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We would like to cordially invite you to a lecture series titled Premodern Perspectives on Disabilities, taking place on October 8, 15, and 22, 2026, at the Faculty of Humanities (FHS), Charles University. The series is organized by the Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the Faculty of Humanities' Department of Applied Social Sciences and the Institute of the History of Medicine and Foreign Languages ​​(First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University).

On October 8, 2026, Ninon Dubourg will give a lecture at FHS titled "Disability and Religion in the Late Middle Ages: Giving and Receiving the Sacraments when Disabled". Detailed information about the lecture can be found in the invitation at this link.

Lecture description:

What was life like for people with disabilities in the Middle Ages? Were they all beggars, as is sometimes claimed, gathered at the doors of churches? Or were they able to pursue prestigious careers and participate fully in medieval Christian society?

Drawing on petitions received by the popes and the letters they sent in reply, this lecture will show how people with disabilities could become or remain clerics, and how they could take advantage of adjustments to religious prohibitions and obligations to continue leading irreproachable Christian lives. These 13th- to 15th-century documents, drawn from the Vatican Apostolic Archives and the Apostolic Penitentiary, offer insight into the lives of people with disabilities by shedding light on what they could or could not do and what they wanted or did not want to do.

About the lecturer:

Dr. Ninon Dubourg, author of Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages: Un/suitable for Divine Service? is currently a postdoctoral researcher funded by an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship and based at the University of Cologne. She holds a PhD from the University of Paris Cité in France and was a postdoctoral fellow funded by the FRS-FNRS in Liège, Belgium, for three years (2021–2024). Her research focuses on old age and physical and mental disabilities in secular and clerical contexts in medieval Europe (12th–16th centuries).

We look forward to seeing you!