TY - GEN T1 - Disabled clerics in the late Middle Ages : un/suitable for divine service? T2 - Premodern health, disease and disability. A1 - Dubourg, Ninon LA - English PP - Amsterdam PB - Amsterdam University Press YR - 2023 UL - https://ebooks.jgu.edu.in/Record/ebsco_acadsubs_on1369062687 AB - The petitions received and the letters sent by the Papal Chancery during the Late Middle Ages attest to the recognition of disability at the highest levels of the medieval Church. These documents acknowledge the existence of physical and/or mental impairments, with the papacy issuing dispensations allowing some supplicants to adapt their clerical missions according to their abilities. A disease, impairment, or old age could prevent both secular and regular clerics from fulfilling the duties of their divine office. Such conditions can, thus, be understood as forms of disability. In these cases, the Papal Chancery bore the responsibility for determining if disabled people were suitable to serve as clerics, with all the rights and duties of divine services. Whilst some petitioners were allowed to enter the clergy, or - in the case of currently serving churchmen - to stay more or less active in their work, others were compelled to resign their position and leave the clergy entirely. Petitions and papal letters lie at intersection of authorized, institutional policy and practical sources chronicling the lived experiences of disabled people in the Middle Ages. As such, they constitute an excellent analytical laboratory in which to study medieval disability in its relation to the papacy as an institution, alongside the impact of official ecclesiastical judgments on disabled lives. OP - 293 CN - BV660.3 .D83 2023 SN - 9789048554324 SN - 9048554322 SN - 9789463721561 SN - 9463721568 KW - Clergy with disabilities. KW - Disabilities : Religious aspects : Christianity. KW - Church history : Middle Ages, 600-1500. KW - Handicap : Aspect religieux : Christianisme. KW - Église : Histoire : 600-1500 (Moyen Âge) KW - Medieval history. KW - Christian communities and monasticism. KW - History of medicine. KW - HISTORY / Medieval. KW - Church history : Middle Ages KW - Clergy with disabilities KW - Disabilities : Religious aspects : Christianity KW - European history: medieval period, middle ages. KW - Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church. KW - 600-1500 KW - Disability, Clergy, Papacy, Papal Chancery, Work, Christianity. KW - Electronic books. ER -