Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor (review)

In recent years historians have discovered the value of medieval hagiography as an unrivaled source for social history and as a means of learning about such formerly neglected groups as children, the aged, the emotionally disturbed, the servant class, and urban workers. Going beyond the mere recitation of the symptoms of the disease or other difficulties faced by those who turned to the saint's cult for assistance or cure, a critical reading of the testimony of those who testified at canonization trials combined with other sources for social history has expanded our knowledge of popular culture, the social and political networks behind local cults, and the confluence of religion and politics. Sharon Farmer's latest book is a study of the cult of King Louis IX of France, based on the extant testimony and collection of his posthumous miracles. It opens up the world of women living on the margins in thirteenth-century Paris and St.-Denis. Thirty-six of the fifty-two miracles benefited the poor, mostly women. Such miracle stories are among the few written historical records which bear testimony to the daily lives and struggles of vast sectors of the population.

The urban poor constituted about half the population of Paris, and Farmer's work serves as a sympathetic prism through which we view this Parisian underclass. A large number were women who eked out a precarious existence as domestic servants, apprentices, unskilled day laborers, beggars, and recent immigrants. They were sometimes forced into prostitution to supplement their wages, dependent on an inadequate or nonexistent welfare system. Destitute young folk and the disabled crowded around the tomb of St. Louis in search of assistance. The record of miracles indicates suspicion of the testimony of poor women, and a clear preference for deponents drawn from the male elite. Women's position was further limited by the prevailing ideology which stressed their reproductive role and proper subordination to men. The productive labor of working-class women, often single, was often ignored, assuming that this was a male prerogative, despite their appearance in the tax rolls and membership in predominantly female gilds. Furthermore, moralists such as Humbert of Romans noted the penchant of peasant women for sorcery, profligacy, and sexual promiscuity. Female beggars were regarded with even greater suspicion. In a sharply hierarchical society, the propertied classes were looked upon by the clergy rather differently. A clear distinction was made between the "deserving poor" (e.g., the friars) and the "undeserving," who were morally suspect and less worthy of charity. Farmer suggests that members of the working poor and artisans were aware of the desperation faced by many in the crowded city and they demonstrated a great capacity for generosity and friendship, outstripping the wealthy. The hospices, hospitals, shelters, beguinages, convents, and other available services were barely adequate to meet the city's needs, although disabled workers and their families sometimes enjoyed the support of their employers. The stresses of sexual demands, emotional disturbance, grinding poverty, homelessness, disability, and disease faced by women of the subaltern classes are illustrated in Louis' miracles, one of the few avenues available for their alleviation.

Farmer's work is a well-documented, highly thought-provoking record of the lives and experiences of persons too often left out of the historical narrative. She successfully makes maximum use of the few documents which have survived, and it is hoped that others will follow in her footsteps by exposing other miracle collections to the close, sympathetic, creative, and thorough reading of medieval hagiography undertaken by Farmer.