Working women: depictions of feminine labor in late medieval Books of Hours
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Visual depictions of working women are sparse prior to the 1400s, at which point they occur with more regularity. Using examples from Books of Hours, this paper traces the imagery of women performing agrarian and domestic tasks, as well as portrayals of their roles in medieval urban economies. Relocation, societal instability, disease, and environmental factors are theorized to contribute to the increased visual record of women engaging in quotidian labor. Additionally, the tasks depicted are compared to historical records in order to reconcile the idealized versions of labor with the lived realities of medieval women.
Description
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States