Illness and Authority: Disability in the Life and Lives of Francis of Assisi

by Donna Trembinski

Overview

Illness and Authority examines the lived experience and early stories about St. Francis of Assisi through the lens of disability studies. This new approach recentres Francis’ illnesses and infirmities and highlights how they became barriers to wielding traditional modes of masculine authority within both the Franciscan Order he founded and the church hierarchy. Members of the Franciscan leadership were so concerned about his health that the future saint was compelled to seek out medical treatment and spent the last two years of his life in the nearly constant care of doctors. Unlike other studies of Francis’ ailments, Illness and Authority focuses on the impact of his illnesses on his autonomy and secular power, rather than his spiritual authority.

Whether downplaying the comfort Francis received from music to omitting doctors from the narratives of his life, early biographers worked to minimize the realities of his infirmities. When they could not do so, they turned the saint’s experiences into teachable moments that demonstrated his saintly and steadfast devotion and his trust in God. Illness and Authority explores the struggles that early authors of Francis’ vitae experienced as they tried to make sense of a figure whose life did not fit the traditional rhythms of a founder saint.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487536206
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	11/03/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Donna Trembinski is an associate professor of Medieval History at St. Francis Xavier University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Francis Overdiagnosed and Undiagnosed
2. Recentring Illness and Infirmity in Francis’ Lived Experience
3. Et licet infirmus fuisset semper: Testimonies of Illness in the Early Lives of Francis
4. Disability and Tensions in Francis’ Lived Experience
5. The Hagiographers’ Search for Meaning
6. On Disability, Power, and Gender: A Speculative Conclusion

Postscript: On the Importance of Disability as a Category of Analysis

Appendix. Recentring Illness: A Revised Chronology of Francis’ Life

Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Wendy Turner

"Trembinski is the leading authority on the health and disabilities of Francis of Assisi. In this monograph, she shows us a world of admiring followers, medieval prisons, veneration of bones, prayer, and ascetism. She also shines a light on the medieval diet, care for the impaired, and medicine. We think of Francis as the saint who walked from town to town, preaching to anyone who would listen, even the birds. Trembinski shows us another side to Francis: a man who lived with pain, who suffered from weakness and frailty, who sought medicines for internal ailments and eye complaints, and who died relatively young."

Steven J. McMichael

"Trembinski's excellent study touches on so many issues of Francis' life, especially the later stages: Francis' surrender of leadership; the questions of obedience and authority; and his struggle with blindness, leprosy, and bodily pain. It is an excellent survey of Franciscan sources regarding Francis' illness and how they have been interpreted in history."

Tory V. Pearman

"In this important study, Trembinski presents a reinterpretation of St. Francis of Assisi that reframes the saint's oft-ignored illnesses and impairments as essential to his (in)ability to access traditional masculine power, both spiritual and secular. By offering an innovative reading of the saint through the lens of disability theory, Illness and Authority reveals how the disabled body of St. Francis has exceeded and challenged the narrative constraints of not only medieval hagiographers but also the modern historian."

Editorial Reviews

"Trembinski’s new monograph, rooted in Francis’s lived experience and admirable in all particulars for its thorough scholarly acumen, offers a crucial refinement of our historical understanding of Francis’s life, and of the origins and development of his order."—Leigh Ann Craig, Virginia Commonwealth University, Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture
"It is not hyperbole to suggest that this book will have an immediate and long-lasting effect both on scholarship on the Franciscans and on medieval disability studies. It is a welcome addition to both."—Will Rogers, University of Louisiana, The Medieval Review

"Trembinski’s excellent study touches on so many issues of Francis’ life, especially the later stages: Francis’ surrender of leadership; the questions of obedience and authority; and his struggle with blindness, leprosy, and bodily pain. It is an excellent survey of Franciscan sources regarding Francis’ illness and how they have been interpreted in history."

—Steven J. McMichael, Theology Department, University of St. Thomas

"Trembinski is the leading authority on the health and disabilities of Francis of Assisi. In this monograph, she shows us a world of admiring followers, medieval prisons, veneration of bones, prayer, and ascetism. She also shines a light on the medieval diet, care for the impaired, and medicine. We think of Francis as the saint who walked from town to town, preaching to anyone who would listen, even the birds. Trembinski shows us another side to Francis: a man who lived with pain, who suffered from weakness and frailty, who sought medicines for internal ailments and eye complaints, and who died relatively young."

—Wendy Turner, Department of History, Anthropology and Philosophy, Augusta University

"In this important study, Trembinski presents a reinterpretation of St. Francis of Assisi that reframes the saint's oft-ignored illnesses and impairments as essential to his (in)ability to access traditional masculine power, both spiritual and secular. By offering an innovative reading of the saint through the lens of disability theory, Illness and Authority reveals how the disabled body of St. Francis has exceeded and challenged the narrative constraints of not only medieval hagiographers but also the modern historian."

—Tory V. Pearman, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Writing, Miami University Hamilton

From the Publisher

“It is not hyperbole to suggest that this book will have an immediate and long-lasting effect both on scholarship on the Franciscans and on medieval disability studies. It is a welcome addition to both.”

The Medieval Review - Will Rogers

“Trembinski's new monograph, rooted in Francis's lived experience and admirable in all particulars for its thorough scholarly acumen, offers a crucial refinement of our historical understanding of Francis's life, and of the origins and development of his order.”

Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture - Leigh Ann Craig