. John's Dance.
The effects of the Black Death had not yet subsided,
and the graves of millions of its victims were scarcely
closed, when a strange delusion arose in Germany,
which took possession of the minds of men, and, in
spite of the divinity of our nature, hurried away body
and soul into the magic circle of hellish superstition.
It was a convulsion which in the most extraordinary
manner infuriated the human frame, and excited the
astonishment of contemporaries for more than two
centuries, since which time it has never reappeared.
It was called the dance of St. John or of St. Yitus,
on account of the Baccliantic leaps by which it was
characterised, and which gave to those affected, whilst
performing their wild dance, and screaming and foam¬
ing with fury, all the appearance of persons possessed.
It did not remain confined to particular localities, but
was propagated by the sight of the sufferers, like a de¬
moniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany and the
neighbouring countries to the north-west, which were
106
THE DANCING MANIA.
already prepared for its reception by the prevailing
opinions of the times.
So early as the year 1374, assemblages of men and
women were seen at Aix-la-Chapelle, who had come
out of Germany, and who, united by one common delu¬
sion, exhibited to the public both in the streets and in
the churches the following strange spectacle. They
formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to have
lost all control over their senses, continued dancing,
regardless of the bystanders, for hours together, in
wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground
in a state of exhaustion. They then complained of ex¬
treme oppression, and groaned as if in the agonies of
death, until they were swathed in cloths bound tightly
round their waists, upon which they again recovered,
and remained free from complaint until the next
attack. This practice of swathing was resorted to on
account of the tympany which followed these spas¬
modic ravings, but the bystanders frequently relieved
patients in a less artificial manner, by thumping and
trampling upon the parts affected. While dancing
they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external
impressions through the senses, but were haunted by
visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names
they shrieked out; and some of them afterwards as¬
serted that they felt as if they had been immersed in a
stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high.
Others, during the paroxysm, saw the heavens open
THE DANCING MANIA.
107
and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary,
according as the religious notions of the age were
strangely and variously reflected in their imagina¬
tions.
Where the disease was completely developed, the
attack commenced with epileptic convulsions. Those
affected fell to the ground senseless, panting and
labouring for breath. They foamed at the mouth, and
suddenly springing up began their dance amidst strange
contortions. Yet the malady doubtless made its ap¬
pearance very variously, and was modified by tem¬
porary or local circumstances, whereof non-medical
contemporaries but imperfectly noted the essential par¬
ticulars, accustomed as they were to confound their
observation of natural events with their notions of the
world of spirits.
It was but a few months ere this demoniacal disease
had spread from Aix-la-Chapelle, where it appeared in
July, over the neighbouring Netherlands. In Liege,
Utrecht, Tongres, and many other towns of Belgium,
the dancers appeared with garlands in their hair, and
their waists girt with cloths, that they might, as soon
as the paroxysm was over, receive immediate relief on
the attack of the tympany. This bandage was, by the in¬
sertion of a stick, easily twisted tight: many, however,
obtained more relief from kicks and blows, which they
found numbers of persons ready to administer: for,
wherever the dancers appeared, the people assembled
108
THE DANCING MANIA.
in crowds to gratify their curiosity with the frightful
spectacle. At length the increasing number of the
affected excited no less anxiety than the attention that
was paid to them. In towns and villages they took
possession of the religious houses, processions were
everywhere instituted on their account, and masses
were said and hymns were sung, while the disease
itself, of the demoniacal origin of which no one enter¬
tained the least doubt, excited everywhere astonishment
and horror. In Liege the priests had recourse to exor¬
cisms, and endeavoured by eveiy means in their power
to allay an evil which threatened so much danger to
themselves; for the possessed assembling in multi¬
tudes, frequently poured forth imprecations against
them, and menaced their destruction. They intimi¬
dated the people also to such a degree that there was
an express ordinance issued that no one should make
any but square-toed shoes, because these fanatics had
manifested a morbid dislike to the pointed shoes which
had come into fashion immediately after the " Great
Mortality " in 1350. They were still more irritated at
the sight of red colours, the influence of which on the
disordered nerves might lead us to imagine an extra¬
ordinary accordance bttween this spasmodic malady
and the condition of infuriated animals; but in the St.
John's dancers this excitement was probably connected
with apparitions consequent upon their convulsions.
There were likewise some of them who were unable to
THE DANCING MANIA.
109
eudure the sight of persons weeping. The clergy-
seemed to become daily more and more confirmed in
their belief that those who were affected were a kind
of sectarians, and on this account they hastened their
exorcisms as much as possible, in order that the evil
might not spread amongst the higher classes, for
hitherto scarcely any but the poor had been attacked,
and the few people of respectability among the laity
.and clergy who were to be found among them, were
persons whose natural frivolity was unable to withstand
the excitement of novelty, even though it proceeded
from a demoniacal influence. Some of the affected had
indeed themselves declared, when under the influence
of priestly forms of exorcism, that if the demons had
been allowed only a few weeks' more time, they would
have entered the bodies of the nobility and princes, and
through these have destroyed the clergy. Assertions
of this sort, which those possessed uttered whilst in a
state which may be compared with that of magnetic
sleep, obtained general belief, and passed from mouth
to mouth with wonderful additions. The priesthood
were, on this account, so much the more zealous in
their endeavours to anticipate every dangerous excite¬
ment of the people, as if the existing order of things
could have been seriously threatened by such inco¬
herent ravings. Their exertions were effectual, for
exorcism was a powerful remedy in the fourteenth cen¬
tury ; or it might perhaps be that this wild infatuation
110
THE DANCING MANIA.
terminated in consequence of the exhaustion which
naturally ensued from it; at all events, in the course
of ten or eleven months the St. John's dancers were
no longer to be found in any of the cities of Belgium.
The evil, however, was too deeply rooted to give way
altogether to such feeble attacks.
A few months after this dancing malady had made
its appearance at Aix-la-Chapelle, it broke out at
Cologne, where the number of those possessed amounted
to more than five hundred, and about the same time at
Metz, the streets of which place are said to have been
filled with eleven hundred dancers. Peasants left their
ploughs, mechanics their workshops, housewives their
domestic duties, to join the wild revels, and this rich
commercial city became the scene of the most ruinous
disorder. Secret desires were excited, and but too
often found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and
numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery,
availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a
temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their
parents, and servants their masters, to amuse them¬
selves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily
imbibed the poison of mental infection. Above a hun¬
dred unmarried women were seen raving about in conse¬
crated and unconsecrated places, and the consequences
were soon perceived. Gangs of idle vagabonds, who
understood how to imitate to the life the gestures and
convulsions of those really affected, roved from place to
the dancing mania.
Ill
place seeking maintenance and adventures, and thus,
wherever they went, spreading this disgusting spas¬
modic disease like a plague; for in maladies of this
kind the susceptible are infected as easily by the
appearance as by the reality. At last it was found
necessary to drive away these mischievous guests, who
were equally inaccessible to the exorcisms of the
priests and the remedies of the physicians. It was
not, however, until after four months that the Rhenish
cities were able to suppress these impostures, which
had so alarmingly increased the original evil. In the
meantime, when once called into existence, the plague
crept on, and found abundant food in the tone of
thought which prevailed in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, and even, though in a minor degree, through¬
out the sixteenth and seventeenth, causing a permanent
disorder of the mind, and exhibiting in those cities to
whose inhabitants it was a novelty, scenes as strange
as they were detestable.
Sect. 2.—St. Vitus's Dance.
Strasburg was visited by the " Dancing Plague " in
the year 1418, and the same infatuation existed among
the people there, as in the towns of Belgium and the
Lower Rhine. Many who were seized at the sight of
those affected, excited attention at first by their con¬
fused and absurd behaviour, and then by their con¬
stantly following the swarms of dancers. These were
112
THE DANCING MANIA.
seen day and night passing through the streets, ac¬
companied by musicians playing on bagpipes, and by
innumerable spectators attracted by curiosity, to which
were added anxious parents and relations, who came to
look after those among the misguided multitude who
belonged to their respective families. Imposture and
profligacy played their part in this city also, but the
morbid delusion itself seems to have pi'edominated.
On this account religion could only bring provisional
aid, and therefore the town council benevolently took
an, interest in the afflicted. They divided them into
separate parties, to each of which they appointed re¬
sponsible superintendents to protect them from harm,
and perhaps also to restrain their turbulence. They
were thus conducted on foot and in carriages to the
chapels of St. Yitus, near Zabern and Rotestein, where
priests were in attendance to work upon their mis¬
guided minds by masses and other religious ceremonies.
After divine worship was completed, they were led in
solemn procession to the altar, where they made some
small offering of alms, and where it is probable that
many were, through the influence of devotion and
the sanctity of the place, cured of this lamentable
aberration. It is worthy of observation, at all events,
that the Dancing Mania did not recommence at the
altars of the saint, and that from him alone assistance
was implored, and through his miraculous interposition
a cure was expected, which was beyond the reach of
THE DANCING MANIA.
113
human skill. The personal history of St. Titus is by no
means unimportant in this matter. He was a Sicilian
youth, who, together with Modestus and Crescentia,
suffered martyrdom at the time of the persecution of
the Christians, under Diocletian, in the year 303. The
legends respecting him are obscure, and he would
certainly have been passed over without notice among
the innumerable apocryphal martyrs of the first cen¬
turies, had not the transfer of his body to St. Denys,
and thence, in the year 836, to Corvey, raised him to
a higher rank. From this time forth it may be sup¬
posed that many miracles were manifested at his new
sepulchre, which were of essential service in confirming
the Roman faith among the Germans, and St. Vitus
was soon ranked among the fourteen saintly helpers
(Nothhelfer or Apotheker). His altars were multiplied,
and the people had recourse to them in all kinds of
distresses, and revered him as a powerful intercessor.
As the worship of these saints was, however, at that
time stripped of all historical connections, which were
purposely obliterated by the priesthood, a legend was
invented at the beginning of the fifteenth century, or
perhaps even so early as the fourteenth, that St. Vitus
had, just before he bent his neck to the sword, prayed
to God that he might protect from the Dancing Mania
all those who should solemnise the day of his com¬
memoration, and fast upon its eve, and that thereupon
a voice from heaven was heard, saying, " Vitus, thy
114
the dancing mania.
prayer is accepted." Thus St. Vitus became the patron
saint of those afflicted with the Dancing Plague, as St.
Martin of Tours was at one time the succourer of
persons in small-pox, St. Antonius of those suffering
under the " hellish fire," and as St. Margaret was the
Juno Lucina of puerperal women.
Sect. 3.—Causes.
The connection which John the Baptist had with the
Dancing Mania of the fourteenth century was of a
totally different character. He was originally far from
being a protecting saint to those who were attacked,
or one who would be likely to give them relief from a
malady considered as the work of the devil. On the
contrary, the manner in which he was worshipped
afforded an important and very evident cause for its
development. From the remotest period, perhaps even
so far back as the fourth century, St. John's day was
solemnised with all sorts of strange and rude customs,
©f which the originally mystical meaning was variously
disfigured among different nations by superadded relics
of heathenism. Thus the Germans transferred to the
festival of St. John's day an ancient heathen usage,
the kindling of the " Nodfyr," which was forbidden
them by St.. Boniface, and the belief subsists even to
the present day that people and animals that have
leaped through these flames, or their smoke, are pro¬
tected for a whole year from fevers and other diseases,
THE DANCING MANIA.
115
as if by a kind of baptism by fire. Bacchanalian
dances, which have originated in similar causes among
all the rude nations of the earth, and the wild extrava¬
gancies of a heated imagination, were the constant
accompaniments of this half-heathen, half-Christian
festival. At the period of which we are treating,
however, the Germans were not the only people who
gave way to the ebullitions of fanaticism in keeping
the festival of St. John the Baptist. Similar customs
were also to be found among the nations of Southern
Europe and of Asia, and it is more than probable that
the Greeks transferred to the festival of John the
Baptist, who is also held in high esteem among the
Mahomedans, a part of their Bacchanalian mysteries,
an absurdity of a kind which is but too frequently met
with in human affairs. How far a remembrance of the
history of St. John's death may have had an influence
on this occasion, we would leave learned theologians to
decide. It is only of importance here to add that in
Abyssinia, a country entirely separated from Europe,
■where Christianity has maintained itself in its primeval
simplicity against Mahomedanism, John is to this day
worshipped, as protecting saint of those who are at¬
tacked with the dancing malady. In these fragments
of the dominion of mysticism and superstition, historical
connection is not to be found.
When we observe, however, that the first dancers in
Aix-la-Chapelle appeared in July with St. John's name
116 the dancing mania.
in their mouths, the conjecture is probable that the
wild revels of St. John's day, a.d. 1374, gave rise to
this mental plague, which thenceforth has visited so
many thousands with incurable aberration of mind,
and disgusting distortions of body.
This is rendered so much the more probable because
some months previously the districts in the neighbour¬
hood of the Rhine and the Main had met with great
disasters. So early as February, both these rivers had
overflowed their banks to a great extent; the walls of
the town of Cologne, on the side next the Rhine, had
fallen down, and a great many villages had been re¬
duced to the utmost distress. To this was added the
miserable condition of western and southern Germany.
