Call for Abstracts: Healthy Living in Pre-Modern Europe. The Theory and Practice of the Six Non-Naturals (c.1400-1700). IHR London
Call for Abstracts: Healthy Living in Pre-Modern Europe.
The Theory and
Practice of the Six Non-Naturals (c.1400-1700)
Institute of Historical Research, Bloomsbury, London,
United
Kingdom 13-14 September 2013
Abstract submission deadline: 24th March 2013
This conference seeks to bring together scholars working
on topics
related to the role played by the six Non-Naturals in
health maintenance
in the late-medieval and early modern period. It is
well-known that
health was thought to depend on the regulation of the six
key factors
affecting body functions: the air one breathes, sleep,
food and drink,
evacuations, movement and emotions. In pre-modern
medicine careful
management of these spheres of life was regarded as
crucial if one
wished to prevent disease.
This conference seeks to bring together scholars working
on topics
related to the role played by the six Non-Naturals in
health maintenance
in the late-medieval and early modern period. It is
well-known that
health was thought to depend on the regulation of the six
key factors
affecting body functions: the air one breathes, sleep,
food and drink,
evacuations, movement and emotions. In pre-modern
medicine careful
management of these spheres of life was regarded as
crucial if one
wished to prevent disease. Yet the study of the Non
Naturals has been
neglected, as scholars have focused on the development of
the concept in
medical thought rather than on the advice regarding the
individual
non-naturals. The only exception concerns the
recommendations related to
food and diet while the other Non-Naturals have been the
object only of
general surveys. Even less attention has been paid to the
relationship
between preventive advice and practice. This conference intends to
address these gaps. Moreover we hope to stimulate
discussions which will
enable us to compare different regions and countries and
to explore
changing approaches to the Non-Naturals (and to the
underpinning
humoural principles) over the period under consideration.
More specifically the conference aims to:
• Compare the contents of medical advice about the
Non-Naturals (how
these activities should ideally be performed) and the
actual practices
associated with keeping healthy. What relationship did practices bear
to prescription? In order to address these questions
scholars might use
a range of ‘extra-medical’ sources, such as letters,
diaries, literature
and imagery.
• Explore change within the body of medical theory on
the Non-Naturals.
Were definitions of what was regarded as harmful or
beneficial to health
modified over the period? And is the idea of the body and
its
vulnerabilities that underpins these views subject to any
transformations? It has widely been assumed that humoural
theory was
essentially static and unchanging during the early modern
period. Is
this view in need of revision?
• Explore the extent to which both recommendations
about healthy living
and the preventive measures adopted in everyday life
changed over time.
And were these transformations medically or socially
driven? In other
words were they a consequence of shifting ideas about the
working of the
body or of changing lifestyles?
• Stimulate comparisons between different regions and
countries. For
example, did the medical traditions in different
countries place
different emphases on the six Non-Naturals? Did they all
conceptualise
the humours in similar ways? Were there different lay approaches to
keeping healthy in different national contexts? Did
people focus on any
particular Non-Naturals –giving more weight to diet,
for example, or to
taking exercise- in order to maintain their health?
Submission guidelines
Papers will be 30 minutes long with discussants for
groups of papers.
Papers must be submitted at least two weeks before the
conference to
facilitate the work of the discussants.
Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words by 24
March 2013 to
the conference secretary, Tessa.Storey@rhul.ac.uk
Conference Dates: 13-14 September 2013
Scientific committee
• Professor Sandra Cavallo, Royal Holloway, University
of London
• Dr. Tessa Storey, Royal Holloway, University of
London