IMC 2011: Sessions
Session 224: Physical and Mental Disabilities, II: Madness, Mental Disability, and Medicine
Monday 11 July 2011, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | Homo-Debilis Project, Universität Bremen |
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| Organiser: | Irina Metzler, Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Research (MEMO), Swansea University / Projekt 'Homo Debilis', Universität Bremen |
| Moderator/Chair: | Wendy J. Turner, Department of History, Anthropology & Philosophy, Augusta State University, Georgia |
| Paper 224-a | Defining Impairment and Disability in Medieval Medical Writings (Language: English) Index terms: Anthropology, Medicine |
| Paper 224-b | The Insanity of William the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Language: English) Index terms: Medicine, Mentalities, Social History |
| Paper 224-c | Poor Cousins?: Mentally Impaired Members of Elite Families in Later Medieval Cities (Language: English) Index terms: Daily Life, Medicine, Mentalities, Social History |
| Abstract | The medical context of different impairments and deformities, as outlined by the first paper, allows us to investigate how the medieval world understood malformed or impaired bodies both with respect to humouralism and the manifestation of sin on the body. Madness and mental impairments have often been associated with sin. The second paper explores how family and councilors dealt with William the Younger's repeated attacks of mental illness and his subsequent incapacity to govern, using wardship, confinement, and healing. The third paper poses the question whether members of urban elite families were liable to lose social status and economic benefits due to simplemindedness, aggressive or peculiar behaviour and what was made of such challenges. |