Caring for Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Approaches, Practices, and Representations
Prendre soin de la folie dans l’Europe médiévale et renaissante (appréhender, remédier, représenter)
Published on Thursday, April 30, 2026
Abstract
Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, this conference seeks to examine the perception, treatment, and representation of individuals affected by madness in the medieval and early modern periods, whether madness took the diverse forms of melancholy, possession, wandering, or unreason. To this end, it proposes to engage with the contemporary notion of care, understood as an ethics of care, and to historicize it beyond its modern conceptual framework, in order to reassess the relationship to vulnerability and dependency (and interdependency), as well as the dialectic between assistance and marginalization in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Announcement
Argument
Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, this conference seeks to examine the perception, treatment, and representation of individuals affected by madness in the medieval and early modern periods, whether madness took the diverse forms of melancholy, possession, wandering, or unreason. To this end, it proposes to engage with the contemporary notion of care, understood as an ethics of care, and to historicize it beyond its modern conceptual framework, in order to reassess the relationship to vulnerability and dependency (and interdependency), as well as the dialectic between assistance and marginalization in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
In the context of English studies in particular, attention will be paid to the polysemy of the term care (“mental suffering,” “concern,” “charge,” “official guardianship”) and to the shifts in its meanings, as well as to the evolution of its usage between the medieval and early modern periods, across a range of complementary textual sources (legal texts, medical treatises, proclamations, pamphlets, ballads, popular booklets, and plays). These shifts arguably reflect the anthropological reorientation characteristic of the Renaissance, which sought to place the human subject—and human vulnerability—at the center of intellectual inquiry.
The conference will also investigate the various everyday practices of care. Did an ethical approach to care exist within religious practices (hospices, pilgrimages, forms of spiritual healing), medical traditions (both learned and vernacular), and socio-political frameworks, whether institutional or non-institutional, legal or extra-legal ? What forms did care provision take ? What do ostensibly objective testimonies reveal ? And how do fictional representations engage with these practices ?
Participants may also revisit the theological justifications prevalent in the Middle Ages (for example in the works of Nicholas of Cusa and Thomas à Kempis), according to which the “simple-minded” or the “village idiot” could be mocked, yet also tolerated or even venerated (see Walter Kaiser, Praisers of Folly : Erasmus, Rabelais, Shakespeare). The gap between practices such as the ship of fools and what Michel Foucault famously termed the “Great Confinement” may also be reassessed.
Further avenues of inquiry include the more or less questionable practices of exorcists who claimed that the mad were possessed by demons ; the variations in medical diagnoses and prescriptions ; and the evolution of legal frameworks from the Middle Ages to the mid-seventeenth century (for instance, the Tudor Poor Laws).
Finally, the conference invites reflection on the tension between care as it is presented—whether as moral obligation or charity—and the coercive methods it may in fact entail, particularly within asylum institutions.
By bringing into dialogue the fields of history, medical humanities, philosophy, and literary studies, this conference aims to explore, through the lens of care, the social, ethical, and political dynamics of responses to madness in medieval and early modern Europe.
Submission guidelines
Proposals (abstract of approximately 250–300 words + bibliography of approximately 100–150 words) should be submitted by June 15, 2026, to
- pascale.drouet@univ-poitiers.fr
- frederique.fouassier@univ-tours.fr
Organisation
- Pascale Drouet (CESCM)
- Frédérique Fouassier (CESR)
Suggested bibliography
Brugère, Fabienne, L’éthique du care, Paris, PUF, 2011.
Carter, Philippa, Frenzy in Early Modern England. Madness, Brain Disease and the Soul, Cambridge, CUP, 2026.
Equestri, Alice, « ‘This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen’ : Feste, Lear’s Fool and the border between ‘idiocy’ and mental illness », Cahiers Élisabéthains, 99, 2019, p. 23-32.
Foucault, Michel, Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique, Paris, Gallimard, coll. « Tel », 1972.
Foucault, Michel, Maladie mentale et psychologie, Paris PUF, coll. « Quadrige », (1954), 2008.
Garrau, Marie et Alice Le Goff, Care, justice et dépendance. Introduction aux théories du Care, Paris, PUF, 2010.
Gilligan, Carol, In a Different Voice, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, (1982) 2016.
Jackson, Ken, Separate Theaters : Bethlem (‘Bedlam’) Hospital and the Shakespearean Stage, Newark, University Press of Delaware Press, 2005.
Laharie, Muriel, La folie au Moyen Âge (XIe–XIIIe siècles), Paris, Le Léopard d’Or, 1991.
Laugier, Sandra (dir.), Le souci des autres. Éthique et politique du care, Paris, EHESS, 2011.
O’Donoghue, Edward Geoffrey, The Story of Bethlehem Hospital from Its Foundation in 1247, New York, Dutton, 1915.
Quetél, Claude, Histoire de la folie, de l’antiquité à nos jours, Paris, Tallandier, (2012) 2020.
MacDonald, Michael, Mystical Bedlam : madness, anxiety and healing in seventeenth-century England, Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Midelfort, Erik Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany, Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1994.
Maldiney, Henry, Penser l’homme et la folie, Grenoble, Éditions Jérôme Millon, 2007.
Roscioni, Lisa, « Soin et/ou enfermement ? Hôpitaux et folie sous l’Ancien Régime », Genèses, 1, 2011, p. 31-51.
Tronto, Joan, Moral Boundaries, New York, 1993.
Turner, Wendy J., Care and Custory of the Mentally Ill, Incompetent, and Disabled in Medieval England, Turnhout, Brepols, 2013.
Subjects
Places
- Centre d'Etudes Supérieures de la Renaissance - 59 Rue Néricault Destouches
Tours, France (37)
Event attendance modalities
Full on-site event
Date(s)
- Monday, June 15, 2026
Attached files
Keywords
- folie, care, représentation, moyen âge, Renaissance
Contact(s)
- Pascale Drouet
courriel : pascale [dot] drouet [at] univ-tours [dot] fr - Frédérique Fouassier
courriel : frederique [dot] fouassier [at] univ-tours [dot] fr
Reference Urls
Information source
- Frédérique Fouassier
courriel : frederique [dot] fouassier [at] univ-tours [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Caring for Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Approaches, Practices, and Representations », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Thursday, April 30, 2026, https://doi.org/10.58079/165qe
