Oliver Auge

‘So solt er im namen gottes mit mir hinfahren, ich were doch verderbt zu einem kriegsmann’ - Noblemen Injured in Fights and Jousts in the Field of Tension between Honour and Ability.

Oliver Auge shows in this article that, in the late Middle Ages, the consequences of invalidity due to fighting and jousts ranged between exclusion and appreciation – a similar pattern to what can be observed in the ancient Roman Republic. As the majority of medieval sources do not provide any information concerning this topic, Auge concludes that affected nobles were either seen as disturbing elements within the society or they even regarded themselves as such. But they met with social approval as soon as they explicitly identified themselves as former participants of wars or jousts that had caused their invalidity or if their performance was above the norm. A remarkable amount of evidence for this phenomenon appeared around the year 1500 leading the author to conclude that the view of disability gradually changed with the transition from Middle Ages to Modernity. Examples like that of Götz of Berlichingen’s iron hand or the striking profile of the often portrayed Federico da Montefeltro, on the other hand, show that physical integrity was still the standard.

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