to the altar, where they made some small offering of alms, and
where it is probable that many were, through the influence of
devotion and the sanctity of the place, cured of this lamentable
aberration. It is worthy of observation, at all events, that the
Dancing Mania did not recommence at the altars of the saint, and
that from him alone assistance was implored, and through his
miraculous interposition a cure was expected, which was beyond the
reach of human skill. The personal history of St. Vitus is by no
means important in this matter. He was a Sicilian youth, who,
together with Modestus and Crescentia, suffered martyrdom at the
time of the persecution of the Christians, under Diocletian, in
the year 303. The legends respecting him are obscure, and he
would certainly have been passed over without notice among the
innumerable apocryphal martyrs of the first centuries, had not the
transfer of his body to St. Denys, and thence, in the year 836, to
Corvey, raised him to a higher rank. From this time forth it may
be supposed that many miracles were manifested at his new
sepulchre, which were of essential service in confirming the Roman
faith among the Germans, and St. Vitus was soon ranked among the
fourteen saintly helpers (Nothhelfer or Apotheker). His altars
were multiplied, and the people had recourse to them in all kinds
of distresses, and revered him as a powerful intercessor. As the
worship of these saints was, however, at that time stripped of all
historical connections, which were purposely obliterated by the
priesthood, a legend was invented at the beginning of the
fifteenth century, or perhaps even so early as the fourteenth,
that St. Vitus had, just before he bent his neck to the sword,
prayed to God that he might protect from the Dancing Mania all
those who should solemnise the day of his commemoration, and fast
upon its eve, and that thereupon a voice from heaven was heard,