Dr. Ninon Dubourg is currently a postdoctoral researcher funded by an Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship and hosted at the University of Cologne. She holds a PhD from the University of Paris-Cité, France, and was for 3 years a postdoctoral fellow funded by the FRS-FNRS in Liège (Belgium, 2021-2024). Her research focuses on old age and physical and mental disabilities in both secular and clerical contexts in medieval Europe (12th–16th centuries).
Her PhD and first postdoc were based on the petition and papal letters conserved in the Papal Archives of the Vatican Apostolic Archives and the Apostolic Penitentiary. She shows that this kind of ecclesiastical document offers us significant insight into the Church’s comprehension of the social experience of disability.
Her Alexander von Humboldt project is entitled: “Aging in Liège – A History of Old Age at a City Scale (15th-16th centuries) (AGING).” The AGING project aims to contribute to new developments in the history of aging and retirement by analyzing the archives of five institutions in the city of Liège involved in elderly care. It examines the organization of these institutions and their financial records of income and expenses, with the aim of writing an economic, urban, and social history of the late medieval / early modern retirement.
Cover of the book (“old rose” cover with an image from the Decretum Gratiani figuring an ill-in-bed bishop writing a letter to the Pope, at the right of the image).
Ninon Dubourg
Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages
Un/suitable for Divine Service?
The petitions received and the letters sent by the Papal Chancery during the Late Middle Ages attest to the recognition of disability at the highest levels of the medieval Church. These documents acknowledge the existence of physical and/or mental impairments, with the papacy issuing dispensations allowing some supplicants to adapt their clerical missions according to their abilities. A disease, impairment, or old age could prevent both secular and regular clerics from fulfilling the duties of their divine office. Such conditions can, thus, be understood as forms of disability. In these cases, the Papal Chancery bore the responsibility for determining if disabled people were suitable to serve as clerics, with all the rights and duties of divine services. Whilst some petitioners were allowed to enter the clergy, or – in the case of currently serving churchmen – to stay more or less active in their work, others were compelled to resign their position and leave the clergy entirely. Petitions and papal letters lie at intersection of authorized, institutional policy and practical sources chronicling the lived experiences of disabled people in the Middle Ages. As such, they constitute an excellent analytical laboratory in which to study medieval disability in its relation to the papacy as an institution, alongside the impact of official ecclesiastical judgments on disabled lives.
Since the 1st October 2024: Alexander von Humboldt fellow – University of Cologne (Germany)
2021-2024: F.R.S.-FNRS Chargée de recherche (Postdoctoral fellow) – Research Unit “Transitions” – University of Liège (Belgium)
2019-2021 : European Projects Follow-up (administrative position at the Grant Office) at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris.
2019-2021: Several times ranked for postdoctoral fellowships (selection).
First on the waiting list for TIAS, Turku (Finland) (2020),
First on the waiting list for Reinforcing Women in Research, Vienne (Austria) (2020),
Seal of Excellence MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship (2019), Tampere (Finland).
2019-2021: Independent French Teacher of Literature (200 hours of teaching) – Acadomia (Group courses for French baccalaureate students).
2018-2019 : Temporary teaching, Université Paris CIté (63 hours of teaching).
2015-2017 : Temporary teaching and research position (ATER) in medieval history, Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7 (384 hours of teaching).
2012-2015 : Recipient doctoral student of the l’École Doctorale Économies, Espaces, Sociétés, Civilisations (ED 382) at the Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7, laboratory ICT (Identités, Cultures et Territoires, EA 337) in medieval history under the supervision of Didier Lett (Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7) (96 hours of traching).
Entitled “‘Ad obsequium divinum inhabilem’ The Recognition of the disabled person’s condition by the Papal Chancery (12th-14th century)”, my dissertation seeks to question the integration of disabled persons into the clergy and the secular society, but also the utility that the Church withdraws from going against the laws it has enacted. Documents from Vatican Archives’ petition and letter registers, between norms and practices, allow researchers to see how the disabled person, whether cleric or secular, relies on the institution of which she is part to frame her life – and, conversely, to capture the gaze of the institution on these people.
