Managing melancholy: dynamics of theology, medicine and law in early modern Nordic Lutheran societies.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Reeh, Tine R., editor.

Beck, Catherine S., editor.

Series:

Refo500 academic studies, 2198-3089 ; volume 113

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Melancholy.

Theology.

Medicine--History.

Medicine.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (315 pages)

Place of Publication:

Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2026.

Summary:

Melancholy held a flexible position in early modern discourse and clinical practice both as an idea connected to inner feeling and an explanation for bodily and mental disturbances. This ambivalence became a vehicle for developing debates about self-examination and salvation, while also pushing the parameters of what legally and culturally constituted mentally impaired states. These developments were born from the dynamics of the emerging differentiated disciplines of theology, medicine and law, but were also the product of the way ordinary people thought about and dealt with troubled mental states in Nordic Lutheran societies. This volume’s geographical and temporal focus allows us to not only grapple with the deeper specificity of melancholy and its ambiguity in an important transitional period, but also allows us to develop an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together scholars working with methods from theology, forensic psychiatry, church-, medical-, legal-, literary-, social- and maritime history. In turn, this allows us to integrate ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ approaches while also establishing national comparisons that expose early modern intersections across cultural and disciplinary contexts.

Contents:

The Management of Melancholy: Salvation, Madness and Responsibility / Catherine Beck, Tine R. Reeh

Part One: Interchanging Ambivalences

Sorrow Working Salvation, Sorrow Leading to Death: Penance and Melancholy in August Hermann Francke and Johann Konrad Dippel / Vera Fasshauer

Salvation of Body and Soul: Medical Inspiration for Danish Radical Pietism / Rasmus H. C. Nørtoft Dreyer

Melancholy and Royal Authority: The Case of Queen Louise of Denmark-Norway / Sivert Angel

The Blessed Medicine of a Cheerful Murderer: Moravian Management of Melancholy / Sigrid Nielsby Christensen

Fiction, Suicide, and Censorship: The Theological Professors' Vote from 1776 regarding Goethe's Novel Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers / Rolv Nøtvik Jakobsen

Part Two: Dynamic Differentiations

Theologico-Judicial Reasoning in Niels Hemmingsen / Mattias Sommer Bostrup

Punitive Remorse as Means to Consolidation of Absolutism in Early Modern Denmark-Norway / Sjur Alte Furali

Managing Furious Insanity: Intersections of Poor Relief and Church Discipline in Eighteenth-Century Denmark / Benjamin Brandt Christiansen

Forensic Theology and Pastoral Care: The Interplay between Church Discipline and Secular Punishments in Managing Blasphemy Offences in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Denmark / Nanna Eva Nissen

Part Three: Social Transformations

Premedical Forensic Psychiatry: Conceptual Dynamics of Insanity, Melancholy and Desperation in Eighteenth-Century Danish Court Cases / Tine R. Reeh, Ralf Hemmingsen

Homicide, Suicide and the Insanity Defence in Early Modern Sweden and Finland / Riikka Miettinen, Olli Matikainen

From Weariness of Life to Temporary Insanity: Changing Perceptions of Criminal (Ir)responsibility in Early Modern Swedish Judicial Practice / Jonas Liliequist

Sea, Soul and Self: Mental States and Responsibility in the Danish and British Naval Courts / Catherine Beck

Subject Index

Name Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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ISBN:

9783666502361