Creatures of Sorrow: Lay experiences of melancholy in early modern Scandinavia

Projektbeschreibung

Seelische Leiden im Skandinavien des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts

Das Wissen darüber, wie sozialer Status, Geschlecht und Alter das Erleben psychischer Zustände vor der Neuzeit beeinflussten, ist begrenzt und schränkt unser historisches Verständnis von seelischem Leiden ein. Mit Unterstützung der Marie-Skłodowska-Curie-Maßnahmen wird das Projektteam von CROW die Erfahrungen mit psychischen Erkrankungen im Skandinavien des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts untersuchen. Durch die Analyse von Akten aus kirchlichen Gerichten deckt das Projektteam Muster in individuellen Aussagen über die Verkörperung auf. Außerdem werden Muster melancholischer Beschreibungen in medizinischen Texten untersucht, um eine historische Darstellung des seelischen Leidens zu bieten. Durch die Verwendung neuer Quellen und digitaler Methoden soll über das Projekt ein breiteres Spektrum an Erfahrungen abgedeckt werden. Letztendlich verbessert CROW unser Verständnis von psychischen Erkrankungen in der frühen Neuzeit und trägt zu theoretischen Fortschritten in der Erfahrungsgeschichte bei.

Ziel

CROW explores lay experiences of being mentally unwell in 16th- and 17th century Scandinavia. It asks how social status, gender and age affected experiences of mental states before the modern era. In doing so, it deepens our understanding of mental suffering historically and creates an inclusive and complex history of the phenomenon. The project uses new sources and new digital methods that combined can reach a wide variety of experiences. The objectives of CROW are: 1. Provide an examination of experiences of being mentally unwell in the early modern period that takes into account embodied experiences and emotions as well as early modern religious and medical frameworks; 2. Advance the scope for examining lay people’s experiences through the use of digital methods; 3. Provide a historical account of experiences of mental suffering that informs present-day debate about mental health.

CROW uses as a point of departure the understanding that experiences are created through embodied sensations in cultural contexts, and thus socially bound and historically significant, to argue that they can be researched through patterns in individual statements regarding embodiment, in tandem with reconstruction of cultural frameworks. The project examines ecclesiastical court records from the Scandinavian realms to find patterns in verbatim text concerning embodied sensations. These patterns are examined in relation to descriptions of melancholy in religious and medical vernacular texts aimed at a lay audience. Through the use of software in several steps, the examination moves from the concept of melancholy, which is key to understanding mental suffering in the early modern, learned debate, to the descriptions of embodiment, which means that experiences of mental suffering can be found even when the concept of melancholy is absent. In addition to advancing understanding of early modern mental suffering, this approach will contribute theoretically to the history of experience.