Madness in Medieval Law and Custom

Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-90-04-18749-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 6, 254 Seiten, Format (B × H): 169 mm x 248 mm, Gewicht: 559 g

Reihe: Later Medieval Europe

This collection of essays opens a new discussion about the mind, body, and spirit of the mad in medieval Europe. The authors examine a broad spectrum of mental and emotional issues, which medieval authors point out as ‘unusual’ behavior. With the emerging field of medieval disability studies in mind, the authors have carefully considered legal and cultural descriptions for insight into the perception and understanding of mental impairment. These essays on madness in the Middle Ages elucidate how medieval society conceptualized mental afflictions. Individually, the essays cover aspects of mental impairment from a variety of angles to unearth collectively medieval perspectives on mental affliction.
Contributors are James R. King, Kate McGrath, Irina Metzler, Aleksandra Pfau, Cory James Rushton, Margaret Trenchard-Smith, and Wendy J. Turner.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Turner, Wendy

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtssoziologie, Rechtspsychologie, Rechtslinguistik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments. ix
Abbreviations. xi
Contributors. xiii
Introduction. 1
Wendy J. Turner
Town and Country: A Comparison of the Treatment of the Mentally Disabled in Late Medieval English Common Law and Chartered Boroughs. 17
Wendy J. Turner
Insanity, Exculpation and Disempowerment in Byzantine Law. 39
Margaret Trenchard-Smith
The Mysterious Case of the ‘Mad’ Rector of Bletchingdon: The Treatment of Mentally Ill Clergy in Late Thirteenth-Century England. 57
James R. King
Silent Testimony: Emotional Displays and Lapses in Memory as Indicators of Mental Instability in Medieval English Investigations. 81
Wendy J. Turner
Crimes of Passion: Emotion and Madness in French Remission Letters. 97
Aleksandra Pfau
Royal Madness and the Law: The Role of Anger in Representations of Royal Authority in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Texts. 123
Kate McGrath
The King’s Stupor: Dealing with Royal Paralysis in Late Medieval England. 147
Cory James Rushton
A Cure for the King means Health for the Country: The Mental and Physical Health of Henry VI. 177
Wendy J. Turner
Afterword. 197
Irina Metzler

Bibliography. 219
Index. 239

Über Autor(innen)

Wendy J. Turner—Ph.D. (2000) History, UCLA, Associate Professor of History at Augusta State University—works on medieval mental health, as in, “Mental Incapacity and Financing War in Medieval England” (The Hundred Years War, 2: Different Vistas (Brill, 2008).