Neither law nor edict could suppress the incessant
feuds of the Barons, and in Fr<inconia especially, the
ancient times of club law appeared to be revived.
Security of property there was none; arbitrary will
everywhere prevailed ; corruption of morals and rude
power rarely met with even a feeble opposition;
whence it arose that the cruel, but lucrative, persecu¬
tions of the Jews were in many places still practised
through the whole of this century with their wonted
ferocity. Tims, throughout the western parts of
Germany, and especially in the districts bordering
011 the Rhine, there was a wretched and oppressed
populace; and if we take into consideration that
among their numerous bands many wandered about,
the dancing mania.
117
whose consciences were tormented with the recollection
of the crimes which they had committed during the
prevalence of the Black Plague, we shall comprehend
how their despair sought relief in the intoxication of
an artificial delirium. There is hence good ground for
supposing that the frantic celebration of the festival
of St. John, a.d. 1374, only served to bring to a crisis
a malady which had been long impending ; and if we
would further inquire how a hitherto harmless usage,
which like many others had but served to keep up
superstition, could degenerate into so serious a disease,
we must take into account the unusual excitement of
men's minds, and the consequences of wretchedness
and want. The bowels, which in many were debili¬
tated by hunger and bad food, were precisely the parts
which in most cases were attacked with excruciating
pain, and the tympanitic state of the intestines points
out to the intelligent physician an origin of the dis¬
order which is well worth consideration.
Sect. 4.—More Ancient Dancing Plagues.
The Dancing Mania of the year 1374 was, in fact,
no new disease, but a phenomenon well known in the
Middle Ages, of which many wondrous stories were
traditionally current among the people. In the year
1237 upwards of a hundred children were said to have
been suddenly seized with this disease at Erfurt, and
to have proceeded dancing and jumping along the road
118
the dancing mania.
to Arnstadt. Wlien they arrived at that place they
fell exhausted to the ground, and, according to an
account of an old chronicle, many of them, after they
were taken home by their parents, died, and the rest
remained affected, to the end of their lives, with a per¬
manent tremor. Another occurrence was related to
have taken place on the Moselle Bridge at Utrecht, on
the 17th day of June, a.d. 1278, when two hundred
fanatics began to dance, and would not desist until a
priest passed, who was carrying the Host to a person
that was sick, upon which, as if in punishment of thoir
crime, the bridge gave way, and they were all drowned.
A similar event also occurred so early as the year 1027,
near the convent church of Kolbig, not far from Bern-
burg. According to an oft-repeated tradition, eighteen
peasants, some of whose names are still preserved, are
said to have disturbed divine service on Christmas
Eve by dancing and brawling in the churchyard, where¬
upon the priest, Ruprecht, inflicted a curse upon them,
that they should dance and scream for a whole year
without ceasing. This curse is stated to have been
completely fulfilled, so that the unfortunate sufferers
at length sank knee-deep into the earth, and remained
the whole time without nourishment, until they were
finally released by the intercession of two pious bishops.
It is said that, upon this, they fell into a deep sleep,
which lasted three days, and that four of them died:
the rest continuing to suffer all their lives from a
THE DANCING MANIA.
119
trembling of their limbs. It is not worth while to
separate what may have been true, and what the ad¬
dition of crafty priests, in this strangely distorted story.
It is sufficient that it was believed, and related with
astonishment and horror, throughout the Middle Ages ;
so that when there was any exciting cause for this
delirious raying and wild rage for dancing, it failed
not to produce its effects upon men whose thoughts
were given up to a belief in wonders and apparitions.
This disposition of mind, altogether so peculiar to
the Middle Ages, and which, happily for mankind,
has yielded to an improved state of civilisation and
the diffusion of popular instruction, accounts for the
origin and long duration of this extraordinary mental
disorder. The good sense of the people recoiled with
horror and aversion from this heavy plague, which,
whenever malevolent persons wished to curse their
bitterest enemies and adversaries, was long after used
as a malediction. The indignation also that was felt
by the people at large against the immorality of the
age, was proved by their ascribing this frightful afflic¬
tion to the inefficacy of baptism by unchaste priests, as
if innocent children were doomed to atone, in after-
years, for this desecration of the sacrament administered
by unholy hands. We have already mentioned what
perils the priests in the Netherlands incurred from this
belief. They now, indeed, endeavoured to hasten their
reconciliation with the irritated, and, at that time, very
120
THE DANCING MANIA.
degenerate people, by exorcisms, which, with some,
procured them greater respect than ever, because they
thus visibly restored thousands of those who were
affected. In general, however, there prevailed a want
of confidence in their efficacy, and then the sacred rites
had as little power in arresting the progress of this
deeply-rooted malady as the prayers and holy services
subsequently had at the altars of the greatly-revered
martyr St. Yitus. We may therefore ascribe it to
accident merely, and to a certain aversion to this de¬
moniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach
of human skill, that we meet with but few and im¬
perfect notices of the St. Yitus's dance in the second
half of the fifteenth century. The highly-coloured
descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the
notion that this mental plague had in any degree
diminished in its severity, and not a single fact is to be
found which supports the opinion that any one of the
essential symptoms of the disease, not even excepting
the tympany, had disappeared, or that the disorder it¬
self had become milder in its attacks. The physicians
never, as it seems, throughout the whole of the fifteenth
century, undertook the treatment of the Dancing Mania,
which, according to the prevailing notions, appertained
exclusively to the servants of the Church. Against
demoniacal disorders they had no remedies, and though
some at first did promulgate the opinion that the
malady had its origin in natural circumstances, such as
the dancing mania.
121
a hot temperament, and other canses named in the
phraseology of the schools, yet these opinions were the
less examined as it did not appear worth while to
divide with a jealous priesthood the care of a host of
fanatical vagabonds and beggars.
Sect. 5.—Physicians.
It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth cen¬
tury that the St. Vitus's dance was made the subject of
medical research, and stripped of its unhallowed cha¬
racter as a work of demons. This was effected by Para¬
celsus, that mighty but, as yet, scarcely comprehended
reformer of medicine, whose aim it was to withdraw
diseases from the pale of miraculous interpositions and
saiutly influences, and explain their causes upon prin¬
ciples deduced from his knowledge of the human frame.
"We will not, however, admit that the saints have
power to inflict diseases, and that these ought to be
named after them, although many there are who, in
their theology, lay great stress on this supposition,
ascribing them rather to God than to nature, which is
but idle talk. We dislike such nonsensical gossip as
is not supported by symptoms, but only by faith—a
thing which is not human, whereon the gods themselves
set no value."
Such were the words which Paracelsus addressed to
his contemporaries, who were, as yet, incapable of
appreciating doctrines of this sort; for the belief in
enchantment still remained everywhere unshaken, and
122 THE DANCING MANIA.
faith iii tlie world of spirits still lield men's minds in
so close a bondage that thousands were, according to
their own conviction, given up as a prey to the devil;
while at the command of religion, as well as of law,
countless piles were lighted, by the flames of which
human society was to be purified.
Paracelsus divides the St. Yitus's dance into three
kinds. First, that which arises from imagination
(Vitista, Chorea imaginativei, cestimativa), by which
the original Dancing Plague is to be understood.
Secondly, that which arises from sensual desires, de¬
pending on the will (Chorea lasciva). Thirdly, that
which arises from corporeal causes (Chorea naturalis,
coacta), which, according to a strange notion of his
own, he explained by maintaining that in certain vessels
which are susceptible of an internal pruriency, and
thence produce laughter, the blood is set in commotion
in consequence of an alteration in the vital spirits,
whereby involuntary fits of intoxicating joy and a pro¬
pensity to dance are occasioned. To this notion he
was, no doubt, led from having observed a milder form
of St. Yitus's dance, not uncommon in his time, which
was accompanied by involuntary laughter; and which
bore a resemblance to the hysterical laughter of the
moderns, except that it was characterised by more
pleasurable sensations and by an extravagant pro¬
pensity to dance. There was no howling, screaming,
and jumping, as in the severer form ; neither was the
THE DANCING MANIA.
123
disposition to dance by any means insuperable. Patients
thus affected, although they had not a complete control
over their understandings, yet were sufficiently self-
possessed during the attack to obey the directions
which they received. There were even some among
them who did not dance at all, but only felt an in¬
voluntary impulse to allay the internal sense of dis¬
quietude, which is the usual forerunner of an attack of
this kind, by laughter and quick walking carried to
the extent of producing fatigue. This disorder, so
different from the original type, evidently approxi¬
mates to the modern chorea; or, rather, is in perfect
accordance with it, even to the less essential symptom
of laughter. A mitigation in the form of the Dancing
Mania had thus clearly taken place at the commence¬
ment of the sixteenth century.
On the communication of the St. Vitus's dance by
sympathy, Paracelsus, in his peculiar language, ex¬
presses himself with great spirit, and shows a profound
knowledge of the nature of sensual impressions, which
find their way to the heart—the seat of joys and
emotions—which overpower the opposition of reason;
and whilst " all other qualities and natures " are sub¬
dued, incessantly impel the patient, in consequence of
his original compliance, and his all-conquering imagi¬
nation, to imitate what he has seen. On his treatment
of the disease we cannot bestow any great praise, but
must be content with the remark that it was in
124
THE DANCING MANIA.
conformity with the notions of the age in which he
lived. For the first kind, which often originated in
passionate excitement, he had a mental remedy, the
efficacy of which is not to be despised, if we estimate
its value in connection with the prevalent opinions of
those times. The patient was to make an image of
himself in wax or resin, and by an effort of thought to
concentrate all his blasphemies and sins in it. " With¬
out the intervention of any other person, to set his
whole mind and thoughts concerning these oaths in the
image ; " and when he had succeeded in this, he was to
burn the image, so that not a particle of it should
remain. In all this there was no mention made of St.
"Vitus, or any of the other mediatory saints, which is
accounted for by the circumstance that at this time an
open rebellion against the Romish Church had begun,
and the worship of saints was by many rejected as
idolatrous. For the second kind of St. Titus's dance,
arising from sensual irritation, with which women were
far more frequently affected than men, Paracelsus
recommended harsh treatment and strict fasting. He
directed that the patients should be deprived of their
liberty; placed in solitary confinement, and made to
sit in an uncomfortable place, until their misery
brought them to their senses and to a feeling of
penitence. He then permitted them gradually to
return to their accustomed habits. Severe corporal
chastisement was not omitted; but, on the other hand,
the dancing mania.
125
angry resistance on tlie part of the patient was to be
sedulously avoided, on the ground that it might increase
his malady, or even destroy him: moreover, where it
seemed proper, Paracelsus allayed the excitement of
the nerves by immersion in cold water. On the treat¬
ment of the third kind we shall not here enlarge. It
was to be effected by all sorts of wonderful remedies,
composed of the quintessences ; and it would require,
to render it intelligible, a more extended exposition of
peculiar principles than suits our present purpose.
Sect. 6.—Decline and Termination of the
Dancing Plague.
About this time the St. Titus's dance began to de¬
cline, so that milder forms of it appeared more fre¬
quently, while the severer cases became more rare; and
even in these, some of the important symptoms gradually
disappeared. Paracelsus makes no mention of the
tympanites as taking place after the attacks, although
it may occasionally have occurred; and Schenck von
Graffenberg, a celebrated physician of the latter half
of the sixteenth century, speaks of this disease as
having been frequent only in the time of his fore¬
fathers; his descriptions, however, are applicable to
the whole of that century, and to the close of the
fifteenth. The St. Yitus's dance attacked people of
all stations, especially those who led a sedentary life,
such as shoemakers and tailors; but even the most
126 THE DANCING MANIA.
robust peasants abandoned their labours in the fields,
as if they were possessed by evil spirits; and thus those
affected were seen assembling indiscriminately, from
time to time, at certain appointed places, and, unless
prevented by the lookers - on, continuing to dance
without intermission, until their very last breath was
expended. Their fury and extravagance of demeanour
so completely deprived them of their senses, that many
of them dashed their brains out against the walls and
corners of buildings, or rushed headlong into rapid
rivers, where they found a watery grave. Roaring
and foaming as they were, the bystanders could only
succeed in restraining them by placing benches and
chairs in their way, so that, by the high leaps they were
thus tempted to take. their strength might be exhausted.
As soon as this was the case, they fell as it were life¬
less to the ground, and, by very slow degrees, again
recovered their strength. Many there were who, even
with all this exertion, had not expended the violence of
the tempest which raged within them, but awoke with
newly-revived powers, and again and again mixed with
the crowd of dancers, until at length the violent excite¬
ment of their disordered nerves was allayed by the great
involuntary exertion of their limbs; and the mental
disorder was calmed by the extreme exhaustion of the
body. Thus the attacks themselves were in these
cases, as in their nature they are in all nervous com¬
plaints. necessarv crises of an inward morbid condition
THE DANCING MANIA.
127
which was transferred from the sensorium to the nerves
of motion, and, at an earlier period, to the abdominal
plexus, where a deep-seated derangement of the system
was perceptible from the secretion of flatus in the
intestines.
The cure effected by these stormy attacks was in
many cases so perfect, that some patients returned to
the factory or the plough as if nothing had happened.
