me them with fire from heaven."[443] This
movement was altogether popular. It broke out again in 1349, in
connection with the Black Death. Flagellation for thirty-three and a
half days was held to purge from all sin. This was heresy and the
flagellants were persecuted. The theory was a purely popular application
by the masses of the church doctrine of penance, outside of the church
system. It reappeared from time to time. The dancing mania began at
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1373 and lasted for several years.[444] It was an
outlet for high nervous tension under which the population was suffering
on account of great calamities, social distress, and superstitious
interpretations of the same. In short, the period was one of monstrous
phenomena, extravagant passions, and unreasonable acts.

+216. Gregariousness of the Middle Ages.+ "To estimate fully the force
of these popular ebullitions in the Middle Ages, we must bear in mind
the susceptibility of the people to contagious emotions and enthusiasms
of which we know little in our colder day. A trifle might start a
movement which the wisest could not explain nor the most powerful
restrain. It was during the preaching of this crusade [of 1208, against
the Albigenses] that villages and towns in Germany were filled with
women who, unable to expend their religious ardor in taking the cross,
stripped themselves naked and ran silently through the roads and
streets. Still more symptomatic of the diseased spirituality of the time
was the crusade of the children, which desolated thousands of homes.
From vast districts of territory, incited apparently by a simultaneous
and spontaneous impulse, crowds of children set forth, without leaders
or guides, in search of the Holy Land; and their only answer, when
questioned as to their object, was that they were going to Jerusalem.
Vainly did parents lock their children up; they would break loose and
disappear; and the few who eventually found their way home again could
give no reason for the overmastering longing which had carried them
away. Nor must we lose sight of other and less creditable springs of
action which brought to all crusades the vile, who came for license and
spoil, and the base, who sought the immunity conferred by the quality of
crusader."[445] "To comprehend fully the magnitude and influence of
these movements we must bear in mind the impressionable character of the
populations and their readiness to yield to contagious emotion. When