In medieval Europe, a lot of things happened that have not yet found their rational explanation. For example, it is not very clear why the end of the 15th century was the starting point for the witch hunt. Other events that took place at about the same time could provide a clue to this mass insanity …
Some scholars believe that the witch hunt is the machinations of the Catholic Church, thus strengthening its power. But why did this process begin in the 15th century, and not earlier or later? What caused the mass insanity and war declared on women?
Victims of the epidemic
Back in 1518, a group of people from the French town of Strasbourg was seized by a strange and fatal disease, called the "dancing plague". It all started with the fact that a certain woman named Troffea suddenly abandoned all her affairs, went out into the street and, picking up numerous skirts, began to dance.
Madame Troffea danced for several days, interrupting only for a drink of water, and continuing to dance. It took her for several days, after which the lady died.
While Madame was dancing, 34 more people joined her, and then several hundred more. Ultimately, according to the most conservative estimates, about half a thousand people took to the streets of Strasbourg! The authorities were so frightened by what had happened that they called doctors. The Aesculapians had to find the reasons for the mass madness and somehow stop it. To smooth out the unhealthy excitement spread by people dancing in silence, they invited musicians who selected melodies that brought at least some logic into the dances.
But it did not help. About 400 people fell victim to the medieval dance marathon.
Promotional video:
But the most interesting thing is not that people danced until they dropped, but how the authorities explained this sudden surge of love for dancing.
There are witches everywhere
The reasons for the incident, according to the authorities, were a departure from God's commandments, a large number of sins and insufficient repentance. And for this the Lord sent the illness of St. Vitus to the people - that was the name of the saint of the 3rd century, whom the Roman pagans threw into a pot of boiling oil. Over time, a belief has become established in Europe - if you dance in front of a statue of this character on his day (June 15), then you will have both health and strength.
But according to medieval doctors, it was an epidemic caused by "overheated blood", and in order to recover from it, one had to bleed and continue dancing until the dance "exhausted itself." Researchers later concluded that the outbreak of chorea (the scientific term for a disorder accompanied by convulsive uncontrolled movements) was caused by ergot, a parasitic fungus found on raw rye stalks that can cause twitching, seizures, and hallucinations. Since times were hungry, people ate everything, including ergot-stricken rye, which led to a mysterious disease.
Let's leave this statement on the conscience of the researchers. Here something else is interesting: the incident with the "dancing plague" led some observant clergymen (and there are always many of them in the church) to interesting reflections. They were convinced with their own eyes of the excitability of the human psyche. One has only to give some phenomenon the character of publicity and how to "catch up with hysteria", mass psychosis engulfs people, like a forest fire - brushwood dried up in the heat. And from here it is already a stone's throw to the witch hunt.
As soon as the church realized that the believers had lost their "fear of God" - they confess less often, donate to the church worse, conceal their tithes from income - how inquisition fires began to flare up in Europe over and over again. Moreover, the first stage of the mass witch-hunt began around 1585, after the Reformation "took" many wealthy parishioners from the Catholic Church. And then thousands of volunteers joined the hunt announced by the church, who themselves found those who should be burned.
That is, the same "dance of madness", which soon swept all of Europe, was repeated. The church itself took on the role of a "conductor": in some places it was upsetting the presumptuous, somewhere it asked to "turn on the heat", somewhere it just reminded of vigilance. And the masses, who fell into another psychosis, were looking for those of their own kind who should have been burned, drowned, and quartered.
The same feature of the human psyche was used to their advantage by both completely destructive regimes - the Nazis, Stalinists, Maoists - and outwardly harmless rock movements, from the Beatles to Nirvana. Of course, they had different goals, but the process itself proceeded according to the same pattern, the name of which is “mass psychosis”.
Igor RODIONOV