Others, on the contrary, paid the penalty of their folly
by so total a loss of power, that they could not regain
their former health, even by the employment of the
most strengthening remedies. Medical men were
astonished to observe that women in an advanced
state of pregnancy were capable of going through an
attack of the disease without the slightest injury to
their offspring, which they protected merely by a
bandage passed round the waist. Cases of this kind
were not infrequent so late as Schenck's time. That
patients should be violently affected by music, and
their paroxysms brought on and increased by it, is
natural with such nervous disorders, where deeper
impressions are made through the ear, which is the
most intellectual of all the organs, than through any
of the other senses. On this account the magistrates
hired musicians for the purpose of carrying the St.
Titus's dancers so much the quicker through the
attacks, and directed that athletic men should be sent
among them in order to complete the exhaustion, whitih
128
THE DANCING MANIA.
had been often observed to produce a good effect. At
the same time there was a prohibition against wearing
red garments, because, at the sight of this colour, those
affected became so furious that they flew at the persons
who wore it, and were so bent upon doing them an
injury that they could with difficulty be restrained.
They frequently tore their own clothes whilst in the
paroxysm, and were guilty of other improprieties, so
that the more opulent employed confidential attendants
to accompany them, and to take care that they did no
harm either to themselves or others. This extra¬
ordinary disease was, however, so greatly mitigated in
Schenck's time, that the St. Yitus's dancers had long
since ceased to stroll from town to town; and that
physician, like Paracelsus, makes no mention of the
tympanitic inflation of the bowels. Moreover, most of
those affected were only annually visited by attacks;
and the occasion of them was so manifestly referable
to the prevailing notions of that period, that if the
unqualified belief in the supernatural agency of saints
could have been abolished, they would not have had any
return of the complaint. Throughout the whole of
June, prior to the festival of St. John, patients felt a
disquietude and restlessness which they were unable to
overcome. They were dejected, timid, and anxious;
wandered about in an unsettled state, being tormented
with twitching pains, which seized them suddenly in
different parts, and eagerly expected the eve of St.
THE DANCING MANIA. 129
John's day, in the confident hope that by dancing at
the altars of this saint, or of St. Titus (for in the
Breisgan aid was equally sought from both), they
would be freed from all their sufferings. This hope
was not disappointed ; and they remained, for the rest
of the year, exempt from any further attack, after
having thus, by dancing and raving for three hours,
satisfied an irresistible demand of nature. There were
at that period two chapels in the Breisgau visited by
the St. Yitus's dancers; namely, the Chapel of St.
Vitus at Biessen, near Breisach, and that of St. John,
near Wasenweiler ; and it is probable that in the south¬
west of Germany the disease was still in existence in
the seventeenth century.
However, it grew every year more rare, so that at the
beginning of the seventeenth century it was observed
only occasionally in its ancient form. Thus in the
spring of the year 1623, G-. Horst saw some women who
annually performed a pilgrimage to St. Vitus's chapel
at Drefelhausen, near Weissenstein, in the territory of
Ulm, that they might wait for their dancing fit there,
in the same manner as those in the Breisgau did,
according to Schenck's account. They were not satis¬
fied, however, with a dance of three hours' duration,
but continued day and night in a state of mental ab¬
erration, like persons in an ecstasy, until they fell ex¬
hausted to the ground; and when they came to them¬
selves again they felt relieved from a distressing
E—118
130
THE DANCING MANIA.
uneasiness and painful sensation of weight in their
bodies, of which they had complained for several weeks
prior to St. Titus's Day.
After this commotion they remained well for the
whole year; and such was their faith in the protecting
power of the saint, that one of them had visited this
shrine at Drefelhausen more than twenty times, and
another had already kept the saint's day for the thirty-
second time at this sacred station.
The dancing fit itself was excited here, as it probably
was in other places, by music, from the effects of which
the patients were thrown into a state of convulsion.
Many concurrent testimonies serve to show that music
generally contributed much to the continuance of the
St. Yitus's dance, originated and increased its par¬
oxysms, and was sometimes the cause of their mitiga¬
tion. So early as the fourteenth century the swarms
of St. John's dancers were accompanied by minstrels
playing upon noisy instruments, who roused their
morbid feelings; and it may readily be supposed that
by the performance of lively melodies, and the stimula¬
ting effects which the shrill tones of fifes and trumpets
would produce, a paroxysm that was perhaps but
slight in itself, might, in many cases, be increased to
the most outrageous fury, such as in later times was
purposely induced in order that the force of the disease
might be exhausted by the violence of its attack.
Moreover, by means of intoxicating music a kind of
THE DANCING MANIA.
131
demoniacal festival for the rude multitude was es¬
tablished, which had the effect of spreading this
unhappy malady wider and wider. Soft harmony was,
however, employed to calm the excitement of those
affected, and it is mentioned as a character of the tunes
played with this view to the St. Yitus's dancers, that
they contained transitions from a quick to a slow
measure, and passed gradually from a high to a low
key. It is to be regretted that no trace of this music
has reached our times, which is owing partly to the dis¬
astrous events of the seventeenth century, and partly to
the circumstance that the disorder was looked upon
as entirely national, and only incidentally considered
worthy of notice by foreign men of learning. If the
St. Yitus's dance was already on the decline at the
commencement of the seventeenth century, the subse¬
quent events were altogether adverse to its continuance.
Wars carried on with animosity, and with various suc¬
cess, for thirty years, shook the west of Europe; and
although the unspeakable calamities which they brought
upon Germany, both during their continuance and in
their immediate consequences, were by no means
favourable to the advance of knowledge, yet, with the
vehemence of a purifying fire, they gradually effected
the intellectual regeneration of the Germans ; super¬
stition, in her ancient form, never again appeared, and
the belief in the dominion of spirits, which prevailed in
the middle ages, lost for ever its once formidable power.
132
the dancing mania.
CHAPTER II.
the dancing mania in italy.
Sect. 1.—Taeantism.
It was of the utmost advantage to the St. Vilus's
dancers that they made choice of a favourite patron
saint; for, not to mention that people were inclined to
compare them to the possessed with evil spirits de¬
scribed in the Bible, and thence to consider them as
innocent victims to tlxe power of Satan, the name of
their great intercessor recommended them to general
commiseration, and a magic boundary was thus set to
every harsh feeling, which might otherwise have proved
hostile to their safety. Other fanatics were not so
fortunate, being often treated with the most relentless
cruelty, whenever the notions of the middle ages
either excused or commanded it as a religious duty.
Thus, passing over the innumerable instances of the
burning of witches, who were, after all, only labouring
under a delusion, the Teutonic knights in Prussia not
unfrequently condemned those maniacs to the stake
who imagined themselves to be metamorphosed into
wolves—an extraordinary species of insanity, which,
having existed in Greece before our era, spread, in
process of time over Europe, so that it was communi¬
cated not only to the Romaic, but also to tha German
and Sarmatian nations, and descended from the ancients
the dancing mania.
133
as a legacy of affliction to posterity. In modern times
Lycanthropy—such was the name given to this infatua¬
tion—lias vanished from the earth, but it is nevertheless
well worthy the consideration of the observer of human
aberrations, and a history of it by some writer who is
equally well acquainted with the middle ages as with
antiquity is still a desideratum. We leave it for the
present without further notice, and turn to a malady
most extraordinary in all its phenomena, having a close
connection with the St. Vitus's dance, and, by a com¬
parison of facts which are altogether similar, affording
us an instructive subject for contemplation. We allude
to the disease called Tarantism, which made its first
appearance in Apulia, and thence spread over the other
provinces of Italy, where, during some centuries, it pre¬
vailed as a great epidemic. In the present times it has
vanished, or at least has lost altogether its original im¬
portance, like the St. Yitus's dance, lycanthropy, and
witchcraft.
Sect. 2.—Most Ancient Traces.—Causes.
The learned Nicholas Perotti gives the earliest
account of this strange disorder. Nobody had the
least doubt that it was caused by the bite of the taran¬
tula, a ground-spider common in Apulia : and the fear
of this insect was so general that its bite was in all
probability much oftener imagined, or the sting of
some other kind of insect mistaken for it, than actually
134
THE DANCING MANIA.
received. The word tarantula is apparently the same
as terrantola, a name given by the Italians to the
stellio of the old Romans, which was a kind of lizard,
said to be poisonous, and invested by credulity with
such extraordinary qualities, that, like the serpent of
the Mosaic account of the Creation, it personified, in
the imaginations of the vulgar, the notion of cunning,
so that even the jurists designated a cunning fraud by
the appellation of a " stellionatus." Perotti expressly
assures us that this reptile was called by the Romans
farantula; and since he himself, who was one of the
most distinguished authors of his time, strangely con¬
founds spiders and lizards together, so that he con¬
siders the Apulian tarantula, which he ranks among
the class of spiders, to have the same meaning as the
kind of lizard called affKa\ ^un-qs, it is the less extra¬
ordinary that the unlearned country people of Apulia
should confound the mucli-dreaded ground-spider with
the fabulous star-lizard, and appropriate to the one tho
name of the other. The derivation of the word taran-
tmla, from the city of Tarentum, or the river Thara, in
Apulia, on the banks of which this insect is said to
have been most frequently found, or, at least, its bite
to have had the most venomous effect, seems not to be
supported by authority. So much for the name of this
famous spider, which, unless we are greatly mistaken,
throws no light whatever upon the nature of the disease
in question. Naturalists Avho, possessing a knowledge
THE DANCING MANIA.
135
of the past, should not misapply their talents by em¬
ploying them in establishing the dry distinction of
forms, would find here much that calls for research,
and their efforts would clear up many a perplexing
obscurity.
Perotti states that the tarantula—that is, the spider
so called—was not met with in Italy in former times,
but that in his day it had become common, especially
in Apulia, as' well as in some other districts. He
deserves, however, no great confidence as a naturalist,
notwithstanding his having delivered lectures in
Bologna on medicine and other sciences. He at least
has neglected to prove his assertion, which is not
borne out by any analogous phenomenon observed
in modern times with regard to the history of the
spider species. It is by no means to be admitted that
the tarantula did not make its appearance in Italy
before the disease ascribed to its bite became remark¬
able, even though tempests more violent than those
unexampled storms which arose at the time of the
Black Death in the middle of the fourteenth century
had set the insect world in motion; for the spider is
little if at all susceptible of those cosmical influences
which at times multiply locusts and other winged in¬
sects to a wonderful extent, and compel them to migrate.
The symptoms which Perotti enumerates as con¬
sequent on the bite of the tarantula agree very exactly
with those described by later writers. Those who
136
THE DANCING MANIA.
■were bitten, generally fell into a state of melancholy,
and appeared to be stupefied, and scarcely in posses¬
sion of their senses. This condition was, in many-
cases, united with so great a sensibility to music, that
at the very first tones of their favourite melodies
they sprang up, shouting for joy, and danced on
without intermission, until they sank to the ground
exhausted and almost lifeless. In others, the disease
did not take this cheerful turn. They wept con¬
stantly, and as if pining away with some unsatisfied
desire, spent their days in the greatest misery and
anxiety. Others, again, in morbid fits of love, cast
their longing looks on women, and instances of death
are recorded, which are said to have occurred under
a paroxysm of either laughing or weeping.
From this description, incomplete as it is, we may
easily gather that tarantism, the essential symptoms
of which are mentioned in it, could not have originated
in the fifteenth century, to which Perotti's account
refers; for that author speaks of it as a well-known
malady, and states that the omission to notice it by
older writers was to be ascribed solely to the want
of education in Apulia, the only province probably
where the disease at that time prevailed. A nervous
disorder that had arrived at so high a degree of
development must have been long in existence, and
doubtless had required an elaborate preparation by
the concurrence of general causes.
THE DANCING MANIA.
137
The symptoms which followed the bite of venomous
spiders were well known to the ancients, and had
excited the attention of their best observers, who agree
in their descriptions of them. It is probable that
among the numerous species of their phalangium,
the Apulian tarantula is included, but it is difficult
to determine this point Avith certainty, more es¬
pecially because in Italy the tarantula was not the
only insect which caused this nervous affection,
similar results being likewise attributed to the
bite of the scorpion. Lividity of the whole body,
as well as of the countenance, difficulty of speech,
tremor of the limbs, icy coldness, pale urine, de¬
pression of spirits, headache, a flow of tears, nausea,
vomiting, sexual excitement, flatulence, syncope, dys-
uria, watchfulness, lethargy, even death itself, were
cited by them as the consequences of being bitten by
venomous spiders, and they made little distinction
as to tlieir'kinds. To these symptoms we may add the
strange rumour, repeated throughout the middle ages,
that persons who were bitten, ejected by the bowels
and kidneys, and even by vomiting, substances re¬
sembling a spider's web.