2010-2012 : Research master History – history of art, Antiquity – Middle Ages, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier III. Dissertation on Les clercs handicapés et infirmes au xiiie siècle, à travers les lettres de dispense d’Innocent III (1198-1216) et de Boniface VIII (1294-1303), defended in front of Julien Théry and Daniel Le Blévec.
Institutional responsibilities
09/2021 – 08/2023 Member of the Management and Scientific Councils, UR “Transitions”.
09/2013 – 06/2017 Substitute delegate for PhD students from the École Doctorale 382.
09/2014 – 06/2016 Delegate of the doctoral students of the laboratory ICT – UPC.
2022-2024 Co-organisation of the webinar “Disability & War” with C. Masson (FRS-FNRS – ULiège)
2021-2025 Co-organisation of the hybrid seminar “Construire une histoire du handicap et de la surdité au travers des siècles” (Building a history of disability and deafness through the centuries) (EHESS UE79) with F. Bertin (EHESS) and G. Brégain (CNRS).
07/2023 Co-organisation of one session composed by two panels entitled “Ageing and Care in the Middle Ages” with Laura Cayrol-Bernardo (Bergen), 3-6 July 2023, International Medieval Congress of Leeds, Leeds;
06/2023 Co-organisation of one session for the international conference ALTER, the European Society for Disability Research, Aubervilliers, 2023.
06/2023 Co-organisation of the International Conference “Histories of Disability & Emotions” with S. Scalenghe, (Loyola University) and P. Verstraete (KULeuven), KU Leuven and ULiège;
07/2022 Co-organisation of one session composed by three panels entitled “The Borders of Disability and Ability, Ill-Health and Health” with Adelheid Russenberg (UCLondon), 4-7 July 2022, International Medieval Congress of Leeds, Leeds;
2021-2022 Help in the organisation of the seminar “corps empêchés” (impaired bodies) in Angers in the framework of the ANR Fil_IAM of Carole Avignon, University of Angers;
03/2017 Presentation of the last works of Henri-Jacques Stiker around a meeting with the author, “Anthropologie et histoire du handicap” (Anthropology and Disability History), UPC, Paris;
09/2015 Workshop “Utiliser l’Histoire: regards croisés sur la discipline historique” (Using History: A Cross-Review of the Historical Discipline), UPC;
09/2014 Workshop “Habiter: lieux de vie et façons de vivre. Une approche pluridisciplinaire du quotidien” (Living: places to live and ways to live. A multidisciplinary approach to everyday life), UPC.
2013 Conducting a survey of students enrolled in the first year of the degree in history and their representations of medieval and contemporary history, presented at the General Assembly of the Department of History, Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7, 20 February 2014 (with Delphine Piétu).
Outreach activities
Critical notes and book reviews (for Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales ; Canadian Bulletin of Medical History ; Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique ; Sehepunkte, Rezensionsjournal für die Geschichtswissenschaften ; Le Moyen Âge, Revue d’histoire et de philologie ; Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences; Memini Travaux et documents) (15+).
Academic Twitter threads for “en direct du labo” (live from the lab, May 2019, audience 644,000) and “Tweeting Historians” (June 2022, audience 200,000).
03/2022 Research Grant, Stipendia Academiae Belgicae/Rome/Italy (1 month duration).
10/2021 Chargée de recherche (postdoctoral fellow) from the F.R.S.-FNRS (3 years duration).
09/2016 Temporary teaching and research position (ATER – 1 year duration).
09/2015 Temporary teaching and research position (ATER – 1 year duration).
09/2012 Recipient doctoral student (3 years duration).
04/2017 Fellowship, French School of Rome/Rome/Italy (1 month duration).
04/2016 Fellowship, French School of Rome/Rome/Italy (1 month duration).
11/2014 Fellowship, French School of Rome/Rome/Italy (1 month duration).
06/2014 Grant to participate to the workshop History and Computer Science, Textometry of Historical Sources, French School of Rome, Rome (1 week duration).
