Courtesy of Pete Millington,
Editor & Researcher
Disability West Midlands
Medieval Times
Confinement, Witches, Beggars and Plagues
1100s Institutions for the quarantine of people with leprosy became prolific throughout Europe, these places became known as leprosariums and the majority were linked to religious orders. This is an early example of the ‘confinement and segregation of disabled people.
1106 Foundation of the Priory near the church of St Mary Overie, Southwark, which became St Thomas’ Hospital in 1215.
1123 Foundation of St Bartholomew’s Hospital.
Early Middle Ages Formation of almshouses, charitable foundations for the care of the poor, especially elderly people.
1200s Belgian village of Gheel supports people with mental disabilities in family care settings, providing vocational opportunities in a community setting with an infirmary and a church centred around the shrine of St Dymphna.
1270 Death of King Louis the Ninth of France. Louis was canonized in 1297 for his commitment to the care of 300 knights blinded during the Crusades. He founded the first institution for blind people in the world, called the Quinze-Vingts hospice in Paris.
Asylums for people with mental disability founded in Damascus and Aleppo by Arabs.
1280 The foundation of St Leonard's, York, one of the first and greatest medieval hospitals, housing 229 inmates.
1290 De Praerogativa Regis, the Act giving the King custody of the lands of natural fools and wardship of the property of the insane, may have been drawn up between 1255 and 1290.
1300 Around this time spectacles were invented in Italy.
1325 The Venetian Republic founded the first national health service in Europe, and obliged licensed practitioners to attend an annual course in anatomy. In 1368 they were required to attend monthly meetings to exchange notes on new cases and treatments.
1326 A ‘madhouse’ constructed as part of the Georghospital in Elbing, Germany.
1344 Royal Ordinance decreed that lepers should leave the City of London and "betake themselves to places in the country".
1348 – 50 The Black Death or bubonic plague reaches Britain from Europe. The first outbreaks of bubonic plague are in China and India in 1344 and the Black Death rapidly becomes the most horrific natural disaster of the Middle Ages, killing 25 million people in Europe alone – compared with 10 million deaths in World War 1.
The plague was spread by flees from rats and became endemic in Britain for hundreds of years. Sick people were usually isolated and their houses marked with a white cross. Occasionally they were supported from public funds. To many Christians the Black Death was a punishment from God and religious fanaticism became prevalent.
1350 The start of the Renais sance period of art and culture in Europe brought a resurgence of the obsession for physical beauty and perfection.
1377 The religious priory of St Mary of Bethlem in London, was confiscated by King Edward 3rd in 1375, and used for ‘lunatics’ from 1377. In 1403/1404 it had just six insane patients and three who were sane. This old Bedlam was a small institution on a site south of what is now Liverpool Street Station. In the 17th century it had about 30 patients. Its showy replacement, the Moorfields Bedlam opened in 1676.
A Guild of Blind Beggars is established in Padua, Italy, which resulted in regulated begging and organised pensions for elderly blind beggars.
1388 An English statute gave a mandate to local officials to discriminate between the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor claiming alms. Specific reference was made to disabled people: The Statute of Cambridge ("Poor Law") concerning Labourers, Servants and Beggars strengthened the powers of the justices of the peace; distinguished between "sturdy beggars" capable of work and "impotent beggars" incapacitated by age or infirmity; and made each "hundred" responsible for housing and keeping its own paupers, but made no special provision for maintaining the sick poor. This statute pointed the way to the Tudor Poor Laws of 1531, but for the next two centuries the aged and infirm depended upon charity for survival.
1405 Report of a Visitation which had enquired into the deplorable state of affairs at Bethlem Hospital. There is a report of a Royal Commission, in 1405, as to the state of lunatics confined there.
1409 Spain has been described as the cradle of humane psychiatry because of the treatment at asylums such as Valencia, Sargossa, Seville, Valladolid, Palma Mallorca, Toledo (the Hospital de Innocents) and Granada. Valencia, opened at the beginning of the century, is said to have removed chains and used games, occupation, entertainment, diet and hygiene as early as 1409
1414 Inquiry into the Manner, Foundation, Governance and Estates of Hospitals and to make the necessary Correction and Reformation.