Nowhere, however, do we find any mention made
that those affected felt an irresistible propensity to
dancing, or that they were accidentally cured by
it. Even Constantino of Africa, who lived 500 years
after Aetius, and, as the most learned physician of
138
THE DANCING MANIA.
the school of Salerno, would certainly not have passed
over so acceptable a subject of remark, knows
nothing of such a memorable course of this disease
arising from poison, and merely repeats the observa¬
tions of his Greek predecessors. Gariopontus, a
Salernian physician of the eleventh century, was the
first to describe a kind of insanity, the remote affinity
of which to the tarantula disease is rendered apparent
by a very striking symptom. The patients in their
sudden attacks behaved like maniacs, sprang up,
throwing their arms about with wild movements,
and, if perchance a sword was at hand, they wounded
themselves and others, so that it became necessary
carefully to secure them. They imagined that they
heard voices and various kinds of sounds, and if,
during this state of illusion, the tones of a favourite
instrument happened to catch their ear, they com¬
menced a spasmodic dance, or ran with the utmost
energy which they could muster until they were totally
exhausted. These dangerous maniacs, who, it would
seem, appeared in considerable numbers, were looked
upon as a legion of devils, but on the causes of their
malady this obscure writer adds nothing further than
that he believes (oddly enough) that it may sometimes
be excited by the bite of a mad dog. Ho calls the
disease Anteneasmus, by which is meant 110 doubt the
Enthusiasmus of the Greek physicians. We cite this
phenomenon as an important forerunner of tarantisra,
THE DANCING MANIA.
139
under the conviction that we have thus added to
the evidence that the development of this latter must
have been founded on circumstances which existed
from the twelfth to the end of the fourteenth century;
for the origin of tarantism itself is referable, with the
utmost probability, to a period between the middle
and the end of this century, and is consequently
contemporaneous with that of the St. Yitus's dance
(1374). The influence of the Roman Catholic religion,
connected as this was, in the middle ages, with tho
pomp of processions, with public exercises of penance,
and with innumerable practices which strongly excited
the imaginations of its votaries, certainly brought tho
mind to a very favourable state for the reception
of a nervous disorder. Accordingly, so long as the
doctrines of Christianity were blended with so much
mysticism, these unhallowed disorders prevailed to
an important extent, and even in our own days wo
find them propagated with the greatest facility whero
the existence of superstition produces the same effect,
in more limited districts, as it once did among whole
nations. But this is not all. Every country in
Europe, and Italy perhaps more than any other, was
visited during the middle ages by frightful plagues,
which followed each other in such quick succession that
they gave the exhausted people scarcely any time for
recovery. The Oriental bubo-plague ravaged Italy
sixteen times between the years 1119 and 1340.
140
THE DANCING MANIA.
Small-pox and measles were still more destructive
than in modern times, and recurred as frequently.
St. Anthony's fire was the dread of town and country;
and that disgusting disease, the leprosy, which, in
consequence of the Crusades, spread its insinuating
poison in all directions, snatched from the paternal
hearth innumerable victims who, banished from human
society, pined away in lonely huts, whither they were
accompanied only by the pity of the benevolent and
their own despair. All these calamities, of which the
moderns have scarcely retained any recollection, were
heightened to an incredible degree by the Black
Death, which spread boundless devastation and misery
over Italy. Men's minds were everywhere morbidly
sensitive; and as it happened with individuals whose
senses, when they are suffering under anxiety, become
more irritable, so that trifles are magnified into objects
of great alarm, and slight shocks, which would scarcely
affect the spirits when in health, gave rise in them
to severe diseases, so was it with this whole nation, at
all times so alive to emotions, and at that period so
sorely oppressed with the horrors of death.
The bite of venomous spiders, or rather the unreason¬
able fear of its consequences, excited at such a juncture,
though it could not have done so at an earlier period, a
violent nervous disorder, which, like St. Yitus's dance
in Germany, spread by sympathy, increasing in severity
as it took a wider range, and still further extending its
the dancing mania.
141
ravages from its long continuance. Thus, from the
middle of the fourteenth century, the furies of the
Dance brandished their scourge over afflicted mortals ;
and music, for "which the inhabitants of Italy, now
probably for the first time, manifested susceptibility
and talent, became capable of exciting ecstatic attacks
in those affected, and then furnished the magical means
of exorcising their melancholy.
Sect. 3.—Increase.
At the close of the fifteenth century we find that
tarantism had spread beyond the boundaries of Apulia,
and that the fear of being bitten by venomous spiders
had increased. Nothing short of death itself was ex¬
pected from the wound which these insects inflicted, and
if those who were bitten escaped with their lives, they
were said to be seen pining away in a desponding state
of lassitude. Many became "weak-sighted or hard of
hearing, some lost the power of speech, and all were
insensible to ordinary causes of excitement. Nothing
but the flute or the cithern afforded them relief. At
the sound of these instruments they awoke as it were
by enchantment, opened their eyes, and moving slowly
at first, according to the measure of the music, were,
as the time quickened, gradually hurried 011 to the
most passionate dance. It was generally observable
that country people, who were rude, and ignorant of
music, evinced on these occasions an unusual degree of
142
THE DANCING MANIA.
grace, as if they had been well practised in elegant
movements of the body; for it is a peculiarity in
nervous disorders of tliis kind, that the organs of
motion are in an altered condition, and are completely
under the control of the over-strained spirits. Cities and
villages alike resounded throughout the summer season
with the notes of fifes, clarinets, and Turkish drums;
and patients were everywhere to be met with who
looked to dancing as their only remedy. Alexander
ab Alexandro, who gives this account, saw a young
man in a remote village who was seized with a violent
attack of tarantism. He listened with eagerness and
a fixed stare to the sound of a drum, and his graceful
movements gradually became more and more violent,
until his dancing was converted into a succession of
frantic leaps, which required the utmost exertion of his
whole strength. In the midst of this over-strained
exertion of mind and body the music suddenly ceased,
and he immediately fell powerless to the ground, where
he lay senseless and motionless until its magical effect
again aroused him to a renewal of his impassioned per¬
formances.
• At the period of which we are treating there was a
general conviction, that by music and dancing the
poison of the tarantula was distributed over the whole
body, and expelled through the skin, but that if there
remained the slightest vestige of it in the vessels, this
became a permanent germ of the disorder, so that the
THE DANCING MANIA.
143
dancing fits might again and again be excited ad infini¬
tum by music. This belief, which resembled the delu¬
sion of those insane persons who, being by artful man¬
agement freed from the imagined causes of their
sufferings, are but for a short time released from their
false notions, was attended with the most injurious
effects: for in consequence of it those affected neces¬
sarily became by degrees convinced of the incurable
nature of their disorder. They expected relief, indeed,
but not a cure, from music; and when the heat of
summer awakened a recollection of the dances of the
preceding year, they, like the St. Yitus's dancers of the
same period before St. Yitus's day, again grew dejected
and misanthropic, until, by music and dancing, they
dispelled the melancholy which had become with them
a kind of sensual enjoyment.
Under such favourable circumstances, it is clear that
tarantism must every year have made further progress.
The number of those affected by it increased beyond
all belief, for whoever had either actually been, or even
fancied that he 'had been, once bitten by a poisonous
spider or scorpion, made his appearance annually wher¬
ever the merry notes of the tarantella resounded. In¬
quisitive females joined the throng and caught the
disease, not indeed from the poison of the spider, but
from the mental poison which they eagerly received
through [the eye; and thus the cure of the taranlati
gradually became established as a regular festival of
144
THE DANCING MANIA.
the populace, which was anticipated with impatient
delight.
"Without attributing more to deception and fraud
than to the peculiar nature of a progressive mental
malady, it may readily be conceived that the cases of
this strange disorder now grew more frequent. The
celebrated Matthioli, who is worthy of entire confidence,
gives his account as an eye-witness. He saw the same
extraordinary effects produced by music as Alexandra,
for, however tortured with pain, however hopeless of
relief the patients appeared, as they lay stretched on
the couch of sickness, at tho very first sounds of those
melodies which made an impression on them—but this
was the case only with the tarantellas composed ex¬
pressly for the purpose—they sprang up as if inspired
with new life and spirit, and, unmindful of their dis¬
order, began to move in measured gestures, dancing for
hours together without fatigue, until, covered with a
kindly perspiration, they felt a salutary degree of las¬
situde, which relieved them for a time at least, perhaps
even for a whole year, from their dejection and op¬
pressive feeling of general indisposition. Alexandra's
experience of tho injurious effects resulting from a
sudden cessation of the music was generally confirmed
by Matthioli. If the clarinets and drums ceased for a
single moment, which, as the most skilful players were
tired out by the patients, could not but happen occa¬
sionally, they suffered their limbs to fall listless, again
the dancing mania.
145
sank exhausted to the ground, and could find no solace
but in a renewal of the dance. On this account care
was taken to continue the music until exhaustion was
produced; for it was better to pay a few extra musi¬
cians, who might relieve each other, than to permit the
patient, in the midst of this curative exercise, to relapse
into so deplorable a state of suffering. The attack
consequent upon the bite of the tarantula, Matthioli
describes as varying much in its manner. Some became
morbidly exhilarated, so that they remained for a long
while without sleep, laughing, dancing, and singing in
a state of the greatest excitement. Others, on the
contrary, were drowsy. The generality felt nausea and
suffered from vomiting, and some had constant tremors.
Complete mania was no uncommon occurrence, not to
mention the usual dejection of spirits and other sub¬
ordinate symptoms.
Sect. 4.—Idiosyncrasies.—Music.
Unaccountable emotions, strange desires, and morbid
■sensual irritations of all kinds, were as prevalent as
in the St. Yitus's dance and similar great nervous
maladies. So late as the sixteenth century patients
were seen armed with glittering swords which, during
the attack, they brandished with Avild gestures, as
if they were going to engage in a fencing match.
Even women scorned all female delicacy, and, adopting
this impassioned demeanour, did the same; and this
146
THE DANCING MANIA..
phenomenon, as "well as the excitement which the taran¬
tula dancers felt at the sight of anything with metallic
lustre, was quite common up to the period when, in
modern times, the disease disappeared.
The abhorrence of certain colours, and the agreeable
sensations produced by others, were much more marked
among the excitable Italians than was the case in the
St. Yitus's dance with the more phlegmatic Germans.
Red colours, which the St. Yitus's dancers detested,
they generally liked, so that a patient was seldom seen
who did not carry a red handkerchief for his gratifica¬
tion, or greedily feast his eyes on any articles of red
clothing worn by the bystanders. Some preferred
yellow, others black colours, of which an explanation
was sought, according to the prevailing notions of the
times, in the difference of temperaments. Others,
again, were enraptured with green; and eye-witnesses
describe this rage for colours as so extraordinary, that
they can scarcely find words with which to express
their astonishment. No sooner did the patients ob¬
tain a sight of the favourite colour than, new as the
impression was, they rushed like infuriated animals
towards the object, devoured it with their eager looks,
kissed and caressed it in every possible j,way, and
gradually resigning themselves to softer sensations,
adopted the languishing expression of enamoured
lovers, and embraced the handkerchief, or whatever
other article it might be, which was presented to them,
THE DANCING MANIA.
147
with the most intense ardour, while the tears streamed
from their eyes as if they were completely over¬
whelmed by the inebriating impression on their senses.
The dancing fits of a certain Capuchin friar in
Tarentum excited so much curiosity, that Cardinal
Cajetano proceeded to the monastery, that he might see
with his own eyes what was going on. As soon as the
monk, who was in the midst of his dance, perceived
the spiritual prince clothed in his red garments, he no
longer listened to the tarantella of the musicians, but
with strange gestures endeavoured to approach the
Cardinal, as if he wished to count the very threads
of his scarlet robe, and to allay his intense longing by
its odour. The interference of the spectators, and his
own respect, prevented his touching it, and thus the
irritation of his senses not being appeased, he fell into
a state of such anguish and disquietude, that he pre¬
sently sank down in a swoon, from which he did not
recover until the Cardinal compassionately gave him
his cape. This he immediately seized in the greatest
ecstasy, and pressed now to his breast, now to his
forehead and cheeks, and then again commenced his
dance as if in the frenzy of a love fit.
At the sight of colours which they disliked, patients
flew into the most violent rage, and, like the St. Yitus's
dancers when they saw red objects, could scarcely be
restrained from tearing the clothes of those spectators
who raised in them such disagreeable sensations.
148
THE DANCING MANIA.
Another 110 less extraordinary symptom was the
ardent longing for the sea which the patients evinced.
As the St. John's dancers of the fourteenth century
saw, in the spirit, the heavens open and display all the
splendour of the saints, so did those who were suffer¬
ing under the bite of the tarantula feel themselves
attracted to the boundless expanse of the blue ocean,
and lost themselves in its contemplation. Some songs,
which are still preserved, marked this peculiar longiug,
which was moreover expressed by significant music,
and was excited even by the bare mention of the sea.
Some, in whom this susceptibility was carried to the
greatest pitch, cast themselves with blind fury into the
blue waves, as the St. Yitus's dancers occasionally did
into rapid rivers. This condition, so opposite to the
fright fid state of hydrophobia, betrayed itself in others
only in the pleasure afforded them by the sight of clear
water in glasses. These they bore in their hands
while dancing, exhibiting at the same time strange
movements, and giving way to the most extravagant
expressions of their feeling. They were delighted also
when, in the midst of the space allotted for this
exercise, more ample vessels, filled with water, and
surrounded by rushes and water plants, were placed,
in which they bathed their heads and arms with
evident pleasure. Others there were who rolled about
on the ground, and were, by their own desire, buried
up to the neck in the earth, in order to alleviate the
THE DANCING MANIA.
