A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany

by H.C. Erik Midelfort

This magisterial work explores how Renaissance Germans understood and experienced madness. It focuses on the insanity of the world in general but also on specific disorders; examines the thinking on madness of theologians, jurists, and physicians; and analyzes the vernacular ideas that propelled sufferers to seek help in pilgrimage or newly founded hospitals for the helplessly disordered. In the process, the author uses the history of madness as a lens to illuminate the history of the Renaissance, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the history of poverty and social welfare, and the history of princely courts, state building, and the civilizing process. Rather than try to fit historical experience into modern psychiatric categories, this book reconstructs the images and metaphors through which Renaissance Germans themselves understood and experienced mental illness and deviance, ranging from such bizarre conditions as St. Vitus’s dance and demonic possession to such medical crises as melancholy and mania. By examining the records of shrines and hospitals, where the mad went for relief, we hear the voices of the mad themselves. For many religious Germans, sin was a form of madness and the sinful world was thoroughly insane. This book compares the thought of Martin Luther and the medical-religious reformer Paracelsus, who both believed that madness was a basic category of human experience. For them and others, the sixteenth century was an age of increasing demonic presence; the demon-possessed seemed to be everywhere. For Renaissance physicians, however, the problem was finding the correct ancient Greek concepts to describe mental illness. In medical terms, the late sixteenth century was the age of melancholy. For jurists, the customary insanity defense did not clarify whether melancholy persons were responsible for their actions, and they frequently solicited the advice of physicians. Sixteenth-century Germany was also an age of folly, with fools filling a major role in German art and literature and present at every prince and princeling’s court. The author analyzes what Renaissance Germans meant by folly and examines the lives and social contexts of several court fools.

Genres: Psychology, History

456 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

Hans Christian Erik Midelfort (born 1942), is C. Julian Bishko Professor Emeritus of History and Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. He is a specialist of the German Reformation and the history of Christianity in Early Modern Europe.

Midelfort was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and attended Yale University where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1964. He remained at Yale for graduate studies in History under the supervision of Jaroslav Pelikan and other noted scholars such as Hajo Holborn, J. H. Hexter, and Edmund S. Morgan. Midelfort graduated from Yale University in 1970. His first published work Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany, 1562–1684: The Social and Intellectual Foundations was published by Stanford University Press, and was awarded the 1973 Gustav O. Arlt Award in the Humanities by the Council of Graduate Schools.

Midelfort was a professor at Stanford University between 1968 and 1970, and he has also acted a visiting scholar at University of Bern, Universität Stuttgart, Harvard University, and at Oxford University where he was a visiting scholar at Wolfson College and visiting fellow at All Souls College. Midelfort was member of the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia from 1970 until his retirement in May 2008 when he delivered his final undergraduate lecture on the topic of "Magic and Modernity".

In addition to his early work on witchcraft, Midelfort is best known for "Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany" and A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany. Both studies on madness were awarded by the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference with the Roland Bainton Prize for the best book of the year in History and Theology. Midelfort is one of the two scholars to win the award a second time. Phi Beta Kappa gave its Ralph Waldo Emerson Award to A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany. More recently, Midelfort published Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann Joseph Gassner and the Demons of 18th-Century Germany which emerged from his time as lecturer-in-residence as the Terry Lecturer in Yale University.

Because of his extensive work in translation of secondary sources, Midelfort is also well known for strengthening connections between his German and American colleagues. Among the seminal works Midelfort translated from German on German Reformation are Peter Blickle’s The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasants’ War from a New Perspective, and Bernd Moeller’s Imperial Cities and the Reformation, Three Essays.

During his tenure as scholar Midelfort has been awarded grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Furthermore, in 2004, Midelfort was recipient of a festschrift, or commemorative volume, presented by German colleagues: Wider alle Hexerei und Teufelswerk: Die europäische Hexenverfolgung und ihre Auswirkungen auf Südwestdeutschland, eds. Sönke Lorenz and Jürgen Michael Schmidt. In 2008, Midelfort received second festschrift, Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany (eds. Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer and Robin Barnes). In the Spring of 2011, Midelfort was also awarded the Ellen Maria Gorrissen Prize from the American Academy in Berlin.

Most recently, a collection of Midelfort articles and other writings has been published as Witchcraft, Madness, Society, and Religion in Early Modern Germany: A Ship of Fools.

H. C. Erik Midelfort is married to Anne McKeithen. They live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a tremendous accomplishment—very thorough in research, smart in conceptualization, mostly well-written. It’s a great example of how to do history of madness.

One point that bothered me was the repetitive reminders that today’s psychiatric categories might not apply. Point taken, ok! This is common enough in the field, but so common it may be overdone. It’s really more contrarian at this point to propose that maybe some modern psychiatric knowledge has wide applicability. Anyway, why is use of psychiatric knowledge presentist, but other knowledge not? The plausibility of events in the book are often measured by modern standards of plausibility, not 16th century ones.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

pp 80

[Warren Bittner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Conveys contemporary views of madness as seen through the eyes of Renaissance Germans who understood themselves in terms very different from modern psychiatric categories. Beware of St. Vitus's Dance 14 a wide-spread and well document outbreak of uncontrollable dancing!