“Neither Cursed Nor Possessed: Mental Abnormality in the Late Middle Ages”International Congress on Medieval Studies 2009, Kalamazoo MIAlison Spyker

My paper today, “Neither Cursed nor Possessed: Mental Abnormality in the Late

Middle Ages,” will take up a brief note in Michel Foucault’s History of Madness, where he

says “the insane were barred entry to churches, while ecclesiastical law allowed them to

partake of the sacraments.”1 This brief note does not account for the importance of Church

sacraments during the Middle Ages, nor the complexity of thought surrounding the

implications of mental impairment. Religion was a matter of daily concern in the Middle Ages

in a way unfamiliar to us today, as demonstrated by the panel today, both informally and within

formal structures, so it’s perhaps forgivable that Foucault glossed this aspect of disability over.

Yet birth, death, and marriage were facts of everyday life, and the Church made concerted

efforts to sacramentalise them. The disability of religious exclusion, what I have taken to

calling “sacral disability,” is, I believe, a distinct enough manifestation of the dis-abling of

impaired persons that it deserves to be studied in its own right. Today we have heard various

perspectives on this form of disability in miracula, biography, and exemplaria, and I plan to

address the more formal ecclesiastical proscriptions regarding mental abnormality.

Although guidelines for dealing with the mentally impaired and the sacraments appear in the

corpus of canon law and pastoral instruction, for this paper I have chosen to explore the issue in

light of the sacrament of Baptism. I chose Baptism primarily for its perceived purpose and

effect in medieval Christian theology. Baptism, as the effective removal of original and

acquired sin, was considered absolutely necessary for salvation. All those who did not undergo

Baptism (whatever the means) would be damned to torment. As such, the example of Baptism 1 Foucault, Michel. History of Madness. trans. Jean Khalfa. (Routledge). p. 10.

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provides an illustrative sample of the theological discourses surrounding mental abnormality –

the theology of Baptism was enthusiastically inclusive at the least. I’m going to begin by

recounting the theological opinions proffered on the issue, and I ask your patience for the

brevity of the summary. The handout you should have a copy of will provide a fuller account.

On it, and in this talk, I’ve left the specific terms referring to mental abnormality in Latin:

amens roughly corresponds to mental debility, and furiosus roughly corresponds to madness,

though these should be taken as very general guidelines only, not as precise equivalents.

The question of whether or not it was legitimate to baptise a person who was mad goes back to

the very early Church: the earliest mention occurs in the Canonical Responses of Timothy,

Bishop of Alexandria, subsequently becoming a matter of canon during the First Council of

Orange in 441, where it was stated that “they [the sacraments] must be conferred to the

amentes of whatsoever manner of piety.”2 Those who had previously expressed a desire for the

sacrament could have it administered if they became incapacitated somehow. The formula was

repeated at the Second Council of Arles in 452, and eventually became encoded in the

Decretum of Gratian.3 It would seem, then, that madness was never a solid impediment to

baptism, even for those mad from birth. In the high Middle Ages, with the flowering of

scholastic theology and systematic canon law, the question of madness and baptism became the

focus of renewed attention.

In his survey of the history of Church law and mental abnormality, Colin Pickett noted the

opinion of Innocent the Third4 [d. 1216] upheld the right of the mad to receive baptism and laid

out the basis of Innocent’s argument, which you’ll find on your handout as item one. The mad

2 amentibus quaecumque pietatis sunt conferenda3 c. 7, C 26, q. 6.4 (c. 1198-1216)

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are compared to infants in their sacramental character, in that they cannot commit actual sin

since they do no possess the intent for it. I’ll be coming back to the distinction between

original and actual sin shortly. Innocent’s elucidation was shortly thereafter included in the

Decretals of Gregory the Ninth and his compiler, Raymond of Peñaforte.