149
misery of their condition; not to|mention an endless
variety of otlier symptoms which showed the perverted
action of the nerves.
All these modes of relief, however, were as nothing
in comparison with the irresistible charms of musical
sound. Attempts had indeed been made in ancient
times to mitigate the pain of sciatica, or the paroxysms
of mania, by the soft melody of the flute, and, what is
still more applicable to the present purpose, to remove
the danger arising from the bite of vipers by the
same means. This, however, was tried only to a very
small extent. But after being bitten by the tarantula,
there was, according to popular opinion, no way of
saving life except by music; and it was hardly con¬
sidered as an exception to the general rule, that every
now and then the bad effects of a wound were pre¬
vented by placing a ligature on the bitten limb, or by
internal medicine, or that strong persons occasionally
withstood the effects of the poison, without the em¬
ployment of any remedies at all. It was much more
common, and is quite in accordance with the nature of
so exquisite a nervous disease, to hear accounts of
many who, when bitten by the tarantula, perished
miserably because the tarantella, which would have
afforded them deliverance, was not played to them.
It was customary, therefore, so early as the commence¬
ment of the seventeenth century, for whole bands of
musicians to traverse Italy during the summer months,
150
THE DANCING MANIA.
and, what is quite unexampled either in ancient or
modern times, the cure of the Tarantati in the different
towns and villages was undertaken on a grand scale.
This season of dancing and music was called " tho
women's little carnival," for it was women more
especially who conducted the arrangements; so that
throughout the whole country they saved up their sparo
money, for the purpose of rewarding the welcome
musicians, and many of them neglected their household
employments to participate in this festival of the sick.
Mention is even made of one benevolent lady (Mita
Lupa) who had expended her whole fortune on this
object.
The music itself was of a kind perfectly adapted to
the nature of tho malady, and it made so deep an
impression on the Italians, that even to the present
time, long since the extinction of the disorder, they
have retained the tarantella, as a particular species
of music employed for quick, lively dancing. The
different kinds of tarantella were distinguished, very
significantly, by particular names, which had reference
to the moods observed in the patients. Whence it
appears that they aimed at representing by these tunes
even the idiosyncrasies of the mind as expressed in the
countenance. Thus there was one kind of tarantella
which was called " Panno rosso," a very lively, im¬
passioned style of music, to which wild dithyrambic
songs were adapted; another, called " Panno verde,"
THE DANCING MANIA.
151
which was suited to the milder excitement of the
senses caused by green colours, and set to Idyllian
songs of verdant fields and shady groves. A third
was named " Cinque tempi: " a fourth " Moresca,"
which was played to a Moorish dance; a fifth,
" Catena;" and a sixth, with a very appropriate
designation, " Spallata," as if it were only fit to be
played to dancers who were lame in the shoulder.
This was the slowest and least in vogue of all. For
those who loved water they took care to select love
songs, which were sung to corresponding music, and
such persons delighted in hearing of gushing springs
and rushing cascades and streams. It is to be re¬
gretted that on this subject we are unable to give any
further information, for only small fragments of songs
and a very few tarantellas, have been preserved which
belong to a period so remote as the beginning of the
seventeenth, or at furthest the end of the sixteenth
century.
The music was almost wholly in the Turkish style
(aria Turchesca), and the ancient songs of the peasantry
of Apulia, which increased in number annually, were
well suited to the abrupt and lively notes of the Turkish
drum and the shepherd's pipe. These two instruments
were the favourites in the country, but others of all
kinds were played in towns and villages, as an accom¬
paniment to the dances of the patients and the songs
of the spectators. If any particular melody was
152
THE DANCING MANIA.
disliked by those affected, they indicated their displea¬
sure by violent gestures expressive of aversion. They
could not endure false notes, and it is remarkable that
uneducated boors, who had never in their lives mani¬
fested any perception of the enchanting power of har¬
mony, acquired, in this respect, an extremely refined
sense of hearing, as if they had been initiated into
the profoundest secrets of the musical art. It was a
matter of every day's experience, that patients showed
a predilection for certain tarantellas, in preference to
others, which gave rise to the composition of a great
variety of these dances. They were likewise very
capricious in their 'partialities for particular instru¬
ments ; so that some longed for the shrill notes of the
trumpet, others for the softest music produced by the
vibration of strings.
Tarantism was at its greatest height in Italy in the
seventeenth century, long after the St. Yitus's Dance
of Germany had disappeared. It was not the natives
of the country only who were attacked by this com¬
plaint. Foreigners of every colour and of every race,
negroes, gipsies, Spaniards, Albanians, were in like
manner affected by it. Against the effects produced
by the tarantula's bite, or by the sight of the sufferers,
neither youth nor age afforded any protection ; so that
even old men of ninety threw aside their crutches at
the sound of the tarantella, and, as if some magic
potion, restorative of youth and vigour, were flowing
THE DANCING MANIA.
153
through their veins, joined the most extravagant
dancers. Ferdinando saw a boy five years old seized with
the dancing mania, in consequence of the bite of a
tarantula, and, what is almost past belief, were it not
supported by the testimony of so credible an eye-wit¬
ness, even deaf people were not exempt from this
disorder, so potent in its effect was the very sight of
those affected, even without the exhilarating emotions
caused by music.
Subordinate nervous attacks were much more fre¬
quent during this century than at any former period,
and an extraordinary icy coldness was observed in
those who were the subjects of them; so that they did
not recover their natural heat until they had engaged
in violent dancing. Their anguish and sense of op¬
pression forced from them a cold perspiration; the
• secretion from the kidneys was pale, and they had so
great a dislike to everything cold, that when water
was offered them they pushed it away with abhorrence.
"Wine, on the contrary, they all drank willingly, with¬
out being heated by it, or in the slightest degree in¬
toxicated. During the whole period of the attack they
suffered from spasms in the stomach, and felt a dis¬
inclination to take food of any kind. They used to
abstain some time before the expected seizures from
meat and from snails, which they thought rendered
them more severe, and their great thirst for wine may
therefore in some measure be attributable to the want
154
THE DANCING MANIA.
of a more nutritious diet; yet tlie disorder of the
nerves was evidently its chief cause, and the loss of
appetite, as well as the necessity for support by wine,
were its effects. Loss of voice, occasional blindness,
vertigo, complete insanity, with sleeplessness, frequent
weeping- without any ostensible cause, were all usual
symptoms. Many patients found relief from being
placed in swings or rocked in cradles; others required
to be roused from their state of suffering by severe
blows on the soles of their feet; others beat themselves,
without any intention of making a display, but solely
for the purpose of allaying the intense nervous irrita¬
tion which they felt; and a considerable number were
seen with their bellies swollen, like those of the St.
John's dancers, while the violence of the intestinal
disorder was indicated in others by obstinate con¬
stipation or diarrhoea and vomiting. These pitiable
objects gradually lost their strength and their colour,
and creeping about with injected eyes, jaundiced com¬
plexions, and inflated bowels, soon fell into a state of
profound melancholy, which found food and solace in
the solemn tolling of the funeral bell, and in an abode
among the tombs of cemeteries, as is related of the
Lycanthropes of former times.
The persuasion of the inevitable consequences of
being bitten by the tarantula, exercised a dominion
over men's minds which even the healthiest and strong¬
est could not shako off. So late as the middle of the
THE DANCING MANIA.
155
sixteenth century, tlie celebrated Fracastoro found the
robust bailiff of his landed estate groaning, and, with
the aspect of a person in the extremity of despair,
suffering the very agonies of death from a sting in
the neck, inflicted by an insect which was believed to
be a tarantula. He kindly administered without delay
a potion of vinegar and Armenian bole, the great
remedy of those days for the plague of all kinds of
animal poisons, and the dying man was, as if by a
miracle, restored to life and the power of speech.
Now, since it is quite out of the question that the bole
could have anything to do with the result in this case,
notwithstanding Fracastoro's belief in its virtues, we
can only account for the cure by supposing, that a
confidence in so great a physician prevailed over this
fatal disease of the imagination, which would other¬
wise have yielded to scarcely any other remedy except
the tarantella. Ferdinando was acquainted with
women who, for thirty years in succession, had over¬
come the attacks of this disorder by a renewal of their
annual dance—so long did they maintain their belief
in the yet undestroyed poison of the tarantula's bite,
and so long did that mental affection continue to exist,
after it had ceased to depend on any corporeal excite¬
ment.
Wherever we turn, we find that this morbid state of
mind prevailed, and was so supported by the opinions
of the age, that it needed only a stimulus in the bite of
156
THE DANCING MANIA.
the tarantula, and the supposed certainty of its very
disastrous consequences, to originate this violent nerv¬
ous disorder. Even in Ferdinando's time there were
many who altogether denied the poisonous effects of
the tarantula's bite, whilst they considered the disorder,
which annually set Italy in commotion, to be a melan¬
choly depending on the imagination. They dearly
expiated this scepticism, however, when they wore led,
with an inconsiderate hardihood, to test their opinions
by experiment ; for many of them became the subjects
of severe tarantism, and even a distinguished prelate,
Jo. Baptist Quinzato, Bishop of Foligno, having
allowed himself, by way of a joke, to be bitten by a
tarantula, could obtain a cure in no other way than by
being, through the influence of the tarantella, compelled
to dance. Others among the clergy, who wished to
shut their ears against music, because they considered
dancing derogatory to their station, fell into a danger¬
ous state of illness by thus delaying the crisis of the
malady, and were obliged at last to save themselves
from a miserable death by submitting to the unwel¬
come but sole means of cure. Thus it appears that
the age was so little favourable to freedom of thought,
that even the most decided sceptics, incapable of
guarding themselves against the recollection of what
had been presented to the eye, were subdued by a
poison, the powers of which they had ridiculed, and
which was in itself inert in its effect.
the dancing mania.
157
Sect. 5.—Hysteria.
Different characteristics of morbidly excited vitality
having been rendered prominent by tarantism in
different individuals, it could not but happen that other
derangements of the nerves would assume the form of
this whenever circumstances favoured such a transition.
This was more especially the case with hysteria, that
proteiforin and mutable disorder, in,which the imagina¬
tions, the superstitions, and the follies of all ages have
been evidently reflected. The " Carnevaletto delle
Donne" appeared most opportunely for those who
were hysterical. Their disease received from it, as it
had at other times from other extraordinary customs,
a peculiar direction; so that, whether bitten by the
tarantula or not, they felt compelled to participate in
the dances of those affected, and to make their appear¬
ance at this popular festival, where they had an oppor¬
tunity of triumphantly exhibiting their sufferings.
Let us here pause to consider the kind of life which
the women in Italy led. Lonely, and deprived by
cruel custom of social intercourse, that fairest of all
enjoyments, they dragged on a miserable existence.
Cheerfulness and an inclination to sensual pleasures
passed into compulsory idleness, and, in many, into
black despondency. Their imaginations became dis¬
ordered—a pallid countenance and oppressed respira¬
tion bore testimony to their profound sufferings. How
158
THE DANCING MANIA.
could tliey do otherwise, sunk as they were in such
extreme misery, than seize the occasion to burst forth
from their prisons and alleviate their miseries by
taking part in the delights of music ? Nor should Ave
here pass unnoticed a circumstance which illustrates,
in a remarkable degree, the psychological nature of
hysterical sufferings, namely, that many chlorotic
females, by joining the dancers at the Carnevaletto,
were freed from their spasms and oppression of breath¬
ing for the whole year, although the corporeal cause of
their malady was not removed. After such a result,
110 one could call their self-deception a mere imposture,
and unconditionally condemn it as such.
This numerous class of patients certainly contributed
not a little to the maintenance of the evil, for their
fantastic sufferings, in which dissimulation and reality
could scarcely bo distinguished even by themselves,
much less by their physicians, were imitated in the
same way as the distortions of the St. Yitus's dancers
by the impostors of that period. It was certainly by
these persons also that the number of subordinate
symptoms was increased to an endless extent, as may
be conceived from the daily observation of hysterical
patients who, from a morbid desire to render them¬
selves remarkable, deviate from the laws of moral
propriety. Powerful sexual excitement had often the
most decided influence over their condition. Many of
them exposed themselves in the most indecent manner,
THE DANCING MANIA.
159
tore tlieir hair out by the roots, with howling and
gnashing of their teeth; and when, as was sometimes
the case, their unsatisfied passion hurried them on to a
state of frenzy, they closed their existence by self-
destruction ; it being common at that time for these
unfortunate beings to precipitate themselves into the
wells.
It might hence seem that, owing to the conduct of
patients of this description, so much of fraud and
falsehood would be mixed up with the original dis¬
order that, having passed into another complaint, it
must have been itself destroyed. This, however, did
not happen in the first half of the seventeenth century;
for, as a clear proof that tarantism remained sub¬
stantially the same and quite unaffected by hysteria,
there were in many places, and in particular at Messapia,
fewer women affected than men, who, in their turn,
were in no small proportion led into temptation by
sexual excitement. In other places, as, for example, at
Brindisi, the case was reversed, which may, as in other
complaints, be in some measure attributable to local
causes. Upon the whole it appears, from concurrent
accounts, that women by no means enjoyed the dis¬
tinction of being attacked by tarantism more frequently
than men.
