Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index
Home
What is Feminae?
What's Indexed?
Subjects
Broad Topics
Journals
Essays
All Image Records
Contact Feminae
SMFS
Other Resources
Admin (staff only)
There are 45,227 records currently in Feminae
Quick Search
Advanced Search
Article of the Month
Translation of the Month
Image of the Month
Special Features
Click to view high resolution image
Title:
Two Waldensian Witches, from
Le champion des dames
Creator:
Possibly Barthélemy Poignare
Description:
This illumination depicts two women, one astride a broom and the other sitting upon a stick. The women both wear long-sleeved dresses with scooped necklines, black boots, and white head coverings. The figures of the women adorn the margins of a fifteenth-century manuscript of Martin le Franc’s poem
Le champion des dames
, a defense of virtuous women. The inscription above their heads identifies them as
vaudoises
, or Waldensians. Named heretics in 1215, Waldensians followed the teachings of Peter Waldo, a layman who began preaching in Lyon in the late 1170s. Waldensians adhered to vows of poverty and, perhaps most threatening to church authority, allowed preaching and consecration of the sacrament by any layperson, including women. Conflict arose between the Church and Waldensian believers over the next two centuries, with the Church accusing Waldensians of practicing witchcraft and holding illicit Sabbath celebrations. Lorenzo Lorenzi suggests that this image of Waldensian witches represents a transition from imaging witches as demonic and hypersexual to a more disconcerting depiction as humble, everyday women whose depravity is not immediately perceptible in their appearance.
Source:
Wikimedia Commons
Rights:
Public Domain
Subject
(See Also)
:
Heresy
Waldensian Movement
Witches
Geographic Area:
France
Century:
15
Date:
1451
Related Work:
See 17 illuminations from this manuscript:
http://images.bnf.fr/jsp/rechercherListeClichesAvancee.jsp?coteDocumentDemande=FRANCAIS%2012476
Current Location:
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS. Fr. 12476, fol. 105v
Original Location:
France, S.E., Illuminated in Arras
Artistic Type (Category):
Digital Images; Manuscript Illuminations
Artistic Type (Material/Technique):
Vellum (Parchment); Paint
Donor:
Layman; Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy
Height/Width/Length(cm):
29.7 cm/20.3 cm/
Inscription:
Des vaudoises passe martin (Translation: The Waldensians pass Martin)
Related Resources:
Amt, Emilie, ed. "Descriptions of Heretics: Waldensian Women's Activities (13th c.)," in Women's Lives in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook. Routledge, 1993. pp 305 - 306; Lorenzi, Lorenzo. Witches: Exploring the Iconography of the Sorceress and Enchantress. Centro di della Edifimi srl, 2005. pp. 53-66.;