Psychopathology and Concepts of Demonical Possession in Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Period. (360G-Wellcome-080650_Z_06_Z)

The proposed study wants to define the precise relationship between psychopathological and religious and/or demonological concepts of disease. Case studies include ephialtes, in which the patient suffers some form of nightmare, as well as lycanthropy, where the sufferer believes himself or herself to be a wolf. The emergence of such nosological concepts in medical writings shows how popular beliefs, with their origins in superstition, myth, magic, and religion, were embellished with the pathology of humours. The fact that medical authors discuss the conditions mentioned above primarily between 300 and 1100 AD and again between 1550 and 1650 AD dictates the time frame of the proposed PhD. The thesis will consider the entire body of the surviving late classical and Byzantine literature that reflects on the way people suffering from mental illness or demonical possession were treated, or comments on the clinical pictures in question. Such comprehensive textual basis will not least serve to place and thus view the medical texts in their broader cultural context. A separate chapter will be devoted to the lasting impact ancient notions of lycanthropy and ephialtes had on the Early Modern debate on beliefs in demonical possession, incubus, witchcraft and werewolves.