It is said that the cicatrix of the tarantula bite, on
the yearly or half-yearly return of the fit, became dis¬
coloured, but on this point the distinct testimony of
leo
the dancing mania.
good observers is wanting to deprive the assertion of
its utter improbability.
It is not out of place to remark here that, about the
same time that tarantism attained its greatest height in
Italy, the bite of venomous spiders was more feared in
distant parts of Asia likewise than it had ever been
within the memory of man. There was this difference,
however—that the symptoms supervening on the oc¬
currence of this accident were not accompanied by the
Apulian nervous disorder, which, as has been shown in
the foregoing pages, had its origin rather in the
melancholic temperament of the inhabitants of the
south of Italy than in the nature of the tarantula
poison itself. This poison is therefore, doubtless, to
be considered only as a remote cause of the complaint,
which, but for that temperament, would be inadequate
to its production. The Persians employed a very rough
means of counteracting the bad consequences of a
poison of this sort. They drenched the wounded
person with milk, and then, by a violent rotatory
motion in a suspended box, compelled him to vomit.
sect. 6.—decrease.
The Dancing Mania, arising from the tarantula bite,
continued with all those additions of self-deception
and of the dissimulation which is such a constant
attendant on nervous disorders of this kind, through
the whole course of the seventeenth century. It was,
THE DANCING MANIA.
1G1
indeed, gradually on the decline, but up to the termin¬
ation of this period showed such extraordinary
symptoms that Baglivi, one of the best physicians of
that time, thought he did a service to science by making
them the subject of a dissertation. He repeats all the
observations of Ferdinando, and supports his own
assertions by the experience of his father, a physician
at Lecce, whose testimony, as an eye-witness, may be
admitted as unexceptionable.
The immediate consequences of the tarantula bite,
the supervening nervous disorder, and the aberrations
and fits of those who suffered from hysteria, he de¬
scribes in a masterly style, nor does he ever suffer his
credulity to diminish the authenticity of his account,
of which he has been unjustly accused by later writers.
Finally, tarantism has declined more and more in
modern times, and is now limited to single cases. How
could it possibly have maintained itself unchanged in
the eighteenth century, when all the links which con¬
nected it with the Middle Ages had long since been
snapped asunder ? Imposture grew more frequent,
and wherever the disease still appeared in its genuine
form, its chief cause, namely, a peculiar cast of melan¬
choly, which formerly had been the temperament of
thousands, was now possessed only occasionally by un¬
fortunate individuals. It might, therefore, not un¬
reasonably be maintained that the tarantism of modern
times bears nearly the same relation to the original
F—118
162
THE DANCING MANIA.
malady as the St. Titus's dance whicli still exists, and
certainly has all along existed, bears, in certain cases, to
the original dancing mania of the dancers of St. John.
To conclude. Tarantism, as a real disease, has been
denied in toto, and stigmatised as an imposition by
most physicians and naturalists, who in this contro¬
versy have shown the narrowness of their views and
their utter ignorance of history. In order to support
their opinion they have instituted some experiments
apparently favourable to it, but under circumstances
altogether inapplicable, since, for the most part, they
selected as the subjects of them none but healthy men,
who were totally uninfluenced by a belief in this once
so dreaded disease. From individual instances of
fraud and dissimulation, such as are found in con¬
nection with most nervous affections without rendering
their reality a matter of any doubt, they drew a too
hasty conclusion respecting the general phenomenon, of
which they appeared not to know that it had con¬
tinued for nearly four hundred years, having origin
ated in the remotest periods of the Middle Ages. The
most learned and the most acute among these sceptics
is Serao the Neapolitan. His reasonings amount to
this, that he considers the disease to be a very marked
form of melancholia, and compares the effect of the
tarantula bite upon it to stimulating with spurs a horse
which is already running. The reality of that effect
he thus admits, and, therefore, directly confirms what
the dancing mania.
163
in appearance only lie denies. By shaking the already
vacillating belief in this disorder he is said to have
actually succeeded in rendering it less frequent, and in
setting bounds to imposture; but this no more dis¬
proves the reality of its existence than the oft repeated
detection of imposition has been able in modern times
to banish magnetic sleep from the circle of natural
phenomena, though such detection has, on its side, ren¬
dered more rare the incontestable effects of animal
magnetism. Other physicians and naturalists have
delivered their sentiments on tarantism, but as they
have not possessed an enlarged knowledge of its his¬
tory their views do not merit particular exposition.
It is sufficient for the comprehension of everyone that
we have presented the facts freed from all extraneous
speculation.
CHAPTER III.
the dancing mania in abyssinia.
Sect. 1.—Tigretier.
Both the St. Vitus's dance and tarantism belonged to
the ages in which they appeared. They could not have
existed under the same latitude at any other epoch, for
at no other period were the circumstances which pre¬
pared the way for them combined in a similar relation
to each other, and the mental as well as corporeal
]64
THE DANCING MANIA.
temperaments of nations, which depend on causes such as
have been stated, are as little capable of renewal as the
different stages of life in individuals. This gives so
much the more importance to a disease but cursorily
alluded to in the foregoing pages, which exists in Abys¬
sinia, and which nearly resembles the original mania
of the St. John's dancers, inasmuch as it exhibits a
perfectly similar ecstasy, with the same violent effect
on the nerves of motion. It occurs most frequently in
the Tigre country, being thence called Tigretier, and
is probably the same malady which is called in the
^Ethiopian language Astaragaza. On this subject we
will introduce the testimony of Nathaniel Pearce, an
eye-witness, who resided nine years in Abyssinia.
" The Tigretier," says he, " is more common among the
women than among the men. It seizes the body as if
with a violent fever, and from that turns to a lingering
sickness, which reduces the patients to skeletons, and
often kills them if the relations cannot procure tho
proper remedy. During this sickness their speech is
changed to a kind of stuttering, which no one can un¬
derstand but those afflicted with the same disorder.
When the relations find the malady to be the real
tigretier, they join together to defray the expense of
curing it; the first remedy they in general attempt is
to procure the assistance of a learned Dofter, who reads
the Gospel of St. John, and drenches the patient with
cold water daily for the space of seven days, an applica-
THE DANCING MANIA.
165
tion that very often proves fatal. The most effectual
cure, though far more expensive than the former, is as
follows: — The relations hire for a certain sum of
money a band of trumpeters, drummers, and fifers, and
buy a quantity of liquor; then all the young men and
women of the place assemble at the patient's house to
perform the following most extraordinary ceremony.
" I was once called in by a neighbour to see his wife,
a very young woman, who had the misfortune to be
afflicted with this disorder ; and the man being an old
acquaintance of mine, and always a close comrade in
the camp, I went every day, when at home, to see her,
but I could not be of any service to her, though she
never refused my medicines. At this time I could not
understand a word she said, although she talked very
freely, nor could any of her relations understand her.
She could not bear the sight of a book or a priest, for
at the sight of either she struggled, and was apparently
seized with acute agony, and a flood of tears, like blood
mingled with water, would pour down her face from
ber eyes. She had lain three months in this lingering
state, living upon so little that it seemed not enough to
keep a human body alive; at last her husband agreed
to employ the usual remedy, and, after preparing for
the maintenance of the band during the time it would
take to effect the cure, he borrowed from all his neigh¬
bours their silver ornaments, and loaded her legs, arms,
and neck with them.
166
THE DANCING MANIA.
" The evening that the band began to play I seated
myself close by her side as she lay upon the couch, and
about two minutes after the trumpets had begun to
sound I observed her shoulders begin to move, and
soon afterwards her head and breast, and in less than
a quarter of an hour she sat upon her couch. The
wild look she had, though sometimes she smiled, made
me draw off to a greater distance, being almost alarmed
to see ono nearly a skeleton move with such strength ;
her head, neck, shoulders, hands and feet all made a
strong motion to the sound of the music, and in this
manner she went on by degrees, until she stood up on
her legs upon the floor. Afterwards she began to
dance, and at times to jump about, and at last, as the
music and noise of the singers increased, she often
sprang three feet from the ground. When the music
slackened she would appear quite out of temper, but
when it became louder she would smile and be de¬
lighted. During this exercise she never showed the
least symptom of being tired, though the musicians
were thoroughly exhausted; and when they stopped to
refresh themselves by drinking and resting a little she
would discover signs of discontent.
" Next day, according to the custom in the cure of
this disorder, she was taken into the market-place,
where several jars of maize or tsug were set in order
by the relations, to give drink to the musicians and
dancers. "When the crowd had assembled, and the
THE DANCING MANIA.
167
music was ready, slie was brought fortli ami began to
dance and throw herself into the maddest postures
imaginable, and in this manner she kept on the whole
(lay. Towards evening she began to let-fall her silver
ornaments from her neck, arms, and legs, one at a
time, so that in the course of three hours she was
stripped of every article. A relation'continually kept
going after her as she danced, to pick up the orna¬
ments, and afterwards delivered them to the owners
from whom they were borrowed. As the sun went
down she made a start with such swiftness that the
fastest runner could not come up with her, and when
at the distance of about two hundred yards she dropped
on a sudden as if shot. Soon afterwards a young
man, on coming up with her, fired a matchlock over
her body, and struck her upon the back with the
broad side of his large knife, and asked her name,
to which she answered as when in her common senses
—a sure proof of her being cured; for during the
time of this malady those afflicted with it never
answer to their Christian names. She was now taken
up in a very weak condition and carried home, and a
priest came and baptised her again in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which ceremony con¬
cluded her cure. Some are taken in this manner to
the market-place for many days before they can be
cured, and it sometimes happens that they cannot be
cured at all. I have seen them in these fits dance with
168
THE DANCING MANIA.
a bruly, or bottle of maize, upon their lieads without
spilling the liquor, or letting the bottle fall, although
they have put themselves into the most extravagant
postures.
" I could not have ventured to write this from hear¬
say, nor could I conceive it possible, until I was obliged
to put this remedy in practice upon my own wife, who
was seized with the same disorder, and then I was
compelled to have a still nearer view of this strange dis¬
order. I at first thought that a whip would be of some
service, and one day attempted a few strokes when un¬
noticed by any person, wo being by ourselves, and I
having a strong suspicion that this ailment sprang
from the weak minds of women, who were encouraged
in it for the sake of the grandeur, rich dress, and
music which accompany the cure. But how much was
I surprised, the moment I struck a light blow, thinking
to do good, to find that she became like a corpse, and
even the joints of her fingers became so stiff that I
could not straighten them; indeed, I really thought
that she was dead, and immediately made it known to
the people in the house that she had fainted, but did
not tell them the cause, upon which they immediately
brought music, which I had for many days denied
them, and which soon revived her; and I then left the
house to her relations to cure her at my expense, in the
manner I have before mentioned, though it took u
much longer time to cure my wife than the woman I
THE DANCING MANIA
169
have just given an account of. One day I went
privately, with a companion, to see my wife dance, and
kept at a short distance, as I was ashamed to go near
the crowd. On looking steadfastly upon her, while
dancing or jumping, more like a deer than a human
being, I said that it certainly was not my wife; at
which my companion burst into a fit of laughter, from
which he could scarcely refrain all the way home. Men
are sometimes afflicted with this dreadful disorder, but
not frequently. Among the Amhara and Galla it is
not so common."
Such is the account of Pearce, who is every way
worthy of credit, and whose lively description renders
the traditions of former times respecting the St. Vitus's
dance and tarantism intelligible, even to those who are
sceptical respecting the existence of a morbid state of
the mind and body of the kind described, because, in
the present advanced state of civilisation among the
nations of Europe, opportunities for its development
no longer occur. The credibility of this energetic but
by no means ambitious man is not liable to the slightest
suspicion, for, owing to his want of education, he had
no knowledge of the phenomena in question, and his
work evinces throughout his attractive and unpretend¬
ing impartiality.
Comparison is the mother of observation, and may
here elucidate one phenomenon by another—the past by
that which still exists. Oppression, insecurity, and
170
THE DANCING MANIA.
the influence of a very rude priestcraft, are tho power¬
ful causes which operated on the Germans and Italians
of the Middle Ages, as they now continue to operate 011
the Abyssinians of the present day. However these
people may differ from us in tlioir descent, their
manners and their customs, the effects of the above-
mentioned causes are the same in Africa as they were
in Europe, for they operate on man himself in¬
dependently of the particular locality in which I10 may
bo planted; and tho conditions of the Abyssinians of
modern times is, in regard to superstition, a mirror of
tho condition of tho European nations of tho middle
ages. Should this appear a bold assertion it will be
strengthened by tho fact that in Abyssinia two
examples of superstitious occur which are completely
in accordance with occurrences of tho Middle Ages that
took place contemporarily with the dancing mania.
The Abyssinians have their Christian flagellants, and
there exists among them a belief in a Zoomorpliism,
which presents a lively image of the lycanthropy of
the Middle Ages. Their flagellants are called Zackarys.
They are united into a separate Christian fraternity,
and make their processions through the towns and
villages with great noise and tumult, scourging them¬
selves till they draw blood, and wounding themselves
with knives. They boast that they are descendants of
St. George. It is precisely in Tigre, the country of
the Abyssinian dancing mania, where they are found
THE DANCING MANIA.
