From the year 1368 unto 1370, epidemic pestilence ravaged England and Ireland; four years after, it continued to lay England waste. A similar pestilence, about the same time, prevailed with great mortality in Italy and in Gaul.
A.D. 1371, pestilence was rife at Barcelona; and on the 13th of June, imprecatory processions were instituted in each of the parishes of that place on account of the pestilence, which lasted for one year. A comet was seen this year.
A.D. 1372, pestilence invaded Germany, Egypt, Greece, and all the East. Lubeck lost 90,000 of its inhabitants.
A.D. 1373, the use of coals was forbidden by Act of Parliament, under the idea that the smoke in London corrupted the air.
In the year of our Lord 1374, the epidemic dancing disease of St. Guy and St. John prevailed in Holland and in the Rhenish provinces, and an analogous malady, called ‘Tarantisme’ and ‘Tigretier,’ among the Abyssinians; a similar disease also prevailed in the Shetland Islands, where it had existed from time to time, as it is said, for one hundred years previously. The disease also prevailed in France, and the sufferers were called ‘Convulsionnaires;’ it was evidently the malady which we now term St. Vitus’ Dance or Chorea, but prevailing epidemically. Hecker gives the following account of this strange malady, as it occurred about this period also in Germany; it was evidently a disease similar to that which broke out, A.D. 1027, in Bernburg, prevailed A.D. 1237 at Erfurt among children, and subsequently among adults, A.D. 1278, at Utrecht. He says “that 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 re-appeared. It was called the Dance of St. John or of St. Vitus, on account of the Bacchantic leaps by which it was characterized, and which gave to those affected, whilst performing their wild dance, and screaming and foaming 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 demoniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany and the neighbouring countries to the north-west, which were already prepared for its reception by the prevailing opinion 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 delusion, 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 by-standers, for hours together, in wild delirium, until at length they fell down to the ground in a state of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme 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 spasmodic ravings, but the by-standers 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 asserted 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 and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary, according as the religious notions of the age were strangely and variously reflected in their imaginations.
“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 appearance very variously, and was modified by temporary or local circumstances, whereof non-medical contemporaries but imperfectly noted the essential particulars, accustomed as they were to confound their observations 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 insertion 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 where the dancers appeared, the people assembled 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 entertained the least doubt, excited everywhere astonishment and horror. In Liege the priests had recourse to exorcisms, and endeavoured by every means in their power to allay an evil which threatened so much danger to themselves; for the possessed, assembling in multitudes, frequently poured forth imprecations against them and menaced their destruction. They intimidated 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 extraordinary accordance between this spasmodic malady and the condition of infuriated animals; but in the St. John’s dancers this excitement was probably connected with apparitions, consequent on their convulsions. There were likewise some of them who were unable to endure the sight of persons weeping.” “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. * * * * * Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Above a hundred unmarried women were seen raving about, in consecrated 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 place, seeking maintenance and adventures, and thus wherever they went spread this disgusting spasmodic 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.”
A.D. 1375, on the 20th of June, an imprecatory procession was instituted at Scio, on account of the dreadful pestilence which broke out there, and which raged more than twelve months. (Vide Capmany, ‘Historical and Chronological Compendium of Plagues,’ p. 66.)
A.D. 1379, epidemic pestilence prevailed in England, especially in the northern parts of the island. A.D. 1380, there was a general inundation in Spain, from which resulted epidemic pestilence, characteristic of an atmosphere surcharged with moisture. Three years after, 1383, was a period most fatal to Seville, in consequence of a pestilence having broken out there, which extended through its entire length and breadth. This terrible infliction was called by the old inhabitants the third mortality: it was preceded by inundations and extraordinary showers, which act unquestionably as predisposing causes of disease. A severe earthquake destroyed several churches A.D. 1382.