Both “illness and temptation of the enemy”: melancholy, the medieval patient and the writings of King Duarte of Portugal (r. 1433–38)

Recent historians have rehabilitated King Duarte of Portugal, previously maligned and neglected, as an astute ruler and philosopher. There is still a tendency, however, to view Duarte as a depressive or a hypochondriac, due to his own description of his melancholy in his advice book, the Loyal Counselor. This paper reassesses Duarte's writings, drawing on key approaches in the history of medicine, such as narrative medicine and the history of the patient. It is important to take Duarte's views on his condition seriously, placing them in the medical and theological contexts of his time and avoiding modern retrospective diagnosis. Duarte's writings can be used to explore the impact of plague, doubt and death on the life of a well-educated and conscientious late-medieval ruler

"Like the bees, who neither suck nor generate their honey from one flower": the significance of the peregrinatio academica for Danish medical students of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries

[About the book] Students notoriously vote with their feet, seeking out the best and most innovative teachers of their subject. The most ambitious students have been travelling long distances for their education since universities were first founded in the 13th century, making their own educational pilgrimage or peregrinatio. This volume deals with the peregrinatio medica from the viewpoint of the travelling students: who went where; how did they travel; what did they find when they arrived; what did they take back with them from their studies. Even a single individual could transform medical studies or practice back home on the periphery by trying to reform teaching and practice the way they had seen it at the best universities. Other contributions look at the universities themselves and how they were actively developed to attract students, and at some of the most successful teachers, such as Boerhaave at Leiden or the Monros at Edinburgh. The essays show how increasing levels of wealth allowed more and more students to make their pilgrimages, travelling for weeks at a time to sit at the feet of a particular master. In medicine this meant that, over the period c.1500 to 1789, a succession of universities became the medical school of choice for ambitious students: Padua and Bologna in the 1500s, Paris, Leiden and Montpellier in the 1600s, and Leiden, Göttingen and Edinburgh in the 1700s. The arrival of foreign students brought wealth to the university towns and this significant economic benefit meant that the governors of these universities tried to ensure the defence of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, thus providing the best conditions for the promotion of new views and innovation in medicine. The collection presents a new take on the history of medical education, as well as universities, travel and education more widely in ancien régime Europe

John La Motte

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Vroomheid en wereldsheid: Johan Radermacher (1538-1617),een humanistisch koopman van de hervormde diaspora

About the book: In 2002 vierde het Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis het honderdjarig bestaan van de Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën (RGP). Bij dit jubileum verscheen een bundel van ruim twintig essays waarin de Nederlandse geschiedenis wordt belicht met de uitgaven van het ING als uitgangspunt. Het overkoepelende thema van de essays is ‘Nederland in de wereld’: de invloed die Nederland buiten zijn landsgrenzen heeft gehad en de soms ingrijpende invloed van die buitenwereld op de Nederlandse geschiedenis. De gebundelde artikelen bestrijken de geschiedenis van Nederland van de opstand der ‘Batavieren’ tot het afscheid van het koloniaal imperium in Indië. Sommige richten zich expliciet op langetermijnprocessen, andere behandelen sprekende thema’s of belangrijke episodes uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis. Zo zijn er bijdragen over de uitvinding van de verrekijker, het reilen en zeilen van de VOC, de zoektocht van Willem van Oranje naar bondgenoten, en het liberalisme van Thorbecke. De essays zijn geschreven door ter zake kundige historici uit binnen- en buitenland, onder wie Willem Otterspeer, Henk van Nierop, Roelof van Gelder, Willem Frijhoff en Leslie Price. De bundel laat zien wat historici belangrijk vinden aan het verleden van Nederland en hoe zij met hun bronnen omgaan. En passant krijgt de lezer ook een indruk van de rijkdom en veelzijdigheid van de uitgaven van het ING

Dirick Hoste

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