IMC 2011: Sessions
Session 511: 'Blood Bitokeneth Gold, as me Was Taught': The Gender Politics of Poverty and Wealth in the Middle Ages, I
Tuesday 12 July 2011, 09.00-10.30
| Sponsor: | Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship |
|---|---|
| Organiser: | Liz Herbert McAvoy, Department of English Language & Literature, Swansea University |
| Moderator/Chair: | Liz Herbert McAvoy, Department of English Language & Literature, Swansea University |
| Paper 511-a | Powerful Poverty (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Women's Studies |
| Paper 511-b | Lady Poverty, the Beguines, and the Spiritual Franciscans: The Case of Na Prous Boneta (Language: English) Index terms: Teaching the Middle Ages, Women's Studies |
| Paper 511-c | De Rebus Monasterii: Poverty and Property in the 13th-Century Institutes for Dominican Nuns (Language: English) Index terms: Monasticism, Women's Studies |
| Abstract | According to Chaucer's Wife of Bath, a woman's exploitation of her own abjection can be a means of achieving wealth, both actual and metaphorical, within a patriarchal culture. These sessions therefore aim to examine the gendered aspects of medieval concepts of wealth and poverty, the rich and the poor, both within secular and religious contexts. For example, how did wealth or poverty impact upon gender relations? To what extent were gendered religio-spiritual discourses of wealth and poverty integral to a hierarchised social system? How does this binary make itself felt in a gendered way in secular literature or in medieval notions of queen/kingship? How important is a gendered understanding of the rich-poor binary to our understanding of medieval philanthropic/misanthropic practices or pro-/anti-feminist sentiment? |