Combines modern and medieval approaches to intellectual disability, and engages with a very wide range of sources in order to fill a major gap in this relatively new field, and demonstrate that disability, illness and healthcare are embedded in daily life

This is the first book devoted to the cultural history in the pre-modern period of people we now describe as having learning disabilities. Using an interdisciplinary approach, including historical semantics, medicine, natural philosophy and law, it considers a neglected field of social and medical history and makes an original contribution to the problem of a shifting concept such as 'idiocy'. Medieval physicians, lawyers and the schoolmen of the emerging universities wrote the texts which shaped medieval definitions of intellectual ability and its counterpart, disability. In studying such texts, which form part of our contemporary scientific and cultural heritage, we gain a better understanding of which people were considered to be intellectually disabled and how their participation and inclusion in society differed from the situation today.

1 Pre-/conceptions: problems of definition and historiography
2 Frommorio to fool: semantics of intellectual disability
3 Cold complexions and moist humors: natural science and intellectual disability
4 The infantile and the irrational: mind, soul and intellectual disability
5 Non-consenting adults: laws and intellectual disability
6 Fools, pets and entertainers: socio-cultural considerations of intellectual disability
7 Reconsiderations: rationality, intelligence and human status
Index

Fools and idiots? is the first book devoted to the cultural history in the pre-modern period of people we now describe as having learning disabilities. Using an interdisciplinary approach, including historical semantics, medicine, natural philosophy and law, Irina Metzler considers a neglected field of social and medical history and makes an original contribution to the problem of a shifting concept such as 'idiocy'. Medieval physicians, lawyers and the schoolmen of the emerging universities wrote the texts which shaped medieval definitions of intellectual ability and its counterpart, disability. In studying such texts, which form part of our contemporary scientific and cultural heritage, we gain a better understanding of which people were considered to be intellectually disabled, and how their participation and inclusion in society differed from the situation today. This book will be required reading for anyone studying or working in disability studies, history of medicine, social history and the history of ideas.