1432 Enactment in the Scottish Parliament meeting in Perth restricted the movement of lepers in cities.
1436 Margery Kempe, who was born in Lynn, Norfolk, about 1373 and lived to 1438, dictated a book of her spiritual experiences (1436) which shows how she went "out of her mind" after childbirth, was bound in a storeroom to prevent her from self-harm, suspected of demonic possession, but escaped burning, had visions of angels and visions of men's sexual parts and was seen as both holy and heretic. Through hearing holy sermons and books, she "ever increased in contemplation and holy meditation, but learnt through divine visits to her during and after "cursed thoughts" and "pain" that "every good thought is the speech of God".
1440s Attitudes in rural Britain harden further towards the 'sinful poor'. It is recognised that agricultural accidents are very high, particularly at harvest time, scythes are mentioned as the most lethal weapons. There are also records that many people over the age of 45 die of exposure in the month of January. It is suggested that parish relief and almshouses can no longer cope with the vast level of need.
1464 Two examples taken from the Calendar of Patent Rolls for Edward 4th, Part 1 of people being granted custody of the person and property of an ‘idiot’:
19.8.1464: "Grant to Henry Curteys of Grantham and his assigns of the custody of Alice Fyssh, who is an idiot, and of all her lands and tenements in Harreardby co Lincoln, and of all other lands and tenements held in chief which came into the King's hands by reason of her idiocy as appears by an inquisition taken before John Burgh, escheator in the county of Lincoln, to hold the same during her life - By K."
3.9.1464: "Grant to the king's servitor Thomas Witham, chancellor of the Exchequer, of the custody of the body of Katharine Metcalf, late the wife of Edmund Metcalf, who has been an idiot from her birth, and of all her lands and tenements in the county of York and in Kingeston on Hull, to hold during her idiotcy without rendering anything to the king but finding a competent sustenance for her and supporting all charges - By K."
1480 Following the invention of the printing press, mass communication became much easier. Henry Tudor was quick to exploit the new technology in order to pillory and caricature his rival, the disabled king, Richard III.
1489 During the witch-craze of the Middle Ages it was widely believed that witches were possessed by demons and evil spirits and in 1489 with the publication of the infamous witchfinders manual, the "Malleus Maleficarum", various symptoms of mental illness were ascribed to witchcraft. In fact, it was a common practice during the Middle Ages for "mad-doctors" to chisel a hole into the skulls of their patients to - "let the devil escape!" This ritual purification was called "pharmakos" and is the root source of our modern day word pharmaceutical.
1493 According to the writings of the French surgeon Ambroise Pare, there was a child born in 1493 whose impairment was diagnosed as being the result of “illicit intercourse between a woman and a dog, a creature resembling in its upper extremities its mother, while its lower extremities were the exact counterpart of its canine father”. Such cases based on bigotry and ignorance under the guise of medical science, led to religious hysteria, prejudice and the murder of disabled people across Catholic Europe, especially during the time of Pope Alexander I.
1494 Vagabonds and Beggars Act. “Vagabonds, idle and suspected persons shall be set in the stocks for three days and three nights and have none other sustenance but bread and water and then shall be put out of Town. Every beggar suitable to work shall resort to the Hundred where he last dwelled, is best known, or was born and there remain upon the pain aforesaid”. Beggars who were too infirm to work were to remain in their Hundred and be permitted to beg.
Publication of a book in German called The Ship of Fools by Brant, a religious preacher who uses the metaphor of the fool to persuade people to become pious. The myth is created that people with mental disability were at some point in history put in ships and cast out to sea, though there is no evidence that this ever happened in reality.
1495 Syphilis, possibly introduced from the new world broke out amongst troops in Italy and rapidly spread across Europe, reaching England and Holland in 1496. It reached India in 1498. In 1500 there was an epidemic of syphilis across Europe and in 1505 it reached China.
