Why Medieval Knights Went Completely Insane

Did medieval knights suffer from PTSD, or was the psychological trauma of pre-modern warfare something far worse? We often look back at the Middle Ages as a brutal, chaotic time where soldiers felt no remorse, but historical primary sources reveal a completely different reality. In this video, we dive deep into the medieval mind to uncover the true psychological cost of hand-to-hand combat, crushing maces, and the crushing weight of chivalry. While Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a modern clinical diagnosis originally defined around a fear response, medieval chronicles describe a deeper, more devastating wound: Moral Injury. By exploring the accounts of real 14th-century knights like Geoffroi de Charny, the harrowing memoirs of Jean de Joinville during the Seventh Crusade, and the tragic story of Sir Peter Bearn, we reveal how the medieval battlefield could leave you with scars that were invisible to the naked eye. GET SHIFT: https://shiftyourphone.com/?affiliate... PATREON:   / medievalmindset   MERCH: https://medievalmindset.com/ TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - The Brutal Reality of Medieval Combat 0:59 - The Story of Rigaud & Changing Identities 1:53 - Onund Tree-Leg and Medieval War Injuries 2:58 - Sir Peter Bearn: Documented Combat Trauma 3:55 - 13th Century Views on Mental Health 4:54 - What is Moral Injury? (PTSD vs. Moral Wounds) 5:34 - Dr. Jonathan Shay and the Wounds of War 6:44 - Jean de Joinville & The Failed Seventh Crusade 8:04 - The Chaos of the Battle of Al-Mansurah 9:26 - Carrying an Injured Soul 10:55 - SHIFT + PATREON + MERCH PLUG 12:05 - Geoffroi de Charny: The Coldest Knight in History 13:32 - Chivalry: An Operating Manual for Trauma 14:00 - Embracing Terror & Dissociation 15:43 - The Inquest of Delphine de Puimichel 17:30 - Ferrarius of Cucuron and the Burden of Shame 18:27 - Divine Intervention & The Fear of Defeat 20:19 - Reintegrating the Broken Knight (Modern Lessons) WORKS CITED: Joinville, Jean de, and Geoffroy de Villehardouin. Chronicles of the Crusades. Translated by Caroline Smith, Penguin Books, 2009. Charny, Geoffroi de. The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny: Text, Context, and Translation. Edited by Richard W. Kaeuper, translated by Elspeth Kennedy, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. Shay, Jonathan. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. Scribner, 2003. Archambeau, Nicole. Souls under Siege: Stories of War, Plague, and Confession in Fourteenth-Century Provence. Cornell University Press, 2021. Burfield, Brian. “The Enemy inside: Warfare and the Psyche in the Middle Ages.” Medieval Warfare, vol. 4, no. 5, 2014, pp. 49–52. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48579060. Kinghorn, Warren. “Combat Trauma and Moral Fragmentation: A Theological Account of Moral Injury.” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, vol. 32, no. 2, 2012, pp. 57–74. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23563037.