“Every Beggar, Male and Female”: Gender, Begging, and the Law in Late Medieval Germany 

October 17, 2017

2:00 pm

Seidler Seminar Room, University Hall, 4511

Should male and female beggars be treated equally? When cities across Germany began passing laws regulating begging in the late Middle Ages, one ubiquitous concern was how the new legislation should be applied to beggars of different genders. This talk investigates both the standards set for beggars in these early laws and the enforcement of these rules, tracing how contemporary ideas about gender and poverty led to inconsistent punishments for men and women despite attempts to legislate more equal treatment.

About the speaker:

Allison Edgren is the Casassa Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Academy of Catholic Thought and Imagination. She received her PhD in History from the University of Notre Dame.