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IMC 2011: Sessions

Session 611: 'Blood Bitokeneth Gold, as me Was Taught': The Gender Politics of Poverty and Wealth in the Middle Ages, II

Tuesday 12 July 2011, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship
Organisers:Liz Herbert McAvoy, Department of English Language & Literature, Swansea University
Julie Ann Smith, Department of History, University of Sydney
Moderator/Chair:Julie Ann Smith, Department of History, University of Sydney
Paper 611-aPoverty, Gender, and Sanctity in Irish and Anglo-Saxon Saints' Vitae
(Language: English)
Kiley Malone, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney
Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Women's Studies
Paper 611-bRiches to (Voluntary) Rags in Bozon's Lives of Women
(Language: English)
Mary Beth Long, Department of English, Ouachita Baptist University, Arkansas
Index terms: Gender Studies, Women's Studies
Paper 611-cSt Congar: Masculinities and Appropriations on the Edges of Hagiography and Romance
(Language: English)
Pamela Morgan, Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Research (MEMO) / Department of English, Swansea University
Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Language and Literature - Old English
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?