Signs of Mental Disorder in Late Medieval Visual Evidence

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The “construction” of mental illness in the Middle Ages in the context of the visibility and perceptibility.

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By Gerhard Jaritz
Professor Emeritus of Medieval Studies
Central European University

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Introduction

Images are an important part of any communication.¹ They transmit, among other messages, social, cultural, religious, economic, scientific, or political ideas. They help people, both senders and receivers, to recognise, to under­stand, to teach, to warn, to emotionalize, and so on. Historians’ use of images and analysis of the visual culture of the past always leads to questions about the “reality” of the contents of images, the cultural constructions of “reality effects,”² and the code systems that determined the statements offered by images.³ Late medieval images, in particular, played an important role in this regard.

All the above aspects have to be considered when using images for analysing the visual representation of persons suffering from mental disorders. The importance of seeing the “construction” of disability in the context of the visibility and perceptibility of distinguishing marks has been generally recog­nised in all fields of Disability Studies.⁴ This is certainly true for the medieval pictorial evidence that will be used as a source material in this contribution. The chapter concentrates on such visual evidence, its signs, symbolic charac­ter, patterns, and their development, which were, in a religious context, mainly meant for a more or less learned public of non­specialists in the field of medi­cine: from members of monastic houses to the broad scope of churchgoers of different social, cultural, and intellectual levels. I will use pictorial material originating from Central Europe, from the end of the thirteenth to the begin­ning of the sixteenth century.⁵ However, specific medical images, being mainly illustrations in medical manuscripts, are not handled here.⁶

Visual Intercessions and Restoring Mental Order

Usually visual representation of mental disorder characterises the depicted persons as either negative or positive, to be helped or healed, mostly by the intercession of saints. Saints, for instance, can be traced in votive images or depictions of miracles that had happened at pilgrimages, mainly from the end of the fifteenth century onwards. Two image cycles of this type from Austria are the so-­called Large (c. 1520) and Small (1512) Mariazell Miracle altars, which originate from the important Styrian place of pilgrimage of the same name, Mariazell.⁷ One example of mental disorder in these panels, and its healing through the intercession of the Virgin, refers to the falling sickness, that is, epi­lepsy.⁸ There are a large number of existing late medieval visual representa­tions of persons suffering from epilepsy and its cure. They range from biblical scenes to depictions of Saint Valentine to votive images and miracle series. The example from the Large Mariazell Miracle altar shows a woman from a rather wealthy urban or aristocratic family, who had fallen but was healed through the intercession of the Virgin, who had been appealed to by the wom­an’s husband (fig. 1).⁹

The fifth­-century missionary bishop Saint Valentine of Raetia became the most important patron of and intercessor for epileptics, especially in the German­-speaking areas. His attribute is an epileptic, often a child, lying at his feet. This can mainly be explained by the phonetic similarity in the German language of the verb “to fall” (“fallen”) and the saint’s name Valentine (“Valentin”). Thus, the number of depictions of epileptics in connection with Saint Valentine in late medieval visual evidence, mostly from south German and Austrian areas is quite considerable.

Generally, the images show different visual representations of the fallen epi­leptics. One can distinguish, for instance, between the following types:

• the fallen woman from the Large Mariazell Miracle altar lying on her stom­ach (fig. 1);

• a young man (fig. 2) lying passively on his back but with open mouth, being healed by Saint Valentine in a Bavarian panel painting from around 1500;¹⁰

• another young man or child who fell as if in a fit, being the attribute of Saint Valentine in a panel painting from Upper Hungary (fig. 3);¹¹

• the epileptic boy (lunaticus) who regularly fell into fire and water and was carried to Jesus and healed by the latter through exorcism – a visual representation of the most famous epilepsy healing reference in the Bible, described in Mark 9:17–27, Matthew 17:14–18, and Luke 9:37–43 (fig. 4).¹²

The context of the falling sickness and its cure by exorcism is a phenome­non that appears a number of times in texts and images.¹³ Generally, any men­tal illness and disorder could be seen and depicted as connected with demonic possession,¹⁴ mainly in scenes from the Bible, saints’ legends and in miracle images. These representations again offer patterns of the visualisation of men­tal disorder, that is, possessed people and their outer appearance.

