ABSTRACT
The dominant medieval image of a poor person was an illiterate peasant, an agrarian labourer with limited social power or economic freedom. Rather than signifying a stable concept or category or connotation, 'Poverty' was a mobile signifier within late medieval society. The Waldensians adopted voluntary poverty and itinerant preaching as a consequence of their often literal interpretations of selected scripture passages, which they deployed as a kind of religious bio-politics. In practice, bishops seldom authorized lay men or women to preach in their dioceses, and they certainly did not approve lay men and women such as Waldensians and Lollards who were publicly re-enacting apostolic Christianity. This chapter focuses on the prose dialogues Jack Upland and Dives and Pauper. These texts illustrate important links between poverty discourse, literacy and dissent at the turn of the fifteenth century. Both Dives and Pauper argue that the true meaning of pauper, as Jesus used the word, is 'spiritual poverty', that is, humility and charity.
