Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany

Download or read book Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany written by H. C. Erik Midelfort and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 contemporaries could describe these demented monarchs, as we watch the rise to prominence of the "melancholy prince." He also documents the transition from the brutal deposition of mad princes during the late Middle Ages to the imposition of medical therapy by the middle of the sixteenth century, taking note of the competing claims of medicine and theology. Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany takes a new look at the issues raised in Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization and provides an alternative framework of interpretation.