«The insane is equated with the absent»? The category of ‘madness’ in medieval law
https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2024-4-30-54
Abstract
The article deals with an issue of describing and interpreting the concept of «madness» in medieval law. Based on the material of legal sources (canon law, author’s treatises of jurists and theologians, court verdicts and letters of pardon), the author of the article traces the formation of the concept during the 12th – 15th centuries, its relation to the norms of Roman law (primarily with the «Digests» of Justinian), the specifics of its practice in ecclesiastical, civil and criminal cases. Special attention is paid to the issue of the daily life of mentally ill people, their almost complete dependence on relatives and friends, who were mainly responsible for the stay of the insane in society, as well as of the role of medical expertise in determining their status. The article considers in detail the terminology used by ecclesiastical and secular lawyers and judges who described the cases of loss of sanity by criminals and/or their victims. The author of the article concludes that the variety of terms present in medieval legal texts indicates, firstly, the lack of elaboration of the concept of «madness» at that time, and secondly, the presence of explicit borrowings of special terms and detailed descriptions of such a disease from medieval fiction (in particular, from earlier romances).
Keywords
Middle Ages,
Roman law,
common law,
France,
madness,
letters of pardon,
romances,
medical examination
About the Author
O. I. Togoeva
Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Olga I. Togoeva, Dr. of Sci. (History)
32a, Leninsky Av., Moscow, 119334
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Review
For citations:
Togoeva O.I. «The insane is equated with the absent»? The category of ‘madness’ in medieval law. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series. 2024;(4):30-54. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2024-4-30-54
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