Ship of Fools

In 1494 the German theologian Sabastian Brant published his Das Narrenschiff (“the ship of fools”), a satire about the current state of the church (Barclay, 1874; Cook, 2006; Kamen, 2000). Brant discusses a hundred and ten varieties of fool (Remy, 1907). Brant’s work was translated into English in 1509 by Alexander Barclay (Cook, 2006; Hager, 2005). Foucault (2006) uses this as evidence of the social exclusion of the mad in medieval times, stating that the mad were herded into ships which were then turned away from city after city in Europe (Arboleda-Florez & Sartorius, 2008), and in particular Germany. Documentary evidence from Frankfurt, for example, suggests that the practice of paying ships’ captains to remove madmen from the city was common in the late 14^th and early 15^th centuries (Kent, 2003). A man who had run naked through the streets of the city was removed in this manner in 1399. Thus the ship of fools could be considered a medieval variety of asylum. However, later scholars have stated that there were no real ships of fools, and that Foucault misinterpreted an allegorical work as truth (Dumm, 2002; Miller, 2000; Rezneck, 1991; Scull, 1989; Scull, 2007; Smith, 2006; Still & Velody, 1992).

References:

Arboleda-Florez, J., & Sartorius, N. (2008). Understanding the stigma of mental illness: Theory and interventions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Barclay, A. (1874). The ship of fools. Edinburgh, Scotland: William Paterson.

Cook, J.W. (2006). Encyclopedia of Renaissance literature. New York, NY: Facts on File Inc.

Dumm, T.L. (2002). Michel Foucault and the politics of freedom. Lanham, MD:  Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Foucault, M. (2006). History of madness. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hager, A. (Ed.) (2005). Encyclopedia of British writers: 16^th and 17^th centuries. New York, NY: Facts on File Inc.

Kamen, H. (2000). Who’s who in Europe 1450-1750. London, England: Routledge.

Kent, D. (2003). Snake pits, talking cures and magic bullets – a history of mental illness. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century Books.

Miller, J. (2000). The passion of Michel Foucault. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Remy, A.F.J. (1907). Sebastian Brant. In The Catholic encyclopedia. New York, NY: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02741a.htm

Rezneck, L. (1991). The philosophical defence of psychiatry. London, England: Routledge.

Scull, A.T. (1989). Social order/mental disorder: Anglo-American psychiatry in historical perspective. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Scull, A.T. (2007). The fictions of Foucault's scholarship. Retrieved from http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25347-2626687,00.html

Smith, M.A. (2006). Developing a recovery ethos for psychiatric services in New Zealand. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Still, A., & Velody, I. (Eds.) (1992). Rewriting the history of madness. London, England: Routledge.