Talk:Dancing plague of 1518

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Dancing plague of 1518 has been linked from multiple high-traffic websites.

All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

Table
30 November 2008	Reddit	link	Traffic
27 March 2018	Buzzfeed	link	Traffic

Untitled[edit]

This is scary. 67.160.174.24 (talk) 07:14, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I nominate this article as "weirdest article ever"--Divbis0 (talk) 02:31, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded --Topperfalkon (talk) 02:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jcgy.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:02, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Merge proposal[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was No move. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 20:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I propose this article be merged with Dancing mania, as there is a great deal, almost complete overlap between their respective content. Sim (talk) 04:35, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess this didn't go ahead, but if it ever gets proposed / voted on, I am strongly against, partly because this, as a specific notable event, is worth its own article, and partly because it would greatly sadden me if the article with the best title on wikipedia was merged into another article. 152.91.9.219 (talk) 02:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm against it too, but didn't respond since the discussion never picked up. I'm closing the discussion. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 20:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Reliability[edit]

The Discovery News article seems questionable to me. The first few refs seem reliable, but as the (wikipedia) article progresses along with the discovery article, the claims seem more like the opinions of the author of the article which have then been transmitted to this page. Here's a relevant guideline discussion: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_26#Is_a_Discovery_or_History_Channel_documentary_considered_a_reliable_source.
If someone else agrees, removal of some paragraphs could be warranted. Belovedeagle (talk) 22:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which claims, in specific, seem questionable to you? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 20:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The original article's section that seemed fishy was "One of these fears ... compulsive dancing." The lack of a source there while the rest of the article seemed to be extensively sourced just suggested that the author had no reliable source for that. In addition, the whole article seemed to be a tertiary source given its nature (as opposed to a news article where the author himself goes and researches). I think that careful use of the quotes from researchers in that article is fine, but this particular section was questionable. (And that seemed to fit well with the WP:RS discussion.) Belovedeagle (talk) 23:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have just accessed the original John Waller article, "In a spin: the mysterious dancing epidemic of 1518" published in Endeavour in September 2008. This is most likely what prompted Viegas to publish her Discovery article, since the Waller article was published about a month before the Discovery article. One telling quote from the original is:

"Late medieval Europeans reckoned that healing saints could inflict the same maladies they were meant to heal. And we have compelling evidence that the peoples of the Rhine and Mosel valleys believed that when the wrath of St. Vitus had been provoked, he sent down plagues of compulsive dancing." (Italics appear in the original.)

So Viegas's source for this claim comes directly from the Waller article. Here is more publication information for the Waller article, if you are interested:

Waller, John C. (2008). "In a spin: the mysterious dancing epidemic of 1518". Endeavour. 32 (3). Elsevier: 117–121. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2008.05.001. ISSN 0160-9327. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

— Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that looks good enough for me. I'm glad you looked that up; I hadn't taken that much time to look into it. One final thing, though, is whether this was in fact "Christian legend". I guess my concern now is that we have "christian legend" and then "this explanation does not support...", so we ought to be sure of the source of the "reckoning" of the Europeans. (Though I'm admittedly biased in suspecting an anti-christian bias.) I think, though, that this is questioning the info a bit too much, so I'll drop it and call it good enough. Belovedeagle (talk) 21:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that much of the article is questionable. I cleaned it up as much as I felt comfortable without having access to the primary sources. If I had more time and motivation, I would remove all citations of the Discovery article, as it is just a rewrite of Waller's articles, and his articles are the sole source for the Discovery article. I would also not rely on Waller's articles or books in the historical sections of the article, and instead expand the article's section on "In popular culture" and cite him there. There does not appear to be any scholarly historical evidence that anyone died from dancing in Strasbourg in 1518, but it is an idea that has spread through popular culture. Since, as I said, I did not have the time or motivation to do a wholesale rewrite, I took the approach of just consolidating the questionable material into a "Controversy" section, but left some of the less controversial claims with citations (that I would prefer to not leave in) where they align with the details given by Clementz. Aleph Infinity (talk) 06:25, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a Youtube video outlining the problems of this article. I don't know if it was made before you did your edits, but it's a useful source to look into. --Makkool (talk) 11:15, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Makkool: A link here would be helpful.

ɱ

(talk) 16:51, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops! I edited my original post and the link is now there. —Makkool (talk) 05:48, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Aleph Infinity: Before claiming Waller's information to be unsupported by other works, did you read any of his sources listed in the article?