On the scholastic side, Thomas Aquinas addressed the issue with his usual thoroughness. He

distinguished four types of mental impairment, finding an effective difference between those

mad from infancy with no lucid intervals, those who enjoy lucid intervals (even if mad from

birth), those who became mad later in life, and those who suffer a mental impairment but are

nonetheless not mad.5 This is item two on your handout. Aquinas harmonises the statements

of Bishop Timothy and Innocent by finding that those who have always been mad can be

baptised as if infants, but those who became mad later in life or who enjoyed some lucid

intervals were to be baptised or not according to the will they had while lucid. Those who do

not have a healthy mind yet still have the use of reason, he says, should be baptised if they

request it but not against their will. He also discusses madness and Baptism in his commentary

on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, holding much the same opinion in this earlier work as he does

in his Summa.6 He also discusses madmen who baptise, barring them because they cannot have

intent, he says.

Cardinal Henry Segusio, or Hostiensis, took up the problem in his Summa Domini [mid-13th

century]. He, like Aquinas, made a distinction between those mad from infancy and those who

became mad later in life. As you can see on the handout in item three, those who were always

furisosus he, too, likened to infants who had no judgement and could not incur “actual” sin and

could be baptised without consent. Regarding those who had once been sane, Hostiensis 5 Summa Theologiae III, q. 68, a. 12.6 Super Sent., lib. 4 d. 6 q. 1

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likened them to sleeping people, who could express an opinion prior to their mental inactivity.

He addressed only the negative case, the one who expressed the wish to not be baptised, which

leaves it unclear whether he assumed the default would have been assent.

John de Burgh, an English pastoral writer of the early fourteenth century, took the question in a

different direction. Rather than giving his opinion on the mental state of the person to be

baptised, he addressed the question of the mental state of the baptiser. He gives a

straightforward assertion that anyone can baptise, even heretics, infidels, Jews, and pagans,

“provided that he has the intention to baptise, whether special or general, and he conserves the

form bequeathed by the church, wherefore it is not the merit of the ministers but the virtue of

Christ which operates in baptism.” That is to say, anyone who intended to baptise – even if

they did not believe in baptism themselves – could conduct a sacramental baptism if he

included the Trinitarian formula of “I baptise in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”

and sprinkled the baptisee with water. As a result of thus assertion, he goes on to bar furiosus

from baptising, item four. Referencing Aquinas, he says “Likewise, a drunk, a furiosus, or

anyone lacking the use of reason is not able to baptise, because they are not able to have the

intention of baptising,” even if the form of the sacrament is preserved.7 Perhaps trusting to the

opinion of his predecessors, he does not address the issue of baptising madmen.

Finally, in 1476, we see another very detailed treatment of baptism and mental impairment in

the Summa Angelica of the Italian, Angelo Carletti. He, too, couches his answer in terms of the

intent necessary to baptise: although the faith of the minister of baptism is not necessary, since

it is the faith of the catechumen which is effective, the minister must intend to do what the

catechumen requests (i.e., baptism), and furiosus or amens cannot intend even that. This is

7 Super Sent., lib. 4 d. 6 q. 1

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item five on your handout. He also addresses the question of baptising furiosus or amens (item

six), saying that they should not be unless they requested it before they were impaired (and

those who were always impaired can be baptised). Unlike Aquinas, Carletti does not include a

category of mentally impaired persons who have the capacity to request baptism.

We have, now, a history of thought concerning madness and baptism which is fairly consistent

over roughly a thousand years. It appears to be dry and technical, but there are important

statements made between the lines concerning furiosi and amentes. The first is the unqualified

humanity of those suffering mental impairment. They are in no place regarded as less human,

even those mad from birth. It is a stark contrast to earlier histories of mental impairment. As I

said before, baptism was a sacrament of utter necessity for salvation. The evidence that

madmen were, in theory, to be baptised locates them as members of the same (albeit fallen)

humanity, and capable of the same salvation. As far as sacral disability goes, baptismal

theology acknowledges the mentally abnormal as equally human in spiritual character.

The second statement which should strike you is the complete lack of a moral dimension to

impairment. In none of the passages here, nor any of the canonical and pastoral sources I have

read, is mental impairment connected either with sin or holiness. Despite that which Penelope

Doob and Foucault claim, in this discourse at least, that “all disease comes by the will of God,

and the most common moral justification for disease is that God in his justice inflicts disease

on the unrepentant sinner as a punishment” is not the case.8 Nor are mentally impaired people

conceptualised as R.C. Scheerenberger claims when he notes “some countries held that retarded

people were innocents and children of God, being well received by all religious sects.”9 They

8 Penelope B. R. Doob. Nebuchadnezzar’s Children: Conventions of Madness in Middle English Literature. (New Haven, Yale UP, 1974). p. 3.; Foucault, Michel. History of Madness. p. 11-12.9 R.C. Scheerenberger. A History of Mental Retardation. (Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Pub. Co., 1983), 31.

