Was There Combat Trauma in the Middle Ages? A Case for Moral Injury in Pre-modern Conflict

Abstract

The study of combat trauma, and in particular PTSD, is well-established in the historiography of ancient Greece and Rome, but has received very little attention in relation to medieval conflict. Recent works have looked at PTSD and trauma in the First Crusade, and on the mental impact of military service during the Hundred Years War, but existing studies do not engage with psychological theory in depth, and tend to cherry-pick diagnostic criteria. Part of the reason for the comparative lack of study in this field is the source base, as medieval writers tended to glorify war and rarely reflected on its impact, and the genre in which many wrote meant they lacked the necessary vocabulary to express their experiences. This chapter will argue that combat trauma, the psychological impact of conflict, did exist in the middle ages but that current approaches to its study, and in particular the desire to define psychological experiences using the diagnosis of PTSD, have constrained our ability to recognise and understand aspect of the medieval experience. Consequently, this chapter will propose that historians of the middle ages (and indeed all eras) should look move away from the emphasis on historical PTSD and instead read historical sources in light of the psychological theory of moral injury.