Can you picture feeling so fragile that even a simple touch might shatter you? That’s exactly what some people in history genuinely believed. This bizarre condition was called the glass delusion, and it showed up in the Middle Ages and early modern times.
People who had it thought they were made of glass. Not like a delicate vase but their whole body felt like it could shatter at any moment.
This wasn’t just a passing thought. The delusion caused huge stress. People were terrified of being touched or hugged, worried that even a gentle hand could send them crashing to the floor.
The famous Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, in his 1613 story The Glass Graduate, described it perfectly: “they would break him, that he really and truly was not like other men, that he was all glass from head to toe.”
The glass delusion didn’t exist forever. Historians think it popped up when clear glass started being used more often in homes and everyday life. Glass was new, fascinating and magical.
It made sense that some people’s minds would get tangled with it. Interestingly, before glass, people had other material-related delusions. Some believed they were made of earthenware!
Royals Who Thought They Were Glass
Even kings and princesses weren’t safe from this weird condition. Two royals in Europe are known to have suffered from the glass delusion: King Charles VI of France and Princess Alexandra of Bavaria.
Charles VI became king at just 12 years old in 1380. Over time, his mental health worsened. He had episodes that started small. He’d act feverish but later he forgot who he was and didn’t recognize his family.
Pope Pius II recorded that Charles believed he was made of glass. To protect himself, he had a suit with iron ribs and wrapped soft blankets around his body where the iron couldn’t help. Some think this might have run in his family, as his mother may have had mental health problems too.
Princess Alexandra of Bavaria had a different experience. She loved writing and was known for being very clean, often dressing in white. In her twenties, she believed she had swallowed a glass piano as a child. She worried it could shatter inside her body. Unlike Charles, her delusions mixed with other unusual behaviors but the fear of breaking like glass was very real.
How Did People Treat Mental Illness Back Then?
Mental health in the Middle Ages was very different from today. Some thought disorders like the glass delusion were caused by sin. Others blamed an imbalance of the “four humors”—phlegm, blood, yellow bile and black bile—or poor diet, alcohol or outside forces.
The first hospital in Europe that treated mental illness was Bethlem Royal Hospital in 1247, which later earned the nickname “Bedlam.” In the U.S., the first hospital opened in Philadelphia in 1753. But don’t imagine doctors in white coats helping people like today. Conditions were awful. Patients were often treated worse than animals and ordinary people thought of them as a burden.
Before hospitals, families had very few options. They could care for the person at home or the person could end up homeless, begging for food. Sadly, some people with mental illness were even accused of witchcraft.
It wasn’t until the 1900s that society started treating people with mental disorders as patients instead of prisoners. And better mental healthcare took even longer to arrive.
Is the Glass Delusion Around Today?
By the 1830s, almost nobody seemed to have the glass delusion anymore. Doctors and scientists were starting to understand mental illness a bit better, even if their treatments were still kind of rough.
But every now and then, weird cases pop up even today. Some people start having delusions tied to modern stuff, like thinking their bodies have microchips or other strange materials inside instead of glass.