1500s and 1600s During a two hundred year period between 8 and 20 million people, mainly women, were put to death across Europe, accused of being witches. Many were disabled women whose impairment was seen as the badge of their evil. Others were the mothers of disabled children. The typical person accused of witchcraft was a woman who was both old and poor. Most accusations were brought by slightly wealthier neighbours. Accusations of witchcraft often centred around the casting of spells on cattle and people.
Girolamo Cardano (1501 - 1576) was the first physician to recognize the ability of deaf people to reason.
1516 “Utopia” by Thomas More published (English translation in 1551). “But hospital patients get first priority - oh yes, there are four hospitals in the suburbs, just outside the walls. . . These hospitals are so well run, and so well supplied with all types of medical equipment, the nurses are so sympathetic and conscientious, and there are so many experienced doctors constantly available, that, though nobody’s forced to go there, practically everyone would rather be ill in hospital than at home” (“Utopia”, translated by Paul Turner, page 81, Penguin Books, 1965).
1530 - 1540 With the Dissolution of the Roman Catholic monasteries and hospitals by Henry VIII, large numbers of disabled people became vagrants and beggars. Until this time the almshouses and hospitals of the Church dispensed charity to those who could not benefit from the help given by the craft guilds to their sick or aged members. When the State was forced to intervene, the parishes under the supervision of the justices of peace (in turn under the surveillance of the Privy Council) were made the agencies for the collection of voluntary (at first) alms and their distribution. Later, London levied the first compulsory poor rate and organised a system for poor relief through four institutions - Christ’s Hospital for children (1552), St Bartholomew’s and St Thomas Hospitals for the sick and Bridewell for the able-bodied destitute (1553). Other cities developed their own local schemes.
The Poor Law Act directed “how aged, poor, and impotent Persons, compelled to live by Alms, shall be ordered, and how Vagabonds and Beggars shall be punished. The former were to be licensed to beg (see 1531), the latter if found begging were to be whipped or put in the stocks for three days and nights with bread and water only and then to return to their birth-place and put to labour.
1500s In medieval art and medical texts "lunatics", as well as other disabled people, were always portrayed as unkempt, frenzied and dishevelled.
1531 Justices of the peace were ordered to issue a licence to beg to the infirm poor, thus making begging by ‘the sturdy’ an offence.
1535 (Poor Law) Act required that “all Governors of Shires, Cities, Towns, Hundreds, Hamlets and Parishes shall find and keep every aged, poor and impotent Person, which was born or dwelt three years within the same limit, by way of voluntary and charitable Alms ... for as none of them shall be compelled to go openly in begging. And also shall compel every sturdy Vagabond to be kept in continual labour ... “and gave powers to apprentice children aged between 5 and 13. Voluntary contributions for the relief of the poor were to be collected by the justices of the peace and churchwardens.
1538 The City of London unsuccessfully petitioned the King to give them five hospitals plus their endowments. The hospitals included Bethlem, St Bartholomew and St Thomas. They were needed to house:
"the miserable people lying in the street, offending every clean person passing by the way with their filth and nasty savours" [ savour here means smell]
1547 In 1547, Henry VIII handed over to the city of London the Priory of St. Mary of Bethlehem (which became the infamous Bedlam Hospital) for the express purpose of housing "mental patients."
The conditions inside this hospital were harsh and inhumane. The building was incredibly dirty as the patients were made to wallow in their own filth. They were often chained to the walls doused in cold water until they were near drowning and spun violently in a rotating chair. The administrators of the hospital would charge admission to the general public to come and gawk at the patients who were often naked and catatonic. At it's peak, Bedlam rivalled the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey in terms of tourist popularity and Bedlam has now become synonymous with chaos and confusion.
1551 The 5th outbreak of fever and 'sweating sickness' (influenza) since 1485 killed thousands of people in Britain and led to a dispute between the Protestant King Edward VI and his Catholic sister Mary. Edward claims that the epidemics are divine retribution against Catholic non-conformists.
1552 Parishes were ordered to register their poor; onus for the relief of the poor was placed on parish councils; and the parson was to exhort his parishioners to show charity to their neighbours. Each parish, Parliament suggested, should appoint two collectors of alms to assist the churchwardens after service on Trinity Sunday to “gently ask and demand of every man or woman what they of their charity will be contented to give weekly towards the relief of the poor”. The collectors had to receive the weekly payments and distribute the money to the registered poor of the parish.
