This magisterial work explores how Renaissance Germans understood and experienced madness. It focuses on the insanity of the world in general but also on specif

H.C. Erik Midelfort has carved out a reputation for innovative work on early modern German history, with a particular focus on the social history of ideas and r

With an acute ear for the nuances of sixteenth-century diagnosis, H.C. Erik Midelfort details the expansion of a learned medical vocabulary with which contempor

From the ideological crucible of the Reformation emerged an embittered contest for the human soul. In the care of souls, the clergy zealously dispensed spiritua

Michel Foucault examines the archeology of madness in the West from 1500 to 1800 - from the late Middle Ages, when insanity was still considered part of everyda