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This marginal illumination appears in the Luttrell Psalter, a manuscript created for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell in the 1330s. The Luttrell Psalter is one of the most renowned manuscripts in the world because of its many depictions of everyday medieval life. This illumination depicts a disabled beggar youth, his caregiver, and a man offering alms. The child's hands and feet are deformed as a result of birth defects or leprosy. The boy sits on a wheelbarrow, which is pushed by an adult, possibly his father. The boy and the man share the same curly, red hair, which may signal their father-son relationship. The almsgiver’s elegant pendant sleeves and the long tail of his hood signal his status as a rich man, and he reaches into his purse to produce a donation for the disabled youth. The illumination is intended to remind the reader of the virtue of almsgiving. The text immediately above is from Psalm 104, v. 16 "And he called a famine upon the earth." Michael Camille suggested that the combined effect of text and image conveyed the idea that charity begins at home.
While medieval illuminations that depict children are relatively rare, the Luttrell Psalter offers us a robust depiction of the life of a young beggar. Here, the child still has care and support. If a family was poor, begging for alms was a matter of survival. The child would likely spend much of his day seeking alms, as begging provided a meager living. In one canonization testimony, a disabled child and her father begged in London for ten years before collecting enough money to complete their pilgrimage to St Thomas Cantilupe's shrine in Hereford. Furthermore, the wheelbarrow provides insight into the benefit of a disabled beggar child’s mobility. Using the wheelbarrow, the father and son can cover more ground begging, decreasing the likelihood that they might exhaust the generosity of their donors. If possible, beggars often chose mobility for this particular reason.
During the medieval period, elites held a widespread suspicion that beggars were intentionally altering their appearance or faking illnesses in order to receive alms. Because of this, beggars with disabilities were occasionally subject to invasive examinations of their bodies. The Luttrell Psalter’s depiction of the deformed child is likely informed by this stereotype; a child may have been chosen for this illustration in order to strategically convey an honest, innocent, desperate need for alms. While almsgiving benefited beggars, they in turn offered their prayers for the salvation of their benefactors.