03/2014 Training course in medieval diplomacy organized by the GDR (research group) 3177 “Diplomatique”, CNRS, in the National archives, Paris (3 days duration).
Ninon Dubourg, Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages, Un/suitable for divine service?, Amsterdam University Press, 2023 (introduction in open access).
Ninon Dubourg and Wendy Turner (eds.), A Cultural History of Madness – Volume on the Middle Ages, Bloomsbury (contract already signed with Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2024).
Ninon Dubourg and Christophe Masson (eds.), Disability and War, Arc Humanity Press (contract to be issued in June 2023, forthcoming 2025).
Gildas Brégain and Ninon Dubourg (eds.), Pour une nouvelle histoire du handicap, Presses Universitaires de Rennes (manuscript will be sent to the editor in December 2023, forthcoming 2025).
Ninon Dubourg and Adelheid Russenberg (eds.), The Borders of Disability and Ability, Ill-Health and Health, journal Social History of Medicine, Oxford Academic (approbation of the editors, forthcoming).
with Maria Podzorova (eds), “Utiliser l’histoire: regards croisés sur la discipline historique” (Using History: A cross-section of the historical discipline), Encyclo, Revue de l’École doctorale ED 382, 2018, n° 9, Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris (online).
with Delphine Piétu and Maria Podzorova (eds), “Habiter: lieux de vie et façons de vivre. Une approche pluridisciplinaire du quotidien” (Living: places to live and ways to live. A multidisciplinary approach to everyday life), Encyclo, Revue de l’ED 382, 2016, n° 6, Université Paris 7, Paris (online).
Ninon Dubourg, “Deformitas et célébration de l’eucharistie dans le droit canon medieval”, in I. G. Mastrorosa, Deformitas e diritto (forthcoming 2023);
(Ageing and Religious experiences during the Late Middle Ages – How elderly people were involved in everyday conventual life), in M. Comas-Via and A. Rosillo-Luque (eds.), Quaderni di storia religiosa medieval (forthcoming 2023);
with Megan Katheb, “Témoignages médiévaux de la privation des sens. Empreintes matérielles de la cécité et de la mutité à l’époque médiévale” (Medieval evidence of sensory deprivation. Material traces of blindness and mute in the medieval period), in V. Delattre (ed.), Les Nouvelles de l’archéologie, n°165, September 2021, p. 62-67 (online);
“Position de thèse” (Thesis position), Alter, European Society for Disability Research, Vol. 14-3, Sept. 2020, pp. 226-235 (online behind paywall);
“Émasculations cléricales, Itinéraires particuliers pour aborder l’identité du clerc émasculé (xiie-xve siècle)” (Clerical emasculations, Particular itineraries to approach the identity of the emasculated cleric (12e-15e c.)), in M.-L. Fieyre, “Itinéraires particuliers, identités singulières” (particular itineraries, singular identities), Encylo, Revue de l’ ED 382, 2014,n°4, University Paris 7, Paris, p. 89-101 (online).
Ninon Dubourg, “Disability and religious practices”, in C. Lee and J. Kuuliala, The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Disability, Routledge (forthcoming 2024);
with Laura Cayrol Bernardo, “Old Age and Medicine”, in L. Laumonier and J. Rosenthal (eds.), A Cultural History of Old Age, Bloomsbury (forthcoming 2023);
“European Medieval Disability History: An Overview”, in Handbook of Critical Disability Studies, S. Scalenghe and G. Reaume, volume on Disability History, Springer Nature, 2022 (online);
“Being a Leprous Cleric: a social rejection? (xiiith and xivth centuries)”, in Dis/ability History der Vormoderne. Ein Handbuch – Premodern Dis/ability History. A Companion, C. Nolte, B. Frohne, U. Halle and S. Kerth (eds), Didymos, Affalterbach, 2017, p. 272-273.
