„Când Adam săpa și Eva torcea...” Munca primilor oameni în imaginarul medieval
“When Adam delved and Eve span…”. The first humans’ labour in the medieval imaginary world

Summary/Abstract: The author of the study analyses the representations of Adam and Eve’s occupations,after their expulsion from Paradise, in the medieval art – sculpture, mosaic, stained glass, book illumination.Adam was frequently depicted working the soil with a spade or a hoe, while Eve span and/ortook care of children. Some representations suggest that God offered the first people the working toolsand taught them how to work. This fact reflects the prestige of the traditional occupations (agriculture,spinning and weaving) in the medieval consciousness. The phrase “when Adam delved and Eve span…”,expressed among others during several peasant riots, was a real manifesto of the dignity of countrymen,those that earn their living through physical labour. One encounters the image of the first people’s workas well in the frescoes of several churches from northern Moldova (Voroneț, Moldovița etc.), Maramureșand Wallachia. The Romanian folklore preserves and develops the same motif, of considerableage, enabling us to understand deeper the message of the iconography of Adam and Eve’s labours.

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