Conceptualizing disabilities from antiquity to the middle ages: A historical-medical contribution

Objective

This paper provides some conceptual guidelines for interpreting the phenomenon of impairment-disability between Antiquity and the Middle Ages from an historical-medical perspective. The paper illustrates application of these guidelines in an historical-medical reassessment of a published paleopathological case-study.

Materials and methods

The skeletal remains of a woman who experienced bone fusion and osteoarthritis (Rome, VIII century AD) were selected. We first contextualize her impairments through a paleopathological approach, then locate her experience of disability and care within the cultural and social background to which she belongs.

Results

This study illustrates the difficulty of reconstructing one consistent single model of disability.

Conclusions

The traditional idea of disability as a parameter of exclusion is not appropriate for every historical context.

Significance

The paper attempts an integrated and transdisciplinary approach to historical reconstruction of lifestyle in the presence of impairments between late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

Limitations

The main research obstacle is the difficulty of going beyond documented Christian interpretation of disability and provision of welfare to identify detail of lived experience for individuals with impairments.

Suggestions for further research

The transdisciplinary historical-medical approach can be adapted for inclusion in any bioarchaeological study of impairment in historic times; future applications of this model will lead to its refinement.