171
in the greatest numbers, and where they have, in the
neighbourhood of Axum, a church of their own,
dedicated to their patron saint, Oun Arvel. Here
there is an ever-burning lamp, and they contrive to
impress a belief that this is kept alight by super¬
natural means. They also here keep a holy water,
which is said to be a cure for those who are affected by
the dancing mania.
The Abyssinian Zoomorphism is a no less important
phenomenon, and shows itself in a manner quite
peculiar. The blacksmiths and potters form among
the Abyssinians a society or caste called in Tigre
Tebbib, and in Amhara Buda, which is held in some
degree of contempt, and excluded from the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper, because it is believed that they
can change themselves into hyaenas and other beasts of
prey, on which account they are feared by everybody,
and regarded with horror. They artfully contrive to
keep up this superstition, because by this separation
they preserve a monopoly of their lucrative trades, and
as in other respects they are good Christians (but few
Jews or Mahomedans live among them), they seem to
attach no great consequence to their excommunication.
As a badge of distinction they wear a golden ear-ring,
which is frequently found in the ears of hyaenas that
are killed, without its having ever been discovered
how they catch these animals, so as to decorate them
with this strange ornament, and this removes^ in the
172
the dancing mania.
minds of the people all doubt as to the supernatural
powers of the smiths and potters. To the Budas is
also ascribed the gift of enchantment, especially that
of the influence of the evil eye. They nevertheless
live unmolested, and are not condemned to the flames
by fanatical priests, as the lycanthropes were in the
Middle Ages.
CHAPTER IY.
sympathy.
Imitation — compassion — sympathy, these are im¬
perfect designations for a common bond of union
among human beings—for an instinct which connects
individuals with the general body, which embraces
with equal force reason and folly, good and evil, and
diminishes the praise of virtue as well as the
criminality of vice. In this impulse there are degrees,
but no essential differences, from the first intellectual
efforts of the infant mind, which are in a great mea¬
sure based on imitation, to that morbid condition
of the soul in which the sensible impression of a
nervous malady fetters the mind, and finds its way
through the eye directly to the diseased texture,
as the electric shock is propagated by contact from
body to body. To this instinct of imitation, when
it exists in its highest degree, is united a loss of all
power over the will, which occurs as soon as the
THE DANCING MANIA.
173
impression 011 tlie senses lias become firmly established,
producing a condition like that of small animals when
they are fascinated by the look of a. serpent. By
this mental bondage morbid sympathy is clearly
and definitely distinguished from all subordinate
degrees of this instinct, however closely allied the
imitation of a disorder may seem to be to that of a
mere folly, of an absurd fashion, of an awkward habit
in speech and manner, or even of a confusion of ideas.
Even these latter imitations, however, directed as they
are to foolish and pernicious objects, place the self-
independence of the greater portion of mankind in a
very doubtful light, and account for their union into
a social whole. Still more nearly allied to morbid
sympathy than the imitation of enticing folly, although
often with a considerable admixture of the latter,
is the diffusion of violent excitements, especially those
of a religious or political character, which have so
powerfully agitated the nations of ancient and modern
times, and which may, after an incipient compliance,
pass into a total loss of power over the will, and an
actual disease of the mind. Far be it from us to
attempt to awaken all the various tones of this chord,
whose vibrations reveal the profound secrets which
lie hid in the inmost recesses of the soul. We might
well want powers adequate to so vast an undertaking.
Our business here is only with that morbid sympathy
by the aid of which the dancing mania of the Middle
174
THE DANCING MANIA.
Ages grew into a real epidemic. In order to ma*ke this
apparent by comparison, it may not be out of place,
at the close of this inquiry, to introduce a few striking
examples:—
il. " At a cotton manufactory at Hodden Bridge, in
Lancashire, a girl, on the fifteenth of February, 1787,
put a mouse into the bosom of another girl, who had a
great dread of mice. The girl was immediately thrown
into a fit, and continued in it, with the most violent
convulsions, for twenty-four hours. On the following
day three more girls were seized in the same manner,
and on the 17th six more. By this time the alarm
was so great that the whole work, in which 200 or
300 were employed, was totally stopped, and an idea
prevailed that a particular disease liad4been introduced
by a bag of cotton opened in the house. On Sunday
the 18th, Dr. St. Clare was sent for from Preston;
before he arrived three more were seized, and during
that night and the morning of the 19th, eleven more,
making in all twenty-four. Of these, twenty-one
were young women, two were girls of about ten years
of age, and one man, who had been much fatigued
with holding the girls. Three of the number lived
about two miles from the place where the disorder
first broke out, and three at another factory at
Clitheroe, about five miles distant, which last and two
more were infected entirely from report, not having
seen the other patients, but, like them and the rest
I
THE DANCING MANIA.
175
of the country, strongly impressed with the idea of
the plague being caught from the cotton. The
symptoms were anxiety, strangulation, and very strong
convulsions; and these were so violent as to last
without any intermission from a quarter of an hour to
twenty-four hours, and to require four or five persons
to prevent the patients from tearing their hair and
dashing their heads against the floor or walls. Dr. St.
Clare had taken with him a portable electrical
machine, and by electric shocks the patients were
universally relieved without exception. As soon as
the patients and the country were assured that the
complaint was merely nervous, easily cured, and not
introduced by the cotton, no fresh person was affected.
To dissipate their apprehensions still further, the best
effects were obtained by causing them to take a cheer¬
ful glass and join in a dance. On Tuesday the 20th,
they danced, and the next day were all at work,
except two or three, who were much weakened by
their fits."
The occurrence here described is remarkable on
this account, that there was no important predisposing
cause for convulsions in these young women, unless
we consider as such their miserable and confined
life in the work-rooms of a spinning manufactory.
It did not arise from enthusiasm, nor is it stated that
the patients had been the subjects of any other nervous
disorders. In another perfectly analogous case, those
176
THE DANCING MANIA.
jit tacked were all suffering from nervous complaints,
which roused a morbid sympathy in them at the sight
of a person seized with convulsions. This, together
with the supervention of hysterical fits, may aptly
enough be compared to tarantism.
2. " A young woman of the lowest order, twenty-one
years of age, and of a strong frame, came on the 13th
of January, 1801, to visit a patient in the Charite
Hospital at Berlin, where she had herself been pre¬
viously under treatment for an inflammation of tlio
chest with tetanic spasms, and immediately on entering
the ward, fell down in strong convulsions. At the
sight of her violent contortions six other female
patients immediately became affected in the same way,
and by degrees eight more were in like manner attacked
with strong convulsions. All these patients were from
sixteen to twenty-five years of age, and suffered with¬
out exception, one from spasms in the stomach, another
from palsy, a third from lethargy, a fourth from fits
with consciousness, a fifth from catalepsy, a sixth from
syncope, &c. The convulsions, which alternated in
various ways with tonic spasms, were accompanied by
loss of sensibility, and were invariably preceded by
languor with heavy sleep, which was followed by tho
fits in the course of a minute or two; and it is remark¬
able that in all these patients their former nervous
disorders, not excepting paralysis, disappeared, return¬
ing, however, after the subsequent removal of their
THE DANCING MANIA.
177
new complaint. The treatment, during the course of
which two of the nurses, who were young women,
suffered similar attacks, was continued for four
months. It was finally successful, and consisted
principally in the administration of opium, at that-
time the favourite remedy.
Now every species of enthusiasm, every strong affec¬
tion, every violent passion, may lead to convulsions—
to mental disorders—to a concussion of the nerves,
from the sensorium to the very finest extremities of the
spinal chord. The whole world is full of examples of
this afflicting state of turmoil, which, when the mind
is carried away by the force of a sensual impression
that destroys its freedom, is irresistibly propagated by
imitation. Those who are thus infected do not spare
even their own lives, but as a hunted flock of sheep
will follow their leader and rush over a precipice, so
will whole hosts of enthusiasts, deluded by their
infatuation, hurry on to a self-inflicted death. Such
has ever been the case, from the days of the Milesian
virgins to the modern associations for self-destruction.
Of all enthusiastic infatuations, however, that of
religion is the most fertile in disorders of the mind as
well as of the body, and both spread with the greatest
facility by sympathy. The history of the Church
furnishes innumerable proofs of this, but we need go
no further than the most recent times.
3, In a methodist chapel at Redruth, a man during
178
THE DANCING MANIA.
divine service cried, out with a loud voice, " "What
shall I do to be saved ? " at the same time manifesting
the greatest uneasiness and solicitudo respecting the
condition of his soul. Some other members of the con¬
gregation, following his example, cried out in the same
form of words, and seemed shortly after to suffer the
most excruciating bodily pain. This strange occurrence
was soon publicly known, and hundreds of people who
had come thither, either attracted by curiosity or a
desire from other motives to see the sufferers, fell
into the same state. The chapel remained open for
some days and nights, and from that point the new
disorder spread itself, with the rapidity of lightning,
over the neighbouring towns of Camborne, Helston,
Truro, Penryn and Falmouth, as well as over the
villages in the vicinity. Whilst thus advancing, it
decreased in some measure at the place where it had
first appeared, and it confined itself throughout to the
Methodist chapels. It was only by the words which
have been mentioned that it was excited, and it seized
none but people of the lowest education. Those who
were attacked betrayed the greatest anguish, and
fell into convulsions; others cried out, like persons
possessed, that the Almighty would straightway pour
out His wrath upon them, that the wailings of tormented
spirits rang in their ears, and that they saw hell open
to receive them. The clergy, when in the course of
their sermons they perceived that persons were thus
THE DANCING MANIA.
179
seized, earnestly exhorted tliem to confess their sins,
and zealously endeavoured to convince them that they
were by nature enemies to Christ; that the anger of
God had therefore fallen upon them; and that if death
should surprise them in the midst of their sins the
eternal torments of hell would be their portion. The
over-excited congregation upon this repeated their
words, which naturally must have increased the fury
of their convulsive attacks. When the discourse had
produced its full effect the preacher changed his
subject; reminded those who were suffering of the
power of the Saviour, as well as of the grace of God,
and represented to them in glowing colours the joys of
heaven. Upon this a remarkable reaction sooner or
later took place. Those who were in convulsions felt
themselves raised from the lowest depths of misery
and despair to the most exalted bliss, and triumphantly
shouted out that their bonds were loosed, their sins
were forgiven, and that they were translated to the
wonderful freedom of the children of God. In the
meantime their convulsions continued, and they
remained during this condition so abstracted from
every earthly thought that they stayed two and some¬
times three days and nights together in the chapels,
agitated all the time by spasmodic movements, and
taking neither repose nor nourishment. According to
a moderate computation, 4,000 people were, within a
very short time, affected with this convulsive malady.
ISO
THE DANCING MANIA.
The course and symptoms of tlie attacks were in
general as follows:—There came on at first a feeling
of faintness, with rigour and a sense of weight at the
pit of the stomach, soon after which the patient cried
out, as if in the agonies of death or the pains of labour.
The convulsions then began, first showing themselves
in the muscles of the eyelids, though the eyes them¬
selves were fixed and staring. The most frightful
contortions of the countenance followed, and the con¬
vulsions now took their course downwards, so that the
muscles of the neck and trunk were affected, causing
a sobbing rcspix-ation, which was performed with great
effort. Tremors and agitation ensued, and the patients
screamed out violently, and tossed their heads about
from side to side. As the complaint increased it
seized the arms, and its victims beat their breasts,
clasped their hands, and made all sorts of strange
gestures. The observer who gives this account re¬
marked that the lower extremities were in no instance
affected. In some cases exhaustion came on in a very
few minutes, but the attack usually lasted much longer,
and there were even cases in which it. was known to
continue for sixty or seventy hours. Many of those
who happened to be seated when the attack commenced
bent their bodies rapidly backwards and forwards
during its continuance, making a corresponding motion
with their arms, like persons sawing wood. Others
shouted aloud, leaped about, and threw their bodies
THE DANCING MANIA.
181
into every possible posture, until they had exhausted
their strength. Yawning took place at the commence¬
ment in all cases, but as the violence of the disorder
increased the circulation and respiration become
accelerated, so that the countenance assumed a swollen
and puffed appearance. When exhaustion came on
patients usually fainted, and remained in a stiff and
motionless state until their recovery. The disorder
completely resembled the St. Yitus's dance, but the
fits sometimes went on to an extraordinarily violent
extent, so that the author of the account once saw a
woman who was seized with these convulsions resist
the endeavours of four or five strong men to restrain
her. Those patients who did not lose their conscious¬
ness were in general made more furious by every
attempt to quiet them by force, on which account they
were in general suffered to continue unmolested until
nature herself brought on exhaustion. Those affected
complained more or less of debility after the attacks,
and cases sometimes occurred in which they passed
into other disorders: thus some fell into a state of
melancholy, which, however, in consequence of their
religious ecstasy, was distinguished by the absence of
fear and despair; and in one patient inflammation of
the brain is said to have taken place. No sex or age
was exempt from this epidemic malady. Children five
years old and octogenarians were alike affected by it,
and even men of the most powerful frame were subject
182
THE DANCING MANIA.
to its influence. Girls and young women, however,
were its most frequent victims.
