1st Edition

Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages Un/suitable for Divine Service?

By Ninon Dubourg Copyright 2023
294 Pages
by Routledge

294 Pages
by Routledge

294 Pages
by Routledge

The petitions received and the letters sent by the Papal Chancery during the Late Middle Ages attest to the recognition of disability at the highest levels of the medieval Church. These documents acknowledge the existence of physical and/or mental impairments, with the papacy issuing dispensations allowing some supplicants to adapt their clerical missions according to their abilities. A disease,... Read more
Preface, Introduction: A Formal Dialogue, Chapter 1: Legal Origins of the Prohibition on Clerical Disability, Chapter 2: Aetiologies of Impairment: Congenital, Geriatric, and Acquired Conditions, Chapter 3: Joining the Clergy, Chapter 4: Staying in the Clergy, Chapter 5: Leaving the Clergy, Conclusion, List of works cited for each chapter

Biography

Ninon Dubourg is a doctor in Medieval History of the University of Paris Diderot, now a post-doctoral researcher at the Transitions Unit of the University of Liège (Belgium). She is in charge of the research blog History of Disease, Disability and Medicine in Medieval Europe and the co-organiser of the EHESS’ monthly seminar “Construire une histoire du handicap et de la surdité au travers des siècles” (Building a history of disability and deafness through the centuries) with Fab-rice Bertin (EHESS) and Gildas Brégain (Rennes, CNRS) (2021-2022). She is a foreign associate member of the research network Homo Debilis at the Bremen University and a member of the Re-search Group Handicap et sociétés of the Réseau Jeunes chercheurs Santé et Sociétés at the EHESS.

"In this important and well-researched book, Ninon Dubourg analyzes the interactions between disabled clerics and the medieval papacy, drawing on an abundant source base of petitions sent to popes and the papal letters composed in response"

Amelia Kennedy, Princeton Theological Seminary, in The Journal of Religion.