Disability and Social Integration. Constructions of Childhood Impairments in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Canonisation Processes

Abstract

Millaista oli vammaisten lasten elämä keskiajan Euroopassa, ja miten heidän erilaisuutensa koettiin? Väitöskirjatutkimus paneutuu 1200- ja 1300-lukujen kanonisaatio- eli pyhimykseksijulistamisprosessien todistajanlausuntoihin, joissa ihmiset kertoivat paavilliselle komissiolle näkemistään tai kokemistaan ihmeteoista. Säilyneissä kuulustelupöytäkirjoissa on lukuisia tapauksia, joissa fyysisesti vammainen lapsi tai lapsena vammautunut henkilö on kokenut ihmeparanemisen. Tutkimuksessa selvitetään, miten lapsen vammaisuus määriteltiin ja kuvattiin, ja miten vamman vaikutukset lapsen sosiaaliseen integraatioon näyttäytyvät näissä lausunnoissa.

Lapsen vammaisuus määriteltiin ensisijaisesti kuvailemalla tarkasti vamman aiheuttamia toimintarajoitteita: lapsen liikuntavaikeuksia, näkövamman astetta sekä kuurouden tai puhekyvyttömyyden tuomia kommunikaatio-ongelmia. Joissain tapauksissa mainittiin myös lapsen kyvyttömyys tehdä työtä tai kuvattiin yksityiskohtaisesti hänen poikkeavaa ulkonäköään. Lääketieteellisiä diagnooseja annettiin harvoin, vaikka lapsi olisikin ollut lääkärin hoidossa. Sekä lasten vammojen että paranemisten kuvauksissa korostuu keskiaikaisten sairaus- ja vammaisuuskäsityksen moninaisuus. Osittaisen paranemisen kokenut saattoi olla todistajien mukaan terve, eikä ”vammaisuuden” tai ”normaalin” käsitteitä tunnettu. Aineiston perusteella vanhempia ei syytetty lasten vammoista.

Tunne-elämän osalta todistajanlausunnoissa korostuvat vanhempien ja toisinaan sisarusten suru ja huoli, joskus harvoin myös häpeä tai vastenmielisyys lasta kohtaan. Vaikuttaa siltä, että vamman laadulla oli tässä suuri merkitys. Ne lausunnot, joissa kielteisiä tunteita mainitaan, liittyvät kuurojen, epämuodostumista kärsineiden tai vakavasti liikuntavammaisten lasten paranemisiin. Vastaavasti monet lievemmin vammaiset lapset näyttävät eläneen tavanomaista elämää esimerkiksi opiskellen tai töitä tehden. Sen sijaan muun yhteisön suhtautuminen lapsiin esitetään neutraalina; ainoastaan vammaiset kerjäläislapset joutuivat helposti silmätikuiksi ja heidän vammojensa aitoutta testattiin. Muun yhteisön rooli lapsen elämässä nouseekin eniten esille paranemiskuvauksissa. Pyhimyskultit olivat yhteisöllisiä, ja vaikka vanhemmilla oli ensisijainen vastuu etsiä paranemiskeinoa, yhteisön jäsenet neuvoivat ja auttoivat tässä.

Lasten omia todistajanlausuntoja on kanonisaatioprosesseissa vähän. Niissä kuitenkin näyttäytyvät samat elementit kuin muidenkin todistajien lausunnoissa. Ainoastaan kivun kokemukset tulevat hieman useammin esille lasten omissa kertomuksissa, mutta muuten lasten tunteet omaa vammaansa kohtaan tai muun yhteisön kielteinen suhtautuminen heihin eivät näyttäydy merkittävinä heidän muistoissaan. Lausunnoissa näkyykin lapsen integroituminen yhteisöönsä. Vamman laadulla ja vakavuudella samoin kuin lapsen sosio-ekonomisella taustalla oli tässä suuri merkitys, sillä vakavat liikuntavammat ja aistivammat samoin kuin turvaverkkojen puute johtivat suuremmalla todennäköisyydellä marginalisaatioon. Fyysinen poikkeavuus itsessään ei kuitenkaan johtanut lapsen hyljeksimiseen tai irrallisuuteen perheestään tai yhteisöstään, vaan he toimivat sen osana mahdollisuuksiensa mukaan.

