| In this enquiry, the chief hermeneutical categories and modes of unreason in the Byzantine Empire to the end of the first millennium are explicated through the textual analysis of the chief genres concerned with this problem: medical texts, Roman and Byzantine civil law, Orthodox canon law, Greek philosophy, patristic texts, monastic writings and hagiography.;The medical texts rendered largely somatic descriptions, aetiologies, diagnostics and therapeutics for the medical "madnesses," notably phrenitis, mania, melancholia, lycanthropy and epilepsy. Implicit in these texts were found issues of control between patients and their physicians and companions. The legal texts placed persons deemed insane or otherwise mentally incompetent as juridical entities within Eastern Roman or Byzantine society. As with the medical texts, issues of control and coercion emerged, although on the societal rather than individual level. Grounded in philosophy as well as the Scriptures and patristic texts, monastic writings showed the influence of traditions on the passions and demonology and were concerned less with the restoration of individuals to worldly rationality than with restoring fallen humanity to its prelapsarian state. Hagiographers sought to glorify God, Who revealed His power through demons, demoniacs and wonderworking saints.;These observations are reached through a textual analysis tailored to conform to the interests and conventions of each of these bodies of literature. As in a consultation of physicians, the opinions of various Byzantine medical writers are pooled to synthesize the chief medical attitudes, categories and practice. Similarly, the law is approached for jurisconsults' opinions and imperial legislation pertaining to the insane. Pertinent laws are collated and legal issues and patterns identified. Legal sources permitted more formal historical analysis than the medical, since many can be dated. The monastic texts are approached phenomenologically, the better to grasp the inward concerns of monks with respect to the passions. Hagiography is subjected to a literary analysis and "character studies" of demons, demoniacs and thaumaturgical saints are made.;By these means, the chief categories and modes of unreason in Byzantium are established. These were context-dependent identities that Byzantines strategically chose. An unexpected conclusion reached was that the hagiographic subgenre of the holy fool confounded all categorization. In Byzantium, the identity of aberrant individuals could not ultimately be fixed. |