“The ‘Blind’, the ‘Deaf” and the ‘Dumb’. Liturgical Practices of Sensory and Mentally Disabled People”, in Z. Murat, S. Carreño, and V. Baradel (eds.), The Role of the Senses in Medieval Liturgies and Rituals, Brepols (forthcoming 2024);
“Fasting and the shortage of olive oil in the cold regions in the 15th century. Health and salvation through the grace of the Apostolic Penitentiary”, in N. Dahn-Singh, M. Favre, G. Favrod and L. Rappo (eds.), Santé des corps, salut des âmes: soins et religion en milieu rural, Brepols (forthcoming 2024);
“Expertis medicis videatur: Legal Medical Expertise in the Assessment of Personal Injury Damages by the Apostolic Chancery during the Avignon Period (1309-1378)”, in W. Turner, Art of Illness, Routledge (forthcoming 2023);
“Un/Acceptable Disability? Defectus Corporis, Scandalum, and Pontifical Grace”, in Materializing Ugliness and Deformity in the Middle Ages, T. Artimon and A. Znorovszky (eds), Trivent Publishing, Budapest, (forthcoming 2023);
“L’incapacité dans les lettres de dispenses pontificales: aller à l’encontre de la réglementation ecclésiastique médiévale pour franchir la clôture” (Incapacity in the pontifical letters: going against medieval ecclesiastical regulations to cross the enclosure), in A. Burkardt and A. Roger (eds.), L’exception et la Règle, les pratiques d’entrée et de sortie des couvents, de la fin du Moyen Âge au XIXe siècle, Presse universitaire de Rennes, Rennes, 2022, p. 41-54 (online);
“Clerical Leprosy and the Ecclesiastical Office: Dis/Ability and Canon Law”, in New Approaches to Disease, Disability and Medicine in Medieval Europe, coll. Studies in Early Medicine, E. Connelly and S. Künzel (eds), Archaeopress, Oxford, 2018, p. 62-77 (online);
“Deo iudicio percusset, L’idée de contamination d’après les suppliques et les lettres pontificales” (The idea of contamination according to the petitions and pontifical letters), in Alter-habilitas.Perception of disability among people, S. Carraro (ed), Alteritas, Vérone, 2018, p. 89-114 (online);
“Aux origines du handicap à l’époque médiévale. Lectures d’une source historique, les dispenses pontificales aux xiiie et xive siècles” (On the origins of disability in medieval times. Readings from a historical source, the pontifical letters from the 13-14 centuries), in Travaux en cours, 2017, n°13, University Paris 7, Paris, p. 101-114 (online).
Book reviews
+ Critical notes and book reviews (for Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales ; Canadian Bulletin of Medical History ; Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique ; Sehepunkte, Rezensionsjournal für die Geschichtswissenschaften ; Le Moyen Âge, Revue d’histoire et de philologie ; Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences; Memini Travaux et documents) (15+).
In the process of being published
Recension de Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, Jenni Kuuliala et Iona McCleery(dir.), A Companion to Medieval Miracle Collections, Berlin-Boston, Brill, 2021, dans Le Moyen Âge, Revue d’histoire et de philologie, De Boeck Supérieur ;
Recension de Costanza Gislon Dopfel, Alessandra Foscati, Charles Burnett(dir.), Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World, Turnhout, Brepols, 2019, dans Le Moyen Âge, Revue d’histoire et de philologie, De Boeck Supérieur ;
Recension de Benjamin Wheaton, Suffering, Not Power. Atonement in the Middle Ages, Bellingham (WA), Lexham Academic, 2022, dans Le Moyen Âge, Revue d’histoire et de philologie, De Boeck Supérieur.
