Kate Crassons, The Claims of Poverty: Literature, Culture, and Ideology in Late Medieval England.

Crassons, Kate. The Claims of Poverty: Literature, Culture, and Ideology in Late Medieval England. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010. Print.

Crassons' text considers the representational aspect of poverty in late medieval England, specifically in how various groups appropriate the "claims to poverty" for their respective ideological purposes. According to Crassons, "this book does not argue that poverty falls from a virtue to a vice so much as it shows how that decline occurs in a variety of discursive arenas" (12). Over the course of this period, poverty shifts from being seen as a theological virtue to a state of vice that is only lived out by those choosing not to engage in wholesome labor. The emphasis from Crassons' text is on the "claim," or the representational aspect of poverty. The Franciscans' willing taking on of poverty, early in the period, is a move towards solidarity with the poor that allows for separation from the trappings of the material world. However, the later moves to control the agency and wages of laborers in post-plague England shifts the rhetoric in the other direction, suggesting that poverty is simply the state of those too lazy to engage in honest labor, as is seen in the Labor Statutes and in various fourteenth century sermons. In either case, the rhetoric seems to leave the actually impoverished in the lurch, either by having alms money that would normally have supported charitable purposes going to support a willingly poor clergy or to having those in the state of poverty under scrutiny of fraud. Crassons considers this role of the claims of poverty in a range of Middle English texts, using them as guideposts to plot the ideological shift.

While Crassons' readings of Piers Plowman and the Book of Margery Kempe are interesting in and of themselves, what strikes me in this reading is how similarly the rhetoric she considers mirrors current political discussion in the U.S.A. Over the past fifty years rhetoric has shifted from provided the poor with aid to get back on their feet to blaming them, suggesting that the impoverished are in their states purely due to their own poor decision making. Much as how talking points from politicians and pundits alike push these rhetorical positions, Crassons reads how similar ideology is pushed in the York plays, both modern and medieval instances backed by business interests. I'd rather not make a huge political rant here, but this does suggest an interesting comparative nature between Crassons' points and current events.