n 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
colors, 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 upon their
convulsions. There were likewise some of them who were unable to
endure the sight of persons weeping. The clergy seemed to become daily
more and more confirmed in their belief that those who were affected
were a kind of sectarians, and on this account they hastened their
exorcisms as much as possible, in order that the evil might not spread
among the higher classes, for hitherto scarcely any but the poor had
been attacked, and the few people of respectability among the laity and
clergy who were to be found among them were persons whose natural
frivolity was unable to withstand the excitement of novelty, even though
it proceeded from a demoniacal influence. Some of the affected had
indeed themselves declared, when under the influence of priestly forms
of exorcism, that, if the demons had been allowed only a few weeks more
time, they would have entered the bodies of the nobility and princes,
and through these have destroyed the clergy. Assertions of this sort,
which those possessed uttered while in a state which may be compared
with that of magnetic sleep, obtained general belief, and passed from
mouth to mouth with wonderful additions. The priesthood were, on this
account, so much the more zealous in their endeavors to anticipate every
dangerous excitement of the people, as if the existing order of things
could have been seriously threatened by such incoherent ravings. Their
exertions were effectual, for exorcism was a powerful remedy in the
fourteenth century; or it might perhaps be that this wild infatuation
terminated in consequence of the exhaustion which naturally ensued from
it; at all events, in the course of ten o