A summary of a paper given by Professor Christina Lee at the University of Nottingham’s “Making the Medieval Relevant” Conference.
Making the Medieval Relevant: Crossing Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Studies on Disease and Disability
November 20, 2015 By
Neither Cursed Nor Possessed: Mental Abnormality in the Late Middle Ages
September 24, 2015 By
I plan to address the more formal ecclesiastical proscriptions regarding mental abnormality.
To what extent has the concept of ‘deformity’ affected Richard III’s image and character?
July 20, 2015 By
This essay will adopt a chronological approach in an attempt to assess when, how, and why the concept of ‘deformity’ or disfigurement became so integral to the central argument surrounding Ricardian historiography, and whether Richard was a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ king.
Monsters: An etymological and cultural reading of the ‘freak’ in the Middle Ages
August 31, 2014 By
That the medievals did not interpret ‘freaks’ as an insult to creation is the theme of this paper, showing that medieval thought on the disabled body was not as ‘backward’ as the Dark Ages school of popular historical perception teaches
Physical Disability and Marriage in Later Medieval (c. 1200–1500) Miracle Testimonies
April 13, 2014 By
In September 1470, a man called Laurencius Rawaldi from Linköping in Sweden was struck by a severe condition in his eyes. The illness left him blind for three years, during which he—according to his own testimony—was useless for both himself and others.
Accepting Fools as Heroes
March 10, 2014 By
What sociocultural attitudes towards the intellectually disabled – commonly referred to as fools – were prevalent during the Viking Age?
Drug Overdose, Disability and Male Friendship in Fifteenth-Century Mamluk Cairo
February 22, 2014 By
Shihab al-Din al-Hijazi (1388-1471) was an unexceptional legal student in Mamluk Cairo, who, at the age of 24, overdosed on marking nut, a potent plant drug valued for its memory-enhancing properties
Integrative Medicine: Incorporating Medicine and Health into the Canon of Medieval European History
January 18, 2014 By
Hitherto peripheral (if not outright ignored) in general medieval historiography, medieval medical history is now a vibrant subdiscipline, one that is rightlyattracting more and more attention from ‘mainstream’ historians and other studentsof cultural history.
Illness and Disability in Twelfth and Thirteenth-Century Notarial Documents in Medieval Toledo
September 29, 2013 By
Their documents are symbolic not only of the transition from Muslim Al-Andalus to Christian Spain, but also give us insight into the real-time everyday interactions and events of transitional Toledo after the year 1085 AD between peoples of different cultures, religions, backgrounds and identities.
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