International Medieval Society, Paris
Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2006 Abstracts

Disability has frequently been, and continues to be, a stigma that marks people as strangers, others, and outsiders.  Perceptions of the disabled in medieval Europe were often similar.  Preaches and dramatists accused the blind of being false beggars because of their presumed avarice, drunkenness, and lechery.  Yet after his return from crusade, Louis IX established one of the earliest hospitals in western Europe that was dedicated to the care of the blind, which quickly became known as the Quinze-Vingts.  Despite the mounting distrust and marginalization of the poor in general and the blind in particular, Louis’ hospital for the povres avugles thrived.

Recent scholarship has emphasized that the Quinze-Vingts’ success hinged on the medieval belief that the disabled could also be a locus for salvation, if they only accepted their condition and led devout lives.  This dichotomy – either false beggar or locus for salvation – reveals much about contemporary ideas of blindness and disability, particularly an assumption that it was the responsibility of the disabled person to make himself or herself valuable to society.  Yet, it does not tell the whole story.

In order to understand medieval ideas of and practices regarding the disabled more fully, this paper will explore the web of relationships between the residents of the Quinze-Vingts and the Parisian society.  In particular, it will trace the existence of familial networks between these residents and the hospital’s benefactors to examine role that family and the community at large played in the care of the disabled and survival of this hospital.  Moreover, it will use this data to help reconsider the degree to which these povres avugles lived on the margins of society.