The history of this legend is traced by E. Schröder, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, vol. xvii, 1896, pp. 94 ff., and, more summarily, by Gaston Paris, Les Danseurs maudits, Paris 1900. The circumstances from which it sprang appear to belong to the year 1021. Kölbigk, in Anhalt, Saxony, was the scene of the dance. In 1074 it is referred to as 'famous' by a German chronicler, who records the healing of one of the dancers in 1038 through the miraculous powers of St. Wigbert.
Mendicants who suffered from or could simulate nervous diseases like St. Vitus's dance, were quick to realize their opportunity, and two letters telling the story were circulated as credentials by pretended survivors of the band. Both are influenced in form by a sermon of St. Augustine of Hippo which embodies a similar story (Migne, Patrologia, vol. xxxviii, col. 1443). The first (Letter of Otbert), which claims to be issued by Peregrinus bishop of Cologne, spread rapidly through Western Europe. This was the version that Mannyng found in William of Wadington. The second (Letter of Theodric) makes Bruno bishop of Toul, afterwards Pope Leo IX, vouch for the facts. It was incorporated in the account of the miraculous cure of Theodric at the shrine of St. Edith of Wilton, and is known only from English sources. This was the text that Mannyng used. A later English version, without merit, is found in the dreary fifteenth-century Life of St. Editha (ed. Horstmann, ll. 4063 ff.).
1 ff. games: Dances and shows in the churchyard were constantly condemned by the Church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In 1287 a synod at Exeter rules ne quisquam luctas, choreas, vel alios ludos inhonestos in coemeteriis exercere praesumat, praecipue in vigiliis et festis sanctorum. See Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, vol. i, pp. 90 ff.
6. or tabure bete: Note the use of bete infin. as a verbal noun = betyng; cp. XI b 184-5.
10-12. 'And he (sc. a good priest) will become angered sooner than one who has no learning, and who does not understand Holy Writ.'
15 ff. noght... none: An accumulation of negatives in ME. makes the negation more emphatic. Here the writer wavers between two forms of expression: (1) 'do not sing carols in holy places', and (2) 'to sing carols in holy places is sacrilege'.
25-8. yn þys londe, &c. The cure of Theodric, not the dance, took place in England. Brightgiva is said to have been abbess of Wilton at the time (1065), and 'King Edward' is Edward the Confessor (1042-66).
34-5. The church of Kölbigk is dedicated to St. Magnus, of whom nothing certain is known. The memory of St. Bukcestre, if ever there was such a saint, appears to be preserved only in this story.
36. þat þey come to: Construe with hyt in l. 35.