St. Jerome Tempted by Dancing Girls 1408

The Limbourg brothers made this miniature, St. Jerome Tempted by Dancing Girls, sometime in the early fifteenth century. It portrays Saint Jerome, a towering figure in the early Church, grappling with temptation in the form of two elegantly dressed women and a demon. What does it mean to frame this struggle as one against female seduction? Consider the period’s gendered power dynamics, where female sexuality was frequently viewed with suspicion and seen as a threat to male piety. The women are depicted as beautiful, yet their downcast eyes might suggest an understanding of their role as tempters rather than autonomous agents. This artwork invites us to reflect on the anxieties surrounding gender, morality, and the body that were prevalent in the medieval imagination, and persist today. It asks us to consider whose desires are being policed, and at what cost?