Care and Custody of the Mentally Ill, Incompetent, and Disabled in Medieval England
By (author) Wendy J Turner
This book is about the social understanding and treatment of the mentally ill, incompetent, and disabled in late medieval England. Drawing on archival, literary, medical, legal, and ecclesiastic sources and studies, the volume seeks to present a coherent picture of society’s treatment, protection, abuse, care, and custody of the inca
This book is about the social understanding and treatment of the mentally ill, incompetent, and disabled in late medieval England. Drawing on archival, literary, medical, legal, and ecclesiastic sources and studies, the volume seeks to present a coherent picture of society’s treatment, protection, abuse, care, and custody of the incapacitated. Although many medieval stories stereotyped the mad (most often as sinners or innocents), for example, there is clear evidence that English society treated and cared for the impaired on a person-by-person basis. The mentally incapacitated were not lumped into one category and not ignored or sent away; on the contrary, both the English administration and the public had many categories and terms for mental conditions, cognitive abilities, and levels of physicality (violence) associated with impairment. English society also had safeguards and assistants (keepers, custodians, guardians) in place to help mentally impaired persons in life. This study therefore eschews totalizing assumptions about a societal ‘core’ and its ‘margins’; instead, it instigates a new consideration of communities as holistic entities with an ebb and flow among the contributing and non-contributing elements as people live, grow, age, get sick, become well, have children, break bones, or live with mental or physical impairments.
- By (author) Wendy J Turner
Other Titles in this Series
Victorine Restoration
Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus
Volume 39
From Tyrant to Philosopher-King
A Literary History of Alexander the Great in Medieval and Early Modern England
Volume 19
Writing History in Medieval Poland
Bishop Vincentius of Cracow and the 'Chronica Polonorum'
Volume 28
Order into Action
How Large-Scale Concepts of World-Order determine Practices in the Premodern World
Volume 40
Dreams, Medicine, and Literary Practice
Exploring the Western Literary Tradition Through Chaucer
Volume 18
Luigi Pulci in Renaissance Florence and Beyond
New Perspectives on his Poetry and Influence
Volume 29
Andreas Vesalius and the ‘Fabrica’ in the Age of Printing
Art, Anatomy, and Printing in the Italian Renaissance
Volume 33
Saints and their Lives on the Periphery
Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c.1000-1200)
Volume 9
Material Restoration
A Fragment from Eleventh-Century Echternach in a Nineteenth-Century Parisian Codex
Volume 7
Eclipse of Empire?
Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in Late-Medieval France
Volume 1
Jerusalem in the Alps
The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy
Volume 37
Guests, Strangers, Aliens, Enemies
Ambiguities of Hospitality in the Middle Ages, c. 1000-1350
Volume 45
Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World
European and Middle Eastern Cultures, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
Volume 36
The Presence of Medieval English Literature
Studies at the Interface of History, Author, and Text in a Selection of Middle English Literary Landmarks
Volume 14
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