What was it like to be handicapped or disabled in 16th Century England?

In his plays, Richard III, in his Henry Plays, and even in macbeth, Shakespeare writes about medical disabilities and phsyical deformities like a hunchback, madness, blindness, and being lame. We can tell form these references that disability was present in Shakespare’s lietime but what exactly was the understanding of what a disability meant for a real person in Shakespeare’s lifetime? In order to understand the reaction of society, whether accomodations were made for disabilities, what those would have been, and how organizations like Bedlam Hopsital for the insane fit into this understanding, we are sitting down today with Jeffrey R. Wilson, author of Richard III's Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity: Shakespeare and Disability History to examine how uderstanding 16th century medical history helps characters like Richard III make more sense.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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