Published
Recension d’Arnaud Fossier, Le bureau des âmes – Ecritures et pratiques administratives de la Pénitencerie apostolique (XIIIe-XIVe siècle), Ecole Française de Rome, Rome, 2018, dans Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales (online);
Recension de Lisa Devriese (dir.), The Body as a Mirror of the Soul : Physiognomy from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Leuven University Press, 2021, dans la Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Louvain Journal of Church History, Université catholique de Louvain – la Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Volume 117, issue 3-4, 2022, p. 795-797 (En ligne) ;
Recension de Patrick Zutshi (dir.), The Avignon Popes and Their Chancery. Collected Essays, Sismel, 2021, dans la Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Louvain Journal of Church History, Université catholique de Louvain – la Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, vol. 117/1-2, 2022, p. 362-367 (En ligne) ;
Recension de Glenn D. Burger et Holly A. Crocker (dir.), Medieval Affect, Feeling, and Emotion, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2019 pour Sehepunkte – Rezensionsjournal für die Geschichtswissenschaften (En ligne) ;
Recension de Donna Trembinski, Illness and Authority. Disability in the Life and Lives of Francis of Assisi, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2020”, for the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, University of Toronto Press, vol. 39/1, avril 2022, p. 180-182 (En ligne) ;
“review of Jenny Kuuliala, Saints, Infirmity, and Community in the Late Middle Ages, Amsterdam, Amsterdam UP, 2020” for the journal Le Moyen Âge, Revue d’histoire et de philologie, De Boeck Supérieur, n° 2021/3-4 (Tome CXXVII) (online behind paywall);
“review of Sara Ritchey and Sharon Strocchia (eds), Gender, Health, and Healing, 1250-1550, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2020” for the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Oxford, Oxford University Press, n°77-2, p. 247-249 (online);
“review of Glenn D. Burger and Holly A. Crocker (eds.), Medieval Affect, Feeling, and Emotion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019” for the online journal Sehepunkte, Rezensionsjournal für die Geschichtswissenschaften (online);
“review of Donna Trembinski, Illness and Authority. Disability in the Life and Lives of Francis of Assisi, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2020”, for the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, University of Toronto Press, vol. 39/1, April 2022, p. 180-182 (online);
“review of Miri Rubin (ed.), Modus Vivendi. Religious Reform and the Laity in Late Medieval Europe, Viella historical research, 19, Roma, Viella, 2020” for the Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Louvain Journal of Church History, Université catholique de Louvain – la Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2021, 116 (3-4), p. 980-983 (online);
“review of Florent Coste (ed), L’Inflammatorium pœnitentiæ. Le vice de l’acédie et les vertus de l’imagination, Genève, Droz, 2019”, for the Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Louvain Journal of Church History, Université catholique de Louvain – la Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2021, 116 (1-2), p. 459-461 (online behind paywall);
“review of Alain Froment, and Hervé Guy (eds), Archéologie de la santé, anthropologie du soin, Paris, La découverte, 2019”, for the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, University of Toronto Press, Vol. 37-2, 2020, p. 516-519 (online);
“review of Jenny Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Middle Ages: Constructions of Impairments in Thirteenth and Fourteenth‑Century Canonization Processes, Turnhout, Brepols, 2016”, for the journal Le Moyen Âge, Revue d’histoire et de philologie, De Boeck Supérieur, 2020/1 (Tome CXXVI), p. 194-197;
“review of Maud Ternon, Juger les fous au Moyen Âge dans les tribunaux royaux en France: xive-xve siècles, Paris, PUF, 2018”, for the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, University of Toronto Press, spring/printemps 2019, Volume 36, Issue 1, p. 244-247 (online);
“review of Elizabeth W. Mellyn, Mad Tuscans and Their Families: A History of Mental Disorder in Early Modern Italy, Philadelphie, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014”, for the journal Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 2018, 73(2), p. 521-522 (online);
“review of Damien Boquet, Piroska Nagy, Sensible Moyen Âge, Une histoire des émotions dans l’Occident médiéval, L’Univers historique, Paris, Seuil, 2015”, for the journal Memini Travaux et documents, 2017, p. 22-23 (online).
