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Healthy, Good and Happy: The Topicality of the Medieval Model of Wellbeing

Departing from a miscellany with various do-it-yourself advice texts from the city of Deventer, this article explains the medieval model of health. It argues that medievals held an overall vision of health, involving physical, mental and spiritual well-being as well as the search for the moral good. At the end of the Middle Ages, residents of Dutch cities energetically strove to create for themselves a better life in terms of health, comfort, satisfaction and spiritual perfection but never left fellow humans to their own devices. Current decision-makers could profit from this integral model and may replace the concept of health with that of well-being.