HISTORICAL PATHOLOGY: THE CASE OF KING LOUIS XI OF FRANCE

Abstract

The idea that disease has played an influential part in shaping the general course of history contains no novelty. Epidemics of all times have been the object of scientific investigation, and their political, social, and economic influence has been definitely weighed. The black death in England, malaria and the decline of Greek civilization, small-pox, cholera, and yellow fever, occur at once to the mind as examples of diseases which have been undeniable factors in history. Many of these have been studied with painstaking thoroughness. Yet, however true this may be of epidemics affecting masses of people, it is not true of individual cases. There is scant reason why it should be. The diseases of individuals, of rulers, let us say, certainly have little historical significance excepting in so far as they bear upon the mental integrity of the sufferer. As a matter of fact, only recently has very much attention been given to the historical value of mental pathology, and to the abnormal conduct of historical persons which has been so frequently the result of their bodily afflictions.’ This factor is, nevertheless, of definite historical importance. It is the purpose of this paper, therefore, to raise the question, first, whether the historian should not devote to the study of historical pathology his serious attention; and, second, to attempt to show from examples, especially the example of Louis XI, the desirability of its employment in the study of medieval biography. At the outset Bernheim’s indorsement inspires confidence in the soundness of this method of investigation. He says: A theoretical knowledge of mental troubles is quite indispensable to an understanding of the numerous phenomena of character and of numerous actions; I do not speak of the Clesarean madness, now become a commonplace, but of the phenomena which recur so frequently in the biographies of