Class, Sex, and the Other: The Representation of Peasants in a Set of Late Medieval Tapestries

Abstract

This essay investigates the characterization of peasants in a set of three fifteenth-century tapestries illustrating peasants hunting with ferrets and posits some interpretations of what that characterization means. During the late Middle Ages, tapestry served basic utilitarian needs such as insulating cold castle walls, but it also functioned on socio-political levels as well. Surviving aristocratic inventories show that there was widespread interest in the commissioning of tapestries, among which those with rustic themes form a special category. Interesting parallels can be drawn between late medieval literature and the visual arts in terms of the positive and negative typecasting of the peasant. For instance, in literature, the representation of peasants, especially in a satirical context, is generally negative. By contrast, in the visual arts (particularly tapestry), artistic choices concerning material, color and visual vocabulary create a complex and ambiguous context in which peasants and their act...