Gendered Symptoms in Visual Material

It has to be emphasized that in miracle reports and saints’ legends, and therefore also in images, the number of possessed women is invariably higher than the number of males.¹⁵

Some examples are: an exorcism by Saint Bernard (fig. 5),¹⁶ one by Saint Leonard (fig. 6),¹⁷ and one instance from the Small Mariazell Miracle altar (fig. 7).¹⁸

One of the rarer examples concerning a male person again involves Saint Leonard (fig. 8).¹⁹ The depicted possessed man shows two outwardly visible signs that often occur in male people suffering from mental disturbance: nakedness and a bald head. This is a pattern that also occurs regularly in late medieval visual rep­resentations of negatively evaluated people or members of the lowest groups of society, perhaps on the model of Luke 8:26–27 (KJV):

“And they arrived at the country of the Gad’a­renes which is over against Gal’i­lee. And when he [ Jesus] went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man which had devils long time and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs….”

One of the most popular figures used for the visual representation of mental disorder is the natural male fool,²⁰ particularly the insipiens of Vulgate Psalm 52 (“Dixit insipiens in corde suo non est Deus, corrupti sunt et abominabiles facti sunt in iniquitatibus non est faciat bonum…”) (52:1–2) “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good….” (KJV, Ps. 53:1). While there are clearly some differences concerning the visual representations of those fools, certain important patterns can also be recognised,²¹ in particular the nakedness of parts of the body and the bald or shaved head (figs. 9 and 10).²²

Facial Expressions as Signs of Disorder

Fools and other negative figures of mental disorder often show some par­ticular facial expression that makes them recognisable to everyone. The signs that occur most explicitly and most often in images and texts are the open mouth, sometimes showing tongue and teeth, and laughter.

Descriptions of the mouths of fools and other people with deviant behav­iour appear in a number of cases in the Bible and this pattern was also adopted in the late medieval visual representations.²³ Some of these biblical examples are:

Proverbs 10:14: “Wise men lay up knowledge; but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction.”

Proverbs 14:3: “In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride; but the lips of the wise shall preserve them.”

Proverbs 18:6: “A fool’s lips enter into contention, and his mouth calleth for strokes.”

Proverbs 18:7: “A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.”

Proverbs 29:11: “A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.”

Psalm 64:2–3: “Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insur­rection of the workers of iniquity who wet their tongue like a sword….” (see fig. 11²⁴).

Ecclesiastes 5:3: “A fool’s voice is known by multitude of words.”

The disturbance could be increased when the open mouth was connected with laughter. Here, one may again compare, for instance, Ecclesiastes 2:2: “I said of laughter. It is mad; and of mirth: What doeth it?,” and Ecclesiastes 7:6: “For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.” Such a “fool” can be found in an initial of the letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians (fig. 12²⁵). Again, a context of image and text was created, as the let­ter is dealing with foolish sinners:²⁶

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins (2:1)….Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers (4:29)….Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks (5:4)….See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. (5:15)….Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is (5:17).

The visual representations of such negatively evaluated fools could sometimes emotionalise their beholders in such a way that they tried to deface the image by rubbing or scratching off the figure, as can be seen in another example of the insipiens of the Vulgate, Psalm 52 (fig. 13).²⁷

The above examples of fools establish a familiar pattern of visual and textual representation of (mentally) disabled persons, not only in the Middle Ages but also up to the present day, one of created ugliness, sometimes merging into comic ugliness.²⁸ Besides nakedness, bald­headedness, gaping mouth, and the showing of tongue and teeth, other distorted facial expressions like squinting (see fig. 6) may be represented. Often these distorted facial expressions were meant to represent negative attributes and sinfulness, but they might also activate the beholders’ pity. Some material attributes, based on the textual background, could also be used to indicate the mental disorder of the portrayed persons, such as the bread sometimes held by the fool in the illustrations of Psalm 52.²⁹

Conclusions

With the help of late medieval Central European religious image material, visual constructions that used familiar methods and signs of people with men­tal disorder were offered to beholders who were not specialists in any medical respect. On the one hand they were directed at a public for whom easy com­prehensibility was important, and on the other hand at clerics, that is, special­ists in theological and religious aspects of life, for whom the biblical contexts were relevant. Certain patterns and stereotypes occurred in representations of mental disorder, so that it could be recognised and identified through a depicted bodily disorder, usually distorted physiognomy, in particular facial expression, and nakedness. The portrayal as possessed by the devil also played an important role. Visual representations of mental disorders in female and male persons had a different emphasis. While mentally disturbed men were mainly represented as fools and insipientes, female mental disorder often involved possession by the devil. The visual discourse about the falling sick­ness dealt with both women and men.

