Theology, disease and body politic during the Middle Ages and Early Modern period
Theology, disease and body politic during the Middle Ages and Early Modern period

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to provide a picture of the connection between theology, the medical paradigm and the corporal metaphor employed by the political theory during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. This connection, surprising as it may seem for the modern man, became possible because the medicine of that age was not and could not have been religiously neutral, due to social pressure exerted by ecclesiastic and secular authorities and because of the specific individual mindset specific to that period. The consequence of this reality was a permanent interference between theology and medicine. At the same time, the body and the disease were employed as metaphors in the political theory of the respective period: as such, both medicine and theology left their imprint on the medieval and early modern political thought. The influence of the latter was so great that many historians spoke of a „political theology” and, within this framework, the theological outlook of disease could be occasionally noticed in the political works making use of the concepts of „body politic” and „political disease”.

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