Representing Women and Poverty in Late Medieval Art

Abstract

During the Middle Ages, images could delineate the poor as separate or other, suggesting their distinct social, economic, and possibly even physical status. To understand late medieval visualizations of poor women, this essay will examine images of poor women that range from voluntarily poor religious women to involuntarily poor women shown as recipients in scenes of charitable giving. In my comparison of representations depicting poor women to those of poor men, I point to gender-based ideologies of poverty that reflected complex attitudes towards the poor and women in medieval society.