Oral interventions
Communications at international symposia
“Ageing in Liège: networks of institutional care on a city scale”, 4-7 July 2021, International Medieval Congress of Leeds, University of Leeds;
“‘Morte a ce monde’, living in the leprosarium of Cornillon (Liège) in the 15th century”, ALTER 11th International Conference, “Protection, autonomy, emancipation”, 29th-30th June 2023, Aubervilliers;
“L’expertise médicale au service de l’évaluation des dommages corporels par la chancellerie apostolique pendant la période avignonnaise (1309-1378)”, International conference: Pouvoir et santé entre Moyen Âge et Temps modernes, 4-6 May 2023, Catholic University of Louvain la Neuve, Belgium;
« Ageing During the 15th Century: At the Intersection of Gender and Ability Gender bias in the requested hygienic accommodations from the Apostolic Penitentiary by elderly monks and nuns », Gender and Medieval Studies, 11-13 January 2023, University College London, London ;
“The ‘blind’, the ‘deaf” and the ‘dumb’. Liturgical practices of sensory and mentally disabled people”, International conference The Role of the Senses in Medieval Liturgies and Rituals, September 21-23 2022, University of Padua, Italy;
“Jeûne et pénurie d’huile d’olive dans les régions froides au XVe siècle. Santé et salut par la grâce de la Pénitencerie Apostolique”, International conference organised by the Société Suisse d’Histoire Rurale on Santé des corps, salut des âmes: soins et religion en milieu rural, September 1-3 2022, Université de Lausanne, Swizterland;
“Disabled Old Women against Romance: the depictions of “La Vieille”, Frontier of Love in Le roman de la Rose”, panel “The Borders of Disability and Ability, Ill-Health and Health II”, 4-7 July 2022, International Medieval Congress of Leeds, Leeds;
“The ambivalence of old age confronted with practical sources: the cases of elderly regular clerics facing the pontifical institution”, panel “Age in Monastic Life”, May 9-14, 2022, 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo;
“’Secundum assertionem et consilium medicorum’ – Petitioners as patients in front of the Apostolic Chancery (Avignon Period, 1309-1378)”, conference The Maladies, Miracles and Medicine of the Middle Ages III ‘Patients, Prayers and Pilgrims’, 1 April 2022, The Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Reading;
“Gender, old age, disability and religiosity. The intersectionality invoked by petitioners to contravene Christian prescriptions”, panel “Growing Old in the Middle Ages: A Gendered Perspective I – Social Practices”, 6-9 July 2021, International Medieval Congress of Leeds, Leeds;
“Disabling Consequences of Illnesses on Clerics’ Recruitment in 1459, (Re-)Inclusion of Disabled People within the Church by Pius II”, Virtual conference ‘Reconsidering Illness and Recovery in the Early Modern World’, Funded by the Durham University Centre for Academic Development, 18-19 August 2020, Online;
“Religiosity and Disability in the Papal Letters (13th and 14th centuries)”, Experiences of Dis/ability from the Late Middle Ages to the Mid-Twentieth Century Conference, 21-23 august 2019, Tampere University, Tampere;
“The Canon Law’s Category of the Defectus Corporis and Scandal”, panel “’Deformis formositas ac formosa deformitas‘ II: Materializing Ugliness and Deformity in the Middle Ages”, 2-4 July 2019, International Medieval Congress of Leeds, Leeds;
“Sicut Domino placuit ortus fuisti, disabled children’s births according to the Papal Chancery during the 13th century”, “Deviance: Aspects & Approaches”, Fifteenth Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference, 5-6 April 2019, University of Oxford, Oxford;
“Marginalization on the Margins? Historical Perspectives on the Representations of Physical Disability in some Medieval Manuscript’s margins”, Permeable Bodies in Medieval and Early Modern Visual Culture, 5-6 october 2018, University College of London, London;
“Les disability studies et la discipline historique: la disability history, état des lieux international et perspectives françaises”, panel “Comprendre les disability studies: une perspective croisée”, Les désignations disciplinaires et leurs contenus: le paradigme des studies, 18-20 January 2017, Université Paris 13, Paris;
“Expériences sociales dans un contexte institutionnel: Le latin utilisé par les clercs français pour décrire le handicap”, panel “Pre-modern Disabilities: Ambiguous Bodies, Texts, and Meanings”, Society for French Studies 57th Annual Conference, 27-29 June 2016, Glasgow;
“L’incapacité dans les lettres de dispenses pontificales: aller à l’encontre de la réglementation ecclésiastique médiévale pour franchir la clôture”, L’exception et la Règle, les pratiques d’entrée et de sortie des couvents, de la fin du Moyen Âge au XIXe siècle, 26-27 November 2015, Limoges;
“Being a Leprous Cleric: In/ability to Hold a Benefice”, conference Disease, Disability & Medicine in Medieval Europe 8th Annual Meeting, Infection and Long-term Sickness, 6-7 December 2014, Nottingham Highfield House, Nottingham.