4. For the last hundred years a nervous affection of
a perfectly similar kind has existed in the Shetland
Islands, which furnishes a striking example, perhaps
the only one now existing, of the very lasting pro¬
pagation by sympathy of this species of disorders.
The origin of the malady was very insignificant. An
epileptic woman had a fit in church, and whether it
was that the minds of the congregation were excited
by devotion, or that, being overcome at the sight of
the strong convulsions, their sympathy was called
forth, certain it is that many adult women, and even
children, some of whom were of tho male sex, and
not more than six years old, began to complain
forthwith of palpitation, followed by faintness, which
passed into a motionless and apparently cataleptic
condition. These symptoms lasted more than an hour,
and probably recurred frequently. In the course of
time, however, this malady is said to have undergone
a modification, such as it exhibits at the present day.
"Women whom it has attacked will suddenly fall down,
toss their arms about, writhe their bodies into various
shapes, move their heads suddenly from side to side,
and with eyes fixed and staring, utter the most dismal
cries. If the fit happen on any occasion of public
diversion, they will, as soon as it has ceased, mix with
their companions and continue their amusement as if
THE DANCING MANIA.
183
nothing had happened. Paroxysms of this kind used
to prevail most during the warm months of summer,
and about fifty years ago there was scarcely a Sabbath
in which they did not occur. Strong passions of the
mind, induced by religious enthusiasm, are also exciting
causes of these fits, but like all such false tokens of
divine workings, they are easily encountered by pro¬
ducing in the patient a different frame of mind, and
especially by exciting a sense of shame: thus those
affected are under the control of any sensible preacher,
who knows how to " administer to a mind diseased,"
and to expose the folly of voluntarily yielding to a
sympathy so easily resisted, or of inviting such attacks
by affectation. An intelligent and pious minister of
Shetland informed the physician, who gives an account
of this disorder as an eye-witness, that being con¬
siderably annoyed on his first introduction into the
country by these paroxysms, whereby the devotions of
the church were much impeded, he obviated their
repetition by assuring his parishioners that no treat¬
ment was more effectual than immersion in cold water;
and as his kirk was fortunately contiguous to a fresh¬
water lake, he gave notice that attendants should be at
hand during divine service to ensure the proper
means of cure. The sequel need scarcely bo told.
The fear of being carried out of the church, and into
the water, acted like a charm; not a single Naiad was
made, and the worthy minister for many years had
184
THE DANCING MANIA.
reason to boast of one of the best regulated congrega¬
tions in Shetland. As the physician above alluded to
Avas attending divine service in the kirk of Baliasta,
on the Isle of Unst, a female shriek, the indication of
a convulsion fit, was heard; the minister, Mr. Ingram,
of Fetlar, very properly stopped his discourse until
the disturber was removed; and after advising all
those who thought they might be similarly affected to
leave the church, ho gave out in the meantime a
psalm. The congregation was thus preserved from
further interruption; yet the effect of sympathy was
not prevented, for as the narrator of the account was
leaving the church he saw several females writhing
and tossing about their arms on the green grass, who
durst not, for fear of a censure from the pulpit, exhibit
themselves after this manner within the sacred walls
of the kirk.
In the px-oduction of this disorder, which no doubt
still exists, fanaticism certainly had a smaller share
than the irritable state of women out of health, who
only needed excitement, no matter of- what kind, to
throw them into the prevailing nervous paroxysms.
When, however, that powerful cause of nervous dis¬
orders takes the lead, we find far more remarkable
symptoms developed, and it then depends on the
mental condition of the people among whom they
appear whether in their spread they shall take a
narrow or an extended range—whether confined to
THE DANCING MANIA.
185
some small knot of zealots they are to vanish without
a trace, or whether they are to attain even historical
importance.
5. The appearance of the Convalsionnaires in France,
whose inhabitants, from the greater mobility of their
blood, have in general been the less liable to fana¬
ticism, is in this respect instructive and worthy of
attention. In the year 1727 there died in the capital
of that country the Deacon Paris, a zealous opposer of
the Ultramontanists, division having arisen in the
French Church on account of the bull " Unigenitus."
People made frequent visits to his tomb in the ceme¬
tery of St. Medard, and four years afterwards (in
September, 1731) a rumour was spread that miracles
took place there. Patients were seized with convul¬
sions and tetanic spasms, rolled upon the ground like
persons possessed, were thrown into violent contortions
of their heads and limbs, and suffered the greatest
oppression, accompanied by quickness and irregularity
of pulse. This novel occurrence excited the greatest
sensation all over Paris, and an immense concourse of
people resorted daily to the above-named cemetery in
order to see so wonderful a spectacle, which the Ultra¬
montanists immediately interpreted as a work of Satan,
while their opponents ascribed it to a divine influence.
The disorder soon increased, until it produced, in
nervous women, clairvoyance (Schlafwachen), a phe¬
nomenon till then unknown ; for one female especially
186
THE DANCING MANIA.
attracted attention, who, blindfold, and, as it was be¬
lieved, by means of the sense of smell, read every
writing that was placed before her, and distinguished
the characters of unknown persons. The very earth
taken from the grave of the Deacon was soon thought
to possess miraculous power. It was sent to numerous
sick persons at a distance, whereby they were said to
have been cured, and thus this nervous disorder spread
far beyond the limits of the capital, so that at one
time it was computed that there were more than eight
hundred decided Convulsionnaires, who would hardly
have increased so much in numbers had not Louis XY
directed that the cemetery should bo closed. The dis¬
order itself assumed various forms, and augmented by
its attacks the general excitement. Many persons,
besides suffering from the convulsions, became the
subjects of violent pain, which required the assistance
of their brethren of the faith. On this account they,
as well as those who afforded them aid, were called by
the common title of Secourists. The modes of relief
adopted were remarkably in accordance with those
which were administered to the St. John's dancers and
the Tarantati, and they were in general very rough;
for the sufferers were beaten and goaded in various
parts of the body with stones, hammers, swords, clubs,
&c., of which treatment the defenders of this extra¬
ordinary sect relate the most astonishing examples in
proof that severe pain is imperatively demanded by
THE DANCING MANIA.
187
nature in tliis disorder as an effectual counter-irritant.
The Secourists used wooden clubs in the same manner
as paviors use their mallets, and it is stated that some
Convulsionnaires have borne daily from six to eight
thousand blows thus inflicted without danger. One
Secourist administered to a young woman who was
suffering under spasm of the stomach the most violent
blows on that part, not to mention other similar cases
which occurred everywhere in great numbers. Some¬
times the patients bounded from the ground, impelled
by the convulsions, like fish when out of water; and
this was so frequently imitated at a later period that
the women and girls, when they expected such violent
contortions, not wishing to appear indecent, put on
gowns made like sacks, closed at the feet. If they
received any bruises by falling down they were healed
with earth from the grave of the uncanonised saint.
They usually, however, showed great agility in this
respect, and it is scarcely necessary to remark that the
female sex especially was distinguished by all kinds of
leaping and almost inconceivable contortions of body.
Some spun round on their feet with incredible rapidity,
as is related of the dervishes; others ran their heads
against walls, or curved their bodies like rope-dancers,
so that their heels touched their shoulders.
All this degenerated at length into decided insanity.
A. certain Convulsionnaire, at Yernon, who had
formerly led rather a loose course of life, employed
188
THE DANCING MANIA.
herself in confessing the other sex; in other places
women of this sect were seen imposing exercises of
penance on priests, during which these were compelled
to kneel before them. Others played with children's
rattles, or drew about small carts, and gave to these
childish acts symbolical significations. One Convul-
sionnaire even made believe to shave her chin, and
gave religious instruction at the same time, in order to
imitate Paris, the worker of miracles, who, during this
operation, and whilst at table, was in the habit of
preaching. Some had a board placed across their
bodies, upon which a whole row of men stood; and as,
in this unnatural state of mind, a kind of pleasure is
derived from excruciating pain, some too were seen
who caused their bosoms to be pinched with tongs, while
others, with gowns closed at the feet, stood upon their
heads, and remained in that position longer than would
have been possible had they been in health. Pinault,
the advocate, who belonged to this sect, barked like a
dog some hours every day, and even this found imita¬
tion among the believers.
The insanity of the Oonvulsionnaires lasted without
interruption until the year 1790, and during these fifty -
nine years called forth more lamentable phenomena
than the enlightened spirits of the eighteenth century
would be willing to allow. The grossest immorality
found in the secret meetings of the believers a sure
sanctuary, and in their bewildering devotional exer-
THE DANCING MANIA.
189
eises a convenient cloak. It was of no avail that, in
the year 1762, the Grand Seconrs was forbidden by act
of parliament; for thenceforth this work was carried
on in secrecy, and with greater zeal than ever; it was
in vain, too, that some physicians, and among the rest
the austere, pious Hecquet, and after him Lorry, attri¬
buted the conduct of the Convulsionnaires to natural
causes. Men of distinction among the upper classes,
as, for instance, Montgeron the deputy, and Lambert
an ecclesiastic (obt. 1813), stood forth as the defenders
of this sect; and the numerous writings which were
exchanged on the subject served, by the importance
which they thus attached to it, to give it stability. The
revolution finally shook the structure of this pernicious
mysticism. It was not, however, destroyed; for even
during the period of the greatest excitement the secret
meetings were still kept up; prophetic books, by Con¬
vulsionnaires of various denominations, have appeared
even in the most recent times, and only a few years
ago (in 1828) this once celebrated sect still existed, al¬
though without the convulsions and the extraordinarily
rude aid of the brethren of the faith, which, amidst the
boasted pre-eminence of French intellectual advance¬
ment, remind us most forcibly of the dark ages of the
St. John's dancers.
6. Similar fanatical sects exhibit among all nations
of ancient and modern times the 6ame phenomena. An
overstrained bigotry is in itself, and considered in a
190
THE DANCING MANIA.
medical point of view, a destructive irritation of the
senses, which draws men away from the efficiency of
mental freedom, and peculiarly favours the most in¬
jurious emotions. Sensual ebullitions, with strong
convulsions of the nerves, appear sooner or later, and
insanity, suicidal disgust of life, and incurable nervous
disorders, are but too frequently the consequences of
a perverse, and, indeed, hypocritical zeal, which has
ever prevailed, as well in the assemblies of the Msenades
and Corybantes of antiquity as under the semblance
of religion among the Christians and Maliomedans.
There are some denominations of English Methodists
which surpass, if possible, the French Convulsion-
naires; and we may here mention in particular the
Jumpers, among whom it is still more difficult than in
the example given above to draw the line between re¬
ligious ecstasy and a perfect disorder of the nerves;
sympathy, however, operates perhaps more perniciously
on them than on other fanatical assemblies. The sect
of Jumpers was founded in the year 1760, in the county
of Cornwall, by two fanatics, who were, even at that
time, able to collect together a considerable party.
Their general doctrine is that of the Methodists, and
claims our consideration here only in so far as it en¬
joins them during their devotional exercises to fall
into convulsions, which they are able to effect in the
strangest manner imaginable. By the use of certain
unmeaning words they work themselves up into a
THE DANCING MANIA.
191
state of religious frenzy, in winch they seem to have
scarcely any control over their senses. They then be¬
gin to jump with strange gestures, repeating this
exercise with all their might until they are exhausted,
so that it not unfrequently happens that women who,
like the Maenades, practise these religious exercises,
are carried away from the midst of them in a state of
syncope, whilst the remaining members of the congre¬
gations, for miles together, on their way home, terrify
those whom they meet by the sight of such demoniacal
ravings. There are never more than a few ecstatics,
who, by their example, excite the rest to jump, and
these are followed by the greatest part of the meeting,
so that these assemblages of the Jumpers resemble for
hours together the wildest orgies, rather than congre¬
gations met for Christian edification.
In the United States of North America communities
of Methodists have existed for the last sixty years.
The reports of credible witnesses of their assemblages
for divine service in the open air (camp meetings), to
which many thousands flock from great distances,
surpass, indeed, all belief; for not only do they there
repeat all the insane acts of the French Convulsion-
naires and of the English Jumpers, but the disorder of
their minds and of their nerves attains at these meet¬
ings a still greater height. "Women have been seen to
miscarry whilst suffering under the state of ecstasy
and violent spasms into which they are thrown, and
192
THE DANCING MANIA.
others have publicly stripped themselves and jumped
into the rivers. They have swooned away by hundreds,
worn out with ravings and fits; and of the Barkers,
who appeared among the Convulsionnaires only hero
and there, in single cases of complete aberration of
intellect, whole bands are seen running on all fours,
and growling as if they wished to indicate, even by
their outward form, the shocking degradation of their
human nature. At these camp-meetings the children
are witnesses of this mad infatuation, and as their
weak nerves are with the greatest facility affected
by sympathy, they, together with their parents, fall
into violent fits, though they know nothing of their im¬
port, and many of them retain for life some severe
nervous disorder which, having arisen from fright and
excessive excitement, will not afterwards yield to any
medical treatment.
But enough of these extravagances, which even in
our now days embitter the lives of so many thousands,
and exhibit to the world in the nineteenth century the
same terrific form of mental disturbance as the St.
Yitus's dance once did to the benighted nations of the
Middle Ages.
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x. Warren Hastings .. .. .. •• •• jpolrd Macaula'v.
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