hed
in blood, some saw visions, some prophesied.

Into this mass of "possession" there was also clearly poured a current
of scoundrelism which increased the disorder.

The immediate source of these manifestations seems to have been the wild
revels of St. John's Day. In those revels sundry old heathen ceremonies
had been perpetuated, but under a nominally Christian form: wild
Bacchanalian dances had thus become a semi-religious ceremonial. The
religious and social atmosphere was propitious to the development of
the germs of diabolic influence vitalized in these orgies, and they
were scattered far and wide through large tracts of the Netherlands
and Germany, and especially through the whole region of the Rhine. At
Cologne we hear of five hundred afflicted at once; at Metz of eleven
hundred dancers in the streets; at Strasburg of yet more painful
manifestations; and from these and other cities they spread through the
villages and rural districts.

The great majority of the sufferers were women, but there were many men,
and especially men whose occupations were sedentary. Remedies were tried
upon a large scale-exorcisms first, but especially pilgrimages to the
shrine of St. Vitus. The exorcisms accomplished so little that popular
faith in them grew small, and the main effect of the pilgrimages
seemed to be to increase the disorder by subjecting great crowds to
the diabolic contagion. Yet another curative means was seen in the
flagellant processions--vast crowds of men, women, and children who
wandered through the country, screaming, praying, beating themselves
with whips, imploring the Divine mercy and the intervention of
St. Vitus. Most fearful of all the main attempts at cure were the
persecutions of the Jews. A feeling had evidently spread among
the people at large that the Almighty was filled with wrath at
the toleration of his enemies, and might be propitiated by their
destruction: in the principal cities and villages of Germany, then, the
Jews were plundered, tortured, and murdered by tens of thousands. No
doubt that, in all this, greed was united with fanaticism; but the
argument of fanaticism was simple and cogent; the dart which pierced the
breast of Israel at that time was winged and pointed from its own
sacred books: the biblical argument was the same used in various ages
to promote persecution; and this was, that the wrath of the Almighty
was stirred against those who tolerated his enemies, and that because