The study concerns the constructions of childhood impairments in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century canonisation processes, where witnesses testified about the healing miracles they had witnessed or experienced. How were physical impairments acquired in childhood (0-14 years) defined, described and explained? What role impaired children’s social integration had in these constructions?

Childhood impairments were primarily constructed by describing their disabling consequences. The witnesses specified the walking problems, the level of blindness, as well as the communication problems resulting from deafness or muteness. Medical diagnosis was given infrequently, even in if the child had been treated by a medical professional. Occasionally children’s inability to work was mentioned as a manifestation of their impairments, but such references are rare, which supports the notions in earlier studies about the insignificance of work and begging when delineating a disabling condition for a miracle story. The witness accounts also give examples of working disabled children, so impairment did not necessarily lead to lack of education or income. The ambiguousness of medieval ideas regarding health, illness and impairment is clearly visible in the depositions. Partial cure could be considered a ‘miracle’, and the vocabulary used of ‘illness’, ‘impairment’ and ‘weakness’ is overlapping. Ability to carry out one’s everyday tasks and to fulfill the socio-economic and gendered expectations seems to have been most important. The explanations and definitions also indicate that unlike claimed in some earlier studies, parents were not typically blamed for their children’s impairments. The old concept of the connection between sin and disability in the medieval world has been questioned already in other recent studies, and the findings of this one further point to this direction. Moreover, unlike in miracle narratives where parents occasionally were blamed for their children’s accidents, such views are absent from the miracle stories where the child was disabled.

Parents and sometimes also older siblings are the people whose emotions are most often referred to, and the emotional side of childhood impairments was constructed through their sorrow and worry, occasionally though rarely also shame or disgust. Grief and tears were a part of invoking the saints, and the ritualistic grief is thus mixed with the devotional one. Sometimes this grief was manifested by intense notions of the wish that the child would rather die than live impaired. When it comes to the negative emotions towards the child, it seems that the type of the child’s impairment was significant. The strongly expressed negative emotions were towards children’s disfigurements or malformations, very severe mobility impairments and deafness. Probably worry for children’s future, and the fear they could not fulfill the expected lifespan was behind many of these notions. Marriage seems to have been more difficult especially for girls with facial disfigurements or who were deaf, and several laws of the time forbid inheritance as well as various professions from the disabled.

Other community members than the immediate family seem to have been rather well aware of the details of children’s impairments, regardless of their social status. Impairments were thus not a taboo but a thing discussed in a social sphere. The attitudes and reactions of other community members are, however, mostly absent from the miracle narratives. Only in the cases of very poor, begging children – who are an underrepresented group among the beneficiaries – the attitudes of other people were significant. Beggars were easily suspected of feigning their impairments, and thus the potential alms-givers often wanted to make sure that they were genuine. Sometimes the tests were violent.

Otherwise the role of other community members appears most obvious in the search for the cure. Medical professionals were important witnesses for canonisation inquiries for they proved ‘scientific’ background for the miraculous cures. The presence of doctors also reveal aspects about the curing attempts but presumably also of the conceptions of incurability. There is big geographic variation, however, as southern European children received medical treatment far more often than those living in the central or northern Europe. Veneration of saints was often public and communal, and community members were eager to give parents advice on vows and pilgrimages to cure their children. The responsibility to search for treatment was, however, that of the parents.

Children’s own testimonies are rare in the canonisation processes. The same elements to define the severity of the condition are, however, visible in them. The one difference is that the mentions of physical pain are a bit more common in those cases where the beneficiaries also gave their witness account, but that aspect was still recorded infrequently. Otherwise children’s emotions towards their own impairments or the attitudes of other community members are mostly absent. As children often testified years after the actual events it is likely that their socialisation to the cultural conceptions of pain as well as the elements of a miracle story had an effect on their memories. Presumably emotions were also considered a thing difficult to proof and, consequently, a less important way to construct an impairment for a miracle story.

It appears that the type and severity of the impairment, as well as the child’s socio-economic background had the biggest impact on their social integration. Impairment did not automatically lead into marginalisation or liminality, but children who were unable to fulfill the expectances of the society, or who lacked a safety net experienced the disablement more strongly. In many cases physical differences did not, however, cause detachment from the family and community, but also impaired children acted as parts of it.