Seminar: Disability and Community: Healing Miracles and the Bianchi of 1399

Medieval miracle narratives abound in a variety of sources, and disability studies is a productive lens through which we can examine these events. This paper takes the chronicle of Luca Dominici and his treatment of the Bianchi devotions of 1399 and examines the miracles presented therein. Moved by a threat of plague, participants in the Bianchi devotions donned white robes and completed penitential processions in the summer and autumn of 1399. I draw a focus to a series of miracles performed on 20 August 1399, using narrative prosthesis and “inspiration porn” as frameworks to assess the individuals who were healed as well as their place within their communities and the popular religious revival as a whole.

Dr Alex R.A. Lee is a medieval historian whose work focuses on the intersection between epidemic disease and popular religion in late medieval Italy. Her book on the Bianchi of 1399 was published by Brill in 2021, and she has published articles and book chapters on confraternities, miracles, apocalypse, and pedagogy as well as an edited book on disability, medieval studies, and Higher Education. Alex’s current research brings the lens of disability studies to consider miracles and language in medieval source materials. She teaches Liberal Studies at NYU London.

All welcome– this seminar is free to attend, but booking is required.