Managing Melancholy Dynamics of Theology and Medicine in 18th-century Denmark-Norway

Is there a connection between the 18th century's religious focus on the 'inner man' and developments of modern people's perceptions of mental health? Did the religious fashions of the day, pietism, and the many self-help books to diagnose the soul have an influence on ordinary people's experience of their own and others' mental health? New digital tools give us access to a large source material from court cases, where citizens themselves get the floor. Here they report on how they experience acute crises, mentally impaired states and mental illness. This can give us new knowledge about a dynamic between theology and medicine, which gained tangible significance for the development of forensic psychiatry and for the legal position of the individual. This project thus sheds new light on the contested consequence of religion for the widely branched changes of individual, social and institutional mentalities that took place during the Enlightenment century.