walls of the town of Cologne, on the side next the Rhine, had
fallen down, and a great many villages had been reduced to the
utmost distress. To this was added the miserable condition of
western and southern Germany. Neither law nor edict could
suppress the incessant feuds of the Barons, and in Franconia
especially, the ancient times of club law appeared to be revived.
Security of property there was none; arbitrary will everywhere
prevailed; corruption of morals and rude power rarely met with
even a feeble opposition; whence it arose that the cruel, but
lucrative, persecutions of the Jews were in many places still
practised through the whole of this century with their wonted
ferocity. Thus, throughout the western parts of Germany, and
especially in the districts bordering on the Rhine, there was a
wretched and oppressed populace; and if we take into consideration
that among their numerous bands many wandered about, whose
consciences were tormented with the recollection of the crimes
which they had committed during the prevalence of the Black
Plague, we shall comprehend how their despair sought relief in the
intoxication of an artificial delirium. There is hence good
ground for supposing that the frantic celebration of the festival
of St. John, A.D. 1374, only served to bring to a crisis a malady
which had been long impending; and if we would further inquire how
a hitherto harmless usage, which like many others had but served
to keep up superstition, could degenerate into so serious a
disease, we must take into account the unusual excitement of men's
minds, and the consequences of wretchedness and want. The bowels,
which in many were debilitated by hunger and bad food, were
precisely the parts which in most cases were attacked with
excruciating pain, and the tympanitic state of the intestines
points out to the intelligent physician an origin of the disorder