1572 (Poor Law) Act made each parish responsible to provide for its own aged, impotent and sick poor; appointed “overseers” of the poor and empowered them to assess the parish; introduced compulsory poor rate; and made refusal to work for lawful wages or work provided by the overseer punishable offences.
1574 Scottish Poor Law Act.
1575 Lasso, a Spanish lawyer, concluded that deaf people who learn to speak are no longer dumb and should have rights to progeniture.
1590 Lu K'un orders city officials in Northern China to provide training for blind people in music, storytelling and fortune-telling.
1592 William Shakespeare writes Richard III - one of his earliest plays, about the ill-fated and much caricatured disabled English monarch.
1593 An Act for the Necessary Relief of Soldiers and Mariners stated that “Every parish shall be charged with a sum weekly towards the relief of sick, hurt, maimed soldiers and mariners”. Amending acts raising the amounts to be collected were passed in 1597 and 1601.
1597 Poor Law Act consolidated and extended previous acts and provided the first complete code of poor relief. Re-enacted the requirements for raising local poor rates, replacing voluntary giving by taxation decided by the overseers, and required the local justices of the peace to appoint, annually, and to supervise “Overseers of the Poor” for the purpose of setting to work those in need, apprenticing children, and providing “the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind and such other being poor and not able to work”. The scheme was centrally supervised by the Privy Council to whom the justices had to report and send returns. The act affirmed the mutual liability of parents and children to support each other.
1598 Poor Law Act: Every parish was to appoint overseers of the poor to find work for the unemployed and set up parish-houses for poor people who could not support themselves.
1600s One quarter of all children born in the 1600s died before the age of 10. Two thirds of this number died in the first year of life, most in the first month of life. Half of infant deaths were due to difficulties in birth and 'congenital defects'.
In the 17th century, Dr. Is sac Hawes, a doctor writing on the treatment of mental illness said: "Nothing is more neces sary for the recovery of lunatics than forcing them to respect fear. This is why maniacs recover much sooner if they are treated with torture instead of with medicines."
1601 The Poor Law made economic provision for people dependent on charity, which included disabled people.
1615 The birth of Richard Gibson, a painter (1615-1690) who was known in the court of Charles I as The Dwarf. Gibson was a page of the backstairs in the King’s court and married Anne Shepherd, also a dwarf. The King honoured the wedding with his presence.
1616 G.Bonifacio published a treatise discussing sign language, "Of The Art of Signs".
1657 Begging is outlawed in Paris.
1664 The Great Plague of London and similar events reinforced the traditional religious view that disease and impairment were God's judgements on sinners. Modern commentators suggest that during periods of plague, the gap between disabled people and the rest of the community was reduced as illness, impairment and associated exclusion and poverty became the common experience for larger numbers of people.
1670 Birth of Turlough O’Carolan, Ireland’s most famous harpist who became blind at the age of 18 due to smallpox. O’Carolan was not only a brilliant harp player, but a poet and writer of music. He was said to have been gregarious and a hard drinker, quick to temper, whom Yeats later described: "Carolan, the last of the Irish bards, slept on a rath, and ever after the fairy tunes ran in his head, and made him the great man he was." He died in 1738 and his wake lasted for four days.
1681 Royal College of Physicians formed.
1680s Sugiyama Waichi (1610 - 1694), a senior blind acupuncture specialist in Japan, opens a school at Edo in Tokyo.
1682 Under Czar Feodor Alekseyevich (the older brother of Peter the Great), by 1682 there were two charitable organizations which helped disabled people in Moscow by providing them with food, minimal health care and a place to live. By the end of the century there were about a dozen such organizations and by 1718, during Peter's rule, there were already 90 organizations serving 400 people.
1697 Daniel Defoe (1660-1731, journalist and novelist) proposed that the insurance principle should be applied to the social problems of the poor, including disability pensions and medical and institutional care.
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Page Last Updated on January 16, 2006