Discussions at international symposia
Moderation of the panel “The Borders of Disability and Ability, Ill-Health and Health” III, 6-9 July 2022, International Medieval Congress of Leeds, Leeds;
Discussion during the seminar “Santés / Médecines du point de vue des Sciences Humaines”, 26 January 2022, University of Paris, Paris;
Moderation of the panel Miracles and Metaphors, Conference Disease, Disability & Medicine in Medieval Europe 10th Annual Meeting, Disability and religion, 2-4 December 2016, Swansea University, National Waterfront Museum.
Interventions during seminars
« La longue histoire des prêtres catholiques en situation de handicap », séminaire Construire une histoire du handicap et de la surdité au travers des siècles coordonné par Fabrice Bertin, Gildas Brégain et Ninon Dubourg, 21 mars 2023, EHESS, Paris ;
« Handicaps et Religion à la fin de l’époque médiévale, Donner et recevoir les sacrements lorsqu’on est handicapé », séminaire pour l’Institut des Hautes Etudes de Belgique coordonné par Alexis Wilkin, 27 février 2023, Université Libre de Bruxelles ;
“Disability history”, Seminar for Master students organised by Eric Geerkens, “Débats historiographiques contemporains” (Contemporary historiographical debates), 2 May 2022 and 8 May 2023, University of Liège;
“Handicap et pratiques religieuses: dévotion privée et expériences communes” (Disability and religious practices: private devotion and shared experiences), Seminar organised by Véronique Beaulande-Barraud, “Exclusion et communauté au Moyen Âge” (Exclusion and community in the Middle Ages), 27 April 2022, University Grenoble Alpes;
With Megan Kateb « Autour de la publication de l’article Témoignages médiévaux de la privation des sens Empreintes matérielles de la cécité et de la mutité à l’époque médiévale », séminaire organisé par Fabrice Bertin, Gildas Brégain et Ninon Dubourg, « Construire une histoire du handicap et de la surdité au travers des siècles », 5 avril 2022, EHESS Paris ;
“Religious experiences of older women during the Late Middle Ages – How elderly women are involved in Christian practices and conventual life”, Seminar organized by Laura Cayrol Bernardo, “gender and Ageing”, 17 February 2022, University of Bergen;
“Discussions autour de la notion de handicap en histoire, en sociologie et en antrhopologie” (Discussions on the notion of disability in history, sociology and anthropology), Seminar organized by Mathilde Martinais and Marie Potvain, “Santé et médecine du point de vue des sciences humaines”, 26 January 2022, University of Paris;
“Discussion et débats”, Seminar “Construire une histoire du handicap et de la surdité au travers des siècles” (Building a history of disability and deafness through the centuries) (EHESS UE899), with Fabrice Bertin (Paris, EHESS) and Gildas Brégain (Rennes, CNRS), 2 November 2021, EHESS Paris;
“Introduction” Seminar “Construire une histoire du handicap et de la surdité au travers des siècles” (Building a history of disability and deafness through the centuries) (EHESS UE899), with Fabrice Bertin (Paris, EHESS) and Gildas Brégain (Rennes, CNRS), 7 April 2021, online (EHESS, University of Paris, University of Rennes, ALTER association);
“L’expertise médicale légale dans l’évaluation des dommages corporels et mentaux par la chancellerie apostolique durant la période Avignonaise (1309-1378)” (Legal medical expertise in the evaluation of physical and mental damages by the apostolic chancellery during the Avignon period (1309-1378)), Seminar organized by Jean-François Ravaud “Jeunes chercheur.euse.s Handicap(s) et Sociétés”, 3 March 2021, EHESS Paris;
