Regarding Mollat and the poor as threatening rabble: If I recall correctly, he
alludes to this theme well before 1400, when he briefly mentions the children's
crusade of 1212. I don't remember how he treats the 'pastores' of 1251, where
the idea of Christ as first appearing to the shepherds is very much alive
(along with Christ as Good Shepherd, perhaps). As for 'Mollat's reasoning'("He
implies that the new perception of the poor as a menacing rabble (sometime
after 1400) was motivated by the shift from seeing the pauper as Christlike, to
seeing Christ as worker-like"), I fail to follow it.
Gary Dickson
University of Edinburgh
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