Medieval European sufferers of involuntary collective dancing afflictions (the 'dancing plague') made pilgrimage to which saint's principal shrine — the Saxon abbey on the upper Weser?
Vitus was a 4th-century Sicilian Christian martyr. His relics were translated from Saint-Denis to the Carolingian Saxon abbey of Corvey in 836 AD. The cult became — substantially through historical accident — the medieval European pilgrimage destination for sufferers of *Sankt-Veit-Tanz* ('Saint Vitus's dance'). The Aachen dancers of 1374 marched to Corvey; the Strasbourg dancers of 1518 went to a related Vitus shrine at Saverne in the Vosges. The therapeutic effect was probably the separation of affected individuals from each other rather than the saint's intercession.
Read the full story →Saint Vitus was a 4th-century Sicilian Christian martyr whose relics were translated to the Saxon abbey of Corvey on the upper Weser in 836 AD. The Corvey shrine became the principal medieval European pilgrimage site for sufferers of involuntary collective dancing afflictions — including the Aachen mania of 1374 and the Strasbourg plague of 1518.
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