> [!quote] [What happened to mentally handicap people that couldn't care for themselves before mental wards and medicine was a thing](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/qm2jux/what_happened_to_mentally_handicap_people_that/hj7bqs2/?context=3) by [[Kelpie-Cat]] via [[rAskHistorians]] > > In conclusion, Irish law put the legal responsibility of care for the mentally disabled on the person's family. The person maintained a child-like legal status for the rest of their life. While this protected them from punishment for crimes they may not have intentionally committed, it also afforded them fewer rights as they were considered legally incompetent. It also seems that mental disability was considered grounds for mockery in a way that physical disability wasn't. Finally, while it's not reflected in the Irish law codes, we know that monasteries in early medieval Europe frequently served as the closest thing they had to hospitals. If a person had no kin to care for them, one can imagine that their care may have come under the responsibility of a local monastery. - [I] #articleseed/overviewTopic/disabilities (see also [[Deborah Sneed]]'s work on [[historical societies accommodated disabled people]]