Madness in Medieval French Literature

Huot, Sylvia

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199252121.001.0001

Cited by 21 publications

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“…This article has shown how Huot’s (2003) distinction between mad people and saints could actually be made in the later Middle Ages. The analysis shows that the behavior expected from the mentally disordered and the behavior expected from people who might have been believed to have genuine religious experiences were quite different.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…186 -193). It is hard to know how many people suffered from lovesickness in medieval Europe, but it was a theme in medieval literature (Huot, 2003;Kolve, 1997). For example, Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain went mad after he was rejected by his wife.…”

Section: Views Of Mental Disorder In the Later Middle Agesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the careers of other mystics and would-be mystics indicate that they, too, were rarely suspected of mental disorder, even though it was widely recognized that ascetic activities such as depriving oneself of sleep or eating poorly or beating oneself could lead to mental disorder. Huot (2003) commented that a concern of medieval hagiography—that is, writing about saints or possible saints—was the “crucial but fraught distinction between the mad person and the saint” (Huot, 2003, p. 28). The present article provides an account of how people in the later Middle Ages could have made this distinction.…”

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Mental disorder and mysticism in the late medieval world.

Kemp

2019

History of Psychology

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During the later Middle Ages, a number of religiously oriented people behaved in ways that we would consider unusual, yet it was unusual for them to be regarded as mentally disordered. This article reviews late medieval thinking and practice with regard to mental disorder and also with regard to the discernment of spirits, that is, how it could be decided whether an experience or impulse to do something was the consequence of God or a good spirit, an evil spirit, or some purely human cause. Many of the criteria for discerning a good spirit were behavioral, for example, consistently showing humility and discretion, and were clearly distinct from those displayed in mental disorder. A comparison of the criteria for mental disorder with those used to discern spirits shows how the distinction between mental disorder and religious experience could have been made and why confusion of the two seems to have been rare.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Views Of Mental Disorder In the Later Middle Agesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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