“In/capables d’assurer le service divin? Les requêtes des prêtres handicapés auprès de la chancellerie pontificale (13e-14e siècles)” (Unable to perform divine service? The requests of disabled priests to the papal chancery (13th-14th centuries)), Seminar organized by Béatrice Delaurenti, Charles de Miramon and Pierre Monnet, “Histoire intellectuelle et sociale du Moyen Âge”, 29 January 2020, EHESS Paris;
“La pertinence de l’utilisation du concept de “handicap” dans les études historiques” (The relevance of using the concept of “disability” in historical studies), Seminar organized by Jean-François Ravaud, “Jeunes chercheur.euse.s Handicap(s) et Sociétés”, 22 March 2016, EHESS Paris;
“Bilan historiographique sur le handicap et les infirmités au Moyen Âge” (Historiographic review of disability and infirmity in the Middle Ages), seminar organized by Didier Lett, Famille, parenté et genre au Moyen Âge (xiie-xve siècles), 7 December 2015, Université Paris Diderot;
“Le corps mutilé, vieillissant ou malade comme créateur d’identité. Au croisement de trois notions: corporalité, individualité et handicap” (The mutilated, aging or sick body as a creator of identity. At the crossroads of three notions: corporality, individuality and handicap), thematic and methodological seminar Questions de corps coordinated by Florence Gherchanoc, 16 October 2014, Université Paris Diderot;
“La masculinité des clercs” (Cleric Masculinity), seminar organised by Didier Lett, Famille, parenté et genre au Moyen Âge (xiie-xve siècles), 26 November 2013, Université Paris Diderot.
Interventions during workshops
“‘The collective Butterbriefe and the Apostolic Penitentiary (1455-1521)”, workshop organized by Emily Corran, Arnaud Fossier, “Penitential Hierarchies in the later Middle Ages”, Institut d’Études Avancées de Paris, 30th March 2023.
“‘The Literary and Illuminated Depictions of “La Vieille” – A Disabled Old Women as a “narrative prosthesis”’, CHSTM working group “Medieval European Medical Manuscripts, November 17, 2022.
“In/capables d’assurer le service divin? Les requêtes des prêtres handicapés auprès de la chancellerie pontificale (13e-14e siècles)”, Journées Jeunes Chercheurs en histoire des sciences et des techniques 2020, Organised by the SFHST, the SHESVIE, the SFHSH, the CoFrHiGeo, the GHC, the SACDHTE and the GDR « Histoire des mathématiques », 27 November 2020.
“La reconnaissance de la condition de personne infirme par la chancellerie pontificale (XIIe-XIVe s.), présentation des travaux de recherche doctorale”, workshop organised by Carole Avignon (ANR Fil_IAM) Corps empêchés, first session on “Dialogue méthodologique autour des disability studies: Approches médiévistiques”, University of Angers, 10 November 2020.
“Les disability studies aujourd’hui, tour d’horizon des lieux et des objets de recherche en SHS”, workshop organised by Carole Avignon (ANR Fil_IAM) Corps empêchés, first session on “Dialogue méthodologique autour des disability studies: Approches médiévistiques”, University of Angers, 10 November 2020.
“Approches de la construction identitaire cléricale par l’émasculation: entre désirs coupables ou consommés et incapacité canonique (xiie-xive siècles)”, organised by the GRER/SAGEF/PEFH, Genre, ‘race’ et handicap, Vivre ensemble dans la sphère publique, Université Paris Diderot, 10 March 2017;
“Aux origines du handicap médiéval dans les lettres de dispense pontificales (xiiie-xive siècles)”, 9è rencontres doctorales de Paris-Diderot Origine/Origines, 9-10 June 2016, Université Paris Diderot;
“Trois itinéraires pour aborder l’identité du clerc émasculé (xiiie-xve siècle)”, organised by Encyclo, Revue de l’ED 382, Itinéraires singuliers, identités plurielles, 22 February 2013, Université Paris Diderot.