ɱ

(talk) 16:56, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment[edit]

"Saint Vitus is primarily invoked to protect against epilepsy, a disorder characterised by recurrent unprovoked seizures. Chorea, which can be present in epilepsy or a variety of other nervous system disorders, can be characterised by quick, patterned muscular contractions, or sometimes slower, stormy, writhing motions (athetosis). "

Part of this is not true in my opinion. Chorea is a symptom of the extrapiramidal system, based in the basal ganglia of the brain. Epilepsy is a disorder of the cerebral cortex. Chorea and epilepsy are 2 distict disorders.```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.212.38.116 (talk) 11:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It says the source article this is 'suggested'. We cannot know for sure. If you have a strong alternate source, please add it. Span (talk) 17:36, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with tone[edit]

Article occasionally reads like a dramatic tour guide. "The authorities twisted a calamity into a nightmare scenario"? Come on. It sounds like History Channel narration. Language like that does not belong in an encyclopedia. KempsonB (talk) 08:48, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Possible sources if anyone can read french[edit]

https://www.musees.strasbourg.eu/documents/30424/2727273/Dossier+expo+1518.pdf/3f1c41ca-0508-d6c0-5b2f-3a9662c66b76

https://histoiresduniversites.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/fic3a8vre-de-la-danse.pdf

©Geni (talk) 09:01, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bibliography[edit]

I've boldly added in a bibliography section in order to implement shortened footnotes. This was done to allow multiple different citations from an individual source. Tyrone Madera (talk) 20:06, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Brueghel[edit]

Just a note and nothing more; the photo caption on the engraving by Pieter Brueghel reads, "Engraving portrays three women affected by the plague. Work based on original drawing by Pieter Brueghel, who supposedly witnessed a subsequent outbreak in 1518 in Flanders." For Pieter Brueghel to have, "witnessed a subsequent outbreak in 1518," would have been impossible, given his 1523 birth date. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.4.24.27 (talk • contribs) 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Three times or two times?[edit]

I believe it is not necessary to mention the name of Troffea three times. It is already mentioned two times. Moreover, it is only a conjecture that the first dancer may have been Troffea. I also believe that the mention of her name does not much to extra describe or explain the phenomenon. Of course there was a first dancer. So I deleted the third mention, which was added three times over the course of the last three days without an edit summary, lastly here. Mark in wiki (talk) 07:21, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Number and place of outbreaks[edit]

A lime says "virtually every outbreak occurred somewhere along the Rhine and Moselle rivers, areas linked by water but with quite different climates and crops". But the rest of the article doesn't me tion number and place of outbreaks. Did this dancing happen in more than one place? I always imagined a bunch of people dancing in the same square of the same city nonstop. Did people stop dancing, go to sleep, and then come back to dance more? More details are needed. Mateussf (talk) 21:41, 23 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See for the other outbreaks the article on Dancing mania. Mark in wiki (talk) 08:36, 24 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Plagues and People[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 August 2022 and 16 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aidanmjordan, Jesmul2022, Ry.skiles (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Ryan0708, Abbigale Gonda, Karsenpierce, Nyankonyan, Abrooks6142, Dan18769.

— Assignment last updated by Oneton III (talk) 03:17, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Plagues and People- Spring 23[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2023 and 5 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bella.daly6, Pricejones14, Voverbo, JacobWiki44, Noahjdengler (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Jsealy18, Ninapetersenn, KindleHoodie, IllyFerg, Katebryan, Cotviola.

— Assignment last updated by Oneton III (talk) 15:10, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me for being old, Voverbo, but if I may ask, what does such an assignment entail? What are you expected to do? I am just curious. Feel free to ignore me if you like! Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 06:00, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do professional research on the topic and edit the unfinished Wiki page. I suppose it is like if a research paper is the assignment, but it benefitted the people that use Wikipedia and can be put under public view and criticism. Take into consideration that this is a gross simplification in my words of the total of the assignment. Hope that helps. @Dumuzid Voverbo (talk) 06:10, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I look forward to your contributions! Dumuzid (talk) 06:14, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Voverbo (talk) 15:25, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am part of this assignment and I am wondering if anyone would object to me editing some of the sources, as well as editing the lead introduction, adding a little more information I found, and editing some sentences with bad citing. JacobWiki44 (talk) 20:10, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]