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hold no especial status, ether negative or positive, in these ecclesiastical writings. Although

they are subject to Original Sin, it is not anything exceptional, and nowhere in the sins which

Baptism removes is madness listed.

Rather, the concerns are entirely pragmatic: who, how, why. The mentally impaired are an

abnormality which needs accounting for in order to achieve a thorough and effective theology.

Especially with such a critical sacrament as baptism, medieval canonists and theologians

needed to be certain of the specifics of administering it, so to avoid ambiguity or – even worse!

– unintentionally causing a person’s damnation. If a furiosus conducted an invalid baptism,

and the catechumen was not offered a proper one, his soul could be in jeopardy. Prohibitions

laid down against mentally impaired persons administering baptism were not formulated with

the intent to disable, though they have that effect; the intent is to ensure that every person

received a sacramentally valid baptism through which they could find salvation. There is a

concern that allowing madmen to baptise would sacrally disable both them and those they

would baptise. It is this same principle which underlies the prohibition against baptising

madmen who never expressed a desire for it while lucid: without proper intent, the sacrament

would be invalid, and there would be a risk that they would not be offered a valid baptism

when lucid again. As a result of this concern, there is a respect for furiosus’ right to agency

displayed – an acknowledgement that they could, in actuality, have will. In Thomas Aquinas

we also are shown that some mentally impaired persons could have will, and could have that

will acknowledged.

I do not intend to paint a rosy picture here. The extent to which the theories and opinions

formulated by the highly educated elite had any practical effect on the lives of the majority

can’t be measured. Certainly the majority of the laity would not have been aware of the fine

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distinctions made by the Angelic Doctor, nor would even the majority of the pastoral clergy.

That said, while this may not have immediately filtered down to the laity, it still shaped the way

madness was conceptualised in sacral situations. It is likely that Baptism, a universally shared

experience of medieval Christians, would have occasionally faced the situations outlined in

these theological sources. I hope today that I have been able to bring to light a small segment

of a discourse which has been hitherto largely ignored in the study of disability in the Middle

Ages, and spur further dialogue exploring the questions of sacral disability.

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Neither Cursed nor Possessed: Mental Abnormality and the Late Medieval ChurchICMS 2009, Kalamazoo MIAlison Purnell

1. Innocent III on Sin (from Mental Abnormality and Church Law, Colin Pickett, 1954, pp. 50-51)“In this matter, he proposes the necessity of the following distinction: Sin is twofold; original and actual; original, which is contracted without consent, and actual, which is contracted with consent. Original, therefore, which is contracted without consent, by the Sacrament itself is remitted without the need of consent (per vim Sacramenti remittitur sine consensu). Actual, however, which is contracted with consent, is not remitted without consent (sine consensu minime relaxatur).”

2. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologiae (III, q. 68, a. 12)I answer that, In the matter of furiosi and amentes a distinction is to be made. For some are so from birth, and have no lucid intervals, and show no signs of the use of reason. And with regard to these it seems that we should come to the same decision as with regard to children who are baptized in the Faith of the Church, as stated above (9, ad 2). But there are other amentes who from the sound mind they had before fell into amentia. And with regard to these we must be guided by their wishes as expressed by them when sane: so that, if then they manifested a desire to receive Baptism, it should be given to them when in a state of furia or amentia, even though then they refuse. If, on the other hand, while sane they showed no desire to receive Baptism, they must not be baptized. Again, there are some who, though furiosi or amentes from birth, have, nevertheless, lucid intervals, in which they can make right use of reason. Wherefore, if then they express a desire for Baptism, they can be baptized though they be actually in a state of amentia. And in this case the sacrament should be bestowed on them if there be fear of danger otherwise it is better to wait until the time when they are sane, so that they may receive the sacrament more devoutly. But if during the interval of lucidity they manifest no desire to receive Baptism, they should not be baptized while in a state of amentia. Lastly there are others who exist as if not wholly of sound mind, yet can use their reason so far as to think about their salvation, and understand the power of the sacrament. And these are to be treated the same as those who are sane, and who are baptized if they be willing, but not against their will. [...] Furiosi and amentes lack the use of reason accidentally, i.e. through some impediment in a bodily organ; but not like irrational animals through want of a rational soul. Consequently the comparison does not hold.

