Chronicling epidemics: the relation between medical knowledge and religious practices among non-medical experts in the Low Countries, 1500-1850

Abstract

Especially with reference to the early modern period the relation between medicine and religion has often been studied as a zero-sum game, in which the 'disenchantment' of the world was a precondition for medical progress and innovation. Using digital methods to analyse a corpus of 300 handwritten chronicles from the Chronicling Novelty project led by prof. dr. Judith Pollmann and dr. Erika Kuijpers, new comparative and long-term research is possible to study the relation between religious and medical practices in the Low Countries among the middle-class. Writing a new 'history from below' by studying chronicles as collections of knowledge enables historians to study religious and medical practices not only side by side, but also in relation to each other, as well as to explore how this relation was perceived by the chroniclers. By examining both Catholic and Protestant authors from the Southern- and Northern Netherlands, this paper will present two perspectives on the changing relation between medicine and religion in the early modern period. First, the causal relation between 'divine' and 'natural' explanations for epidemics among non-medical experts. Secondly, how a group of middle-class authors used religious and medical practices simultaneously. As a result, this paper not only nuances the dichotomy between medicine and religion, but also provides insight in the how Catholics and Protestants reflected upon medical novelties in relation to their faith.