Disability and the Tudors: All the King's Fools

(By Phillipa Vincent-Connolly)

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Author	Phillipa Vincent-Connolly

“Book Descriptions: Throughout history, how society treated its disabled and infirm can tell us a great deal about the period. Challenge with any impairment, disease or frailty was often a matter of life and death before the advent of modern medicine, so how did a society support the disabled amongst them? For centuries, disabled people and their history have been overlooked. Very little on the physically challenged or mentally impaired was written down during the Renaissance period. The Tudor period was no exception, and presents a complex and unparalleled narrative. The sixteenth century was far from exemplary in the treatment of its infirm population, but a multifaceted and ambiguous story emerges, where society’s ‘natural fools’ were elevated as much as they were belittled. Meet character’s like William Somer, Henry VIII’s fool at court, whom the king depended upon, along with Anne Boleyn’s fool, Jane, and understand how they were cared for, despite their difference. Learn how the dissolution of the monasteries contributed to forming an army of ‘sturdy beggars’ who roamed Tudor England without charitable support. From the nobility to the lowest of society, Phillipa Vincent-Connolly casts a light on the lives of disabled people in Tudor England and guides us through the social, religious, cultural and ruling classes’ response to disability as it was then perceived.”