ABSTRACT
Medieval accounts of the separated soul (i.e., the disembodied soul after death and prior to the resurrection) parallel, in certain respects, contemporary models for understanding disability, including the medical, social, and cultural models, and the parallel aspects of contemporary thinking about the relation between disability and well-being. In this chapter’s first section, I consider accounts of cognitive impairments and disabilities in the separated soul, first presenting the views of Dominicans, like Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Trilia, and second considering the views of Franciscans like Bonaventure, Matthew of Acquasparta, and John Duns Scotus. In the second section, I consider accounts of impairments in well-being in the separated soul resulting from its lacking a body, again drawing first on Dominican views and second on Franciscans. Throughout I show the parallels mentioned above, and I formulate principles that at least implicitly guided medieval thinking about disability, focusing on how medieval accounts of disability were largely determined by their accounts of human nature.