A number of represented aspects of mental and bodily disorders and the respective restoration to health can be seen as signs and symbols meant to warn, motivate, or educate those who saw the images. Depicted persons suffer­ing from mental disorder were, on the one hand, to be recognised as negative creatures, embodiments of ignorance, misdoings, and sin. On the other hand, the portrayal of figures suffering from mental illness could be connected with hope and also recognised as an opportunity to intervene, help, and heal: for Christ and the saints by miracles, for relatives, friends and the general public by prayer and invocation of God and the saints. Saintly intercession, miracles, and exorcisms to bring mentally disturbed people back to a state of mental and bodily order played a very important role in the depictions. The contextualised creation, construction, and perception of mentally disordered people in late medieval visual culture, and the “reality effects” of their portrayal enabled the communication of messages that went far beyond aspects of mental distur­bance and illness.

Endnotes

1. See, e.g., Paul Martin Lester, Visual Communication: Images with Messages, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006).
2. Roland Barthes, “The Reality Effect,” in idem, The Rustle of Language, trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), 141–148. Concerning late medieval art, see Keith Moxey, “Reading the ‘Reality Effect’,” in Pictura quasi fictura: Die Rolle des Bildes in der Erforschung von Alltag und Sachkultur des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Gerhard Jaritz (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996), 15–21.
3. See, e.g., Ernst H. Gombrich, “Image and Code: Scopes and Limits of Conventionalism in Pictorial Representation,” in Image and Code, ed. Wendy Steiner (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981), 11–42.
4. Anne Waldschmidt, “Macht – Wissen – Körper. Anschlüsse an Michel Foucault in den Disability Studies,” in Disability Studies. Kultursoziologie und Soziologie der Behinderung, ed. Anne Waldschmidt and Werner Schneider (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2007), 55–77, at 64: “…die Bedeutung des Sehens für die Konstruktion von ‘Behinderung’ über den Stellenwert von Visibilität und Wahrnehmbarkeit von Merkmalen verhandeln.” See also Andere Bilder. Zur Produktion von Behinderung in der visuellen Kultur, ed. Beate Ochsner and Anna Grebe (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2013), 7–8. Concerning images of mental illness in modern mass media, see Martin Halliwell, Images of Idiocy: the Idiot Figure in Modern Fiction and Film (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2004); Otto F. Wahl, Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995).
5. The images are taken from real online, the Central European image database of the “Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit” of the University of Salzburg in Austria (http://www.tethys.imareal.sbg.ac.at/realonline). The database contains c. 25,000, in detail described, images of panel and wall paintings, manuscript illuminations, etc. from the period of the 13th century to c. 1600 that are originating from today’s Austria, Southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Transylvania, Slovenia, and South Tyrol.
6. There is a large number of studies on medieval medical illustrations; see, e.g., Loren C. MacKinney, “Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts of the Vatican Library,” Manuscripta 3 (1959): 3–18 and 76–88; Loren C. MacKinney, “Medieval Medical Miniatures in Central and Eastern European Collections,” Manuscripta 5 (1961): 131–150; Loren C. MacKinney and Thomas Herndon, “American Manuscript Collections of Medieval Medical Miniatures and Texts,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 17 (1962): 284–307; Iidem, Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts, 2 vols (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965); Robert Herrlinger, History of Medical Illustration, from Antiquity to 1600 (London: Pitman Medical & Scientific Publishing Co., 1970); Helmut Vogt, Das Bild des Kranken: die Darstellung äusserer Veränderungen durch innere Leiden und ihrer Heilmassnahmen von der Renaissance bis in unsere Zeit, 2nd ed. (Munich: Bergmann, 1980); Peter Murray Jones, Medieval Medical Miniatures (London: British Museum, 1984); Idem, Medieval Medicine in Illuminated Manuscripts (London: British Library, 1998); Idem, “Image, Word, and Medicine in the Middle Ages,” in Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200–1550, ed. Jean A. Givens et al. (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2006), 1–24; Francesca Guerra, “Simplifying Access: Metadata for Medieval Disabil­ity Studies,” PNLA Quarterly 74: 2 (2010): 10–26, http://www.pnla.org/assets/documents/Quarterly/pnlaq74­2winter2010.pdf, accessed August 2, 2013.