3. Hostiensis – Summa Domini (f. 186v)What concerning furiosi to be baptised? If they were always furiosus, baptism should be held, where it is called the advantage to be acquired by furiosus, for they and such are put on an equal level with infants and those sleeping, [...] Furiosi are not burdened by actual sins, therefore it suffices that they are not able to agree concerning the consecration in distinction 4: “Then, to be well,” etc. You ask if truly he inclines into furor or begins falling to sleep and is baptised. But if, however, he was in a contrary will indicated he not be baptised, no character is impressed on him from his elders (See the subsection, “He who never truly consented”).

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4. John de Burgh – Pupilla oculi (York Minster Library INC XIII.K.4, f. 3v-4r; 6r)Fifth is the faith of the one to be baptised, because in adults the proper faith is required, though in infants an alien faith, as Thomas says. [...] Likewise, a drunk, a furiosus, or anyone lacking the use of reason is not able to baptise, because they are not able to have the intention of baptising, according to Thomas in his commentary on the Sentences. Yet, a drunk falling away from being drunk, and a furiosus coming into a lucid interval, are able to baptise. [...] Boys who are not competent to deceive, nor know to have the intention to be baptised, neither generally or specially, do not baptise although, instructed, they profer expressly the sacramental words of baptism, just as furiosus does not.

5. Angelo Carletti – Summa Angelica (YML INC XV.I.11, f. 20r)Seventh, it enjoins what is intended: whether as much as it appears that he intended to baptise, not to only wash, whence according to Innocent in chapter one of de baptismo that it is not necessary to the effect of baptism that one knows what baptism is; namely, that grace is poured out, or because it is a sacrament. Nor indeed is it necessary that he believes this himself: on the contrary, if he believes the opposite and thinks it a trick and a deception. Nevertheless, baptism has its effect: it does not require, then, that the baptising person know what the church is: nor that he bear in mind to do what the church does, on the contrary, if he bears the opposite in mind, that is, he would not do what the church does. Therefore he preserves the form just the same, he is baptised, provided that he intends to baptise. [...] But Innocent, in his opera, it is believed by me: although it may be more prudent, wherefore as if furiosus and amens who are able to intend nothing do not baptise: so it seems that the intention of the one to be baptised is required in any case, and he is able to intend this to be said, what the church intends.

6. Angelo Carletti – Summa Angelica (f. 21r)7. Whether intent is required in adults so they can receive baptism. I respond that Richard (in book 4, distinction 6, article 2, question 3) says that it is so, whether by act or by habit. In act, in a man who has intention deprived it is not to be received: because it is necessary that he has the contrary in act, namely, to be received. Another might not reject the contrary, and so not receive the sacrament. Sylvester, because anyone who prompts so that he consents in act requires actual consent: otherwise he may not consent either in act or habit, wherefore he may be called a man disposed by habit, because if actually and deliberately he thinks on this matter, actually he consents to it. For another, the habitual suffices, just as if any bare catechumen baptised in act, not thinking on the undertaking of baptism, or furiosus or amens who before amentia had the intention of receiving, or never had the contrary.10. Whether amentes or dormientes can be baptised. I respond that if they had consent before and necessity threatens, they can be baptised. [...] If truly before their amentia or dormitio they opposed it, it is presumed that the proposition endures. And therefore they receive neither the character nor the baptism: so in that instance. If truly they do not dissent, Augustine holds, where he says that they receive the character. This is true according to Richard, where he says as long as anyone has consented, speaking concerning adults who have had the use of reason. Differently, in those who never have had the use of reason: wherefore they receive the character.

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