7. The Large and Small Mariazell Miracle altars (“Großer Mariazeller Wunderaltar”; “Kleiner Mariazeller Wunderaltar”) are today both kept in the Styrian Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz (Austria). The small altar consists of six panels, the large one of 47 panels showing miracles that happened through the intercession of the Virgin. See, e.g., “…da half Maria aus aller Not.” Der Große Mariazeller Wunderaltar aus der Zeit um 1520, ed. Walter Brunner (Graz: Steiermärkisches Landesarchiv, 2002); Gerhard Jaritz, “Der Große Mariazeller Wunderaltar. Oder: Zeichen der Allmacht der Gottesmutter,” in Mariazell und Ungarn. 650 Jahre religiöse Gemeinsamkeit, ed. Walter Brunner et al. (Graz and Esztergom: Steiermärkische Landesarchiv, 2003), 61–68; Elfriede Grabner, “Kultstätte und Heilbrauch,” in Ungarn in Mariazell – Mariazell in Ungarn. Geschichte und Erinnerung, ed. Peter Farbaky and Szabolcs Serfőző (Budapest: Historisches Museum der Stadt Budapest, 2004), 61–73.
8. As a standard work, see still Owsei Temkin, The Falling Sickness. A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginning of Modern Neurology, 2nd ed. (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994), for the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 85–136 and 137–204.
9. The caption says: “Ein fraw ward lange czeit ser beschwerdt mit dem hinffallenden siechtum, alß pald si ir man gen Cell verhies mit einem opfer ward sie an alle ercznei gesuntt.” (“A woman was troubled by the falling sickness for a long time. As soon as her husband promised her to Mariazell with an offering she was restored to health without any medicine.”)
10. Saint Valentine healing an epileptic, panel of a winged altarpiece, Bartholome Zeitblom, c. 1500. Augsburg (Germany), Staatsgalerie. See Altdeutsche Gemälde der Staatsgalerie Augsburg, ed. Gisela Goldberg et al. (Munich: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, 1978), 123–127.
11. St. Valentine and St. Stephen of Hungary (detail: the epileptic young man), panel of a winged altarpiece, beginning of the 16th century. Sabinov (Slovakia), parish church. See Libuše Cidlinská, Gotické krídlové oltáre na Slovensku (Gothic winged altarpieces in Slovakia) (Bratislava: Tatran, 1989), 68.
12. Jesus healing the epileptic boy, book illumination, Moravia (?), c. 1430. Vienna, Austrian National Library, cod. 485: Historia Novi Testamenti, fol. 30r. Concerning “lunatic” see Michele A. Riva, et al., “The Disease of the Moon: The Linguistic and Pathological Evolution of the English Term ‘Lunatic’,” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 20 (2011): 65–73.
13. See Brian P. Levack, The Devil Within. Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013), especially 26–27, 115–117, and passim.
14. See, in particular, the contribution by Sari Katajala ­Peltomaa in this volume; Simon Kemp and Kevin Williams, “Demonic Possession and Mental Disorder in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” Psychological Medicine 17 (1987): 21–29; Levack, The Devil Within, 113–138.
15. Cf. Levack, The Devil Within, 171–182. Concerning gender and demonic possession see also Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006). With regard to gender and disability in medieval literature, see Tory Vandeventer Pearman, Women and Disability in Medieval Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
16. Exorcism by Saint Bernard (detail), panel of a winged altarpiece, Jörg Breu the Older, c. 1500. Zwettl (Austria), abbey church. See Cäsar Menz, Das Frühwerk Jörg Breus des Älteren (Augsburg: Kommissionsverlag Bücher Seitz, 1982), 20. See also the legend in the Legenda Aurea: “…a man brought his wife, who was possessed of a devil, to him [= S. Bernard]. The devil, speaking through the poor woman’s mouth, began to insult the man of God, saying: ‘This eater of leeks and devourer of cabbages won’t get me out of my little old women!’…Bernard prayed, and the demon went out of the woman;…” Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 491.
17. Exorcism of the king’s daughter by Saint Leonard (detail), panel of a winged altarpiece, Master of Sankt Leonhard bei Tamsweg, after 1450. Tamsweg (Austria), daughter church St. Leonhard. Saint Leonard is mainly known because of his release of prisoners from captivity. However, his miraculous exorcisms of people possessed by demons are also mentioned, in his vitae as well as in reports about post mortem­ miracles ascribed to him. See François Arbellot, The Life of Saint Leonard surnamed the Solitary of Limousin, France from the Life of the Saint, trans. Comtesse Marie de Borchgrave d’Altena (London: R. & T. Washbourne Ltd, 1910) [French original: Paris, 1863], 21; Steven Douglas Sargent, Religion and Society in Late Medieval Bavaria: The Cult of Saint Leonard (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1982, unprinted Ph.D. dissertation), 300–302.
18. Exorcism of a woman who had killed her parents and child, by the intercession of the Virgin. Graz, Universalmuseum Joanneum, panel of the Small Mariazell Miracle altar, 1512. See Grabner, “Kultstätte und Heilbrauch,” 64–66.
19. Exorcism by Saint Leonard, panel of a winged altarpiece, c. 1450. Bad Aussee (Austria), daughter church St. Leonhard.
20. For the distinction between natural and artificial fools and the problems that arose from this distinction, see especially Irina Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–1400 (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 8–9; Irina Metzler, A Social History of Disability in the Middle Ages. Cultural Considerations of Physical Impairment (New York and London: Routledge, 2013), 86–91. See also Ruth von Bernuth, “«Wer im gůtz thett dem rödet er vbel». Natürliche Narren im Gebetbuch des Matthäus Schwarz,” in Homo debilis. Behinderte – Kranke – Versehrte in der Gesellschaft des Mittelalters, ed. Mechthild Dreyer, Cordula Nolte, and Jörg Rogge (Korb: Didymos­ Verlag, 2009), 411–430; Ruth von Bernuth, Wunder, Spott und Prophetie: Natürliche Narrheit in den “Historien von Claus Narren”: 133 (Fra1/4he Neuzeit) (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2009); Alexandra Pfau, “Protecting or Restraining? Madness as a Disability in Late Medieval France,” in Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations, ed. Joshua R. Eyler (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2010), 93–104.
21. See also Angelika Gross, “Das Bild des Narren: Von Psalm 52 zu Sebastian Brant,” in Bild und Abbild vom Menschen im Mittelalter, ed. Elisabeth Vavra (Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag, 1999), 273–291.
22. Fig. 9: The insipiens in the initial of Psalm 52, c. 1270. Vienna, Austrian National Library, cod. 1898: Psalter, fol. 85v; see Andreas Fingernagel and Martin Roland, Mitteleuropäische Schulen I (ca. 1250–1350), Textband (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997), 57–64. Fig. 10: King David and the insipiens pointing at his mouth in the initial of Psalm 52, beginning of the 15th century. Vienna, Austrian National Library, cod. 2783: Psalter, fol. 93r; see Andreas Fingernagel and Katherina Hranitzky, Mitteleuropäische Schulen II (ca. 1350–1410), Textband (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2002), 184–192, in particular 189.
23. In Fig. 10 the fool just points with his index finger at his mouth to show its danger.
24. Manuscript illumination, cantional, 1490. Vienna, Austrian National Library, Mus. cod. 15501, fol. 101v.
25. Open mouth and foolish laughter of the sinner. Part of the initial P of Paulus, 1341. Vienna, Austrian National Library, cod. 1203: Bible, fol. 268r: “Incipit epistola ad Ephesios. Paulus Apostolus Jesu Christi per voluntatem Dei omnibus sanctis qui sunt Ephesi, et fidelibus in Christo Jesu….” See Fingernagel and Roland, Mitteleuropäische Schulen I, Textband, 310–314.
26. Concerning the stereotype of the medieval connection of mental disorder and sin, see Jerome Kroll and Bernard Bachrach, “Sin and Mental Illness in the Middle Ages,” Psychological Medicine 14 (1984): 507–514.
27. Defaced insipiens in an initial of Psalm 52, second half of the 14th century. Graz (Austria), University Library, cod. 387: Psalter, fol. 63 v.
28. See, e.g., Claudia Gottwald, “Behinderung in der Karikatur. Zum Verhältnis von Hässlichkeit, Komik und Behinderung in der Geschichte der Karikatur,” in Andere Bilder. Zur Produktion von Behinderung in der visuellen Kultur, ed. Beate Ochsner and Anna Grebe (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2013), 117–132; Gunnar Schmidt, “Menschentrümmer oder eine neue Anthropologie? Zur Fotografie der hässlichen Krankheiten im 19. Jahrhundert,” in ibidem, 195–209; Claudia Gottwald, “Ist Behinderung komisch? Lachen über verkörperte Differenz im historischen Wandel,” in Disability History. Konstruktionen von Behinderung in der Geschichte. Eine Einführung, ed. Elsbeth Bosl, Anne Klein, and Anne Waldschmidt (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2010), 231–251. Concerning the complex­ity of ugliness in the context of disability in the Middle Ages, see Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, 48–55. On constructions of bodily ugliness in early modern texts and images generally, see Naomi Baker, Plain Ugly: The Unattractive Body in Early Modern Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010).
29. Referring to Vulgate, Psalm 52:5: “Nonne scient omnes qui operantur iniquitatem, qui devorant plebem meam ut cibum panis?” – “Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Who eat up my people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God.” (KJV, Psalm 53:4). See the fool of fig. 13 holding bread in his right hand.

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Contribution (91-107) from Mental (Dis)Order in Later Medieval Europe, edited by Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Susanna Niiranen (Brill Academic Pub., 03.12.2014), published by OAPEN under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.