Medieval Disability, Mobility Aids and Suspicion

Illustration depicts a disabled beggar youth, his caregiver, and a man offering alms. The child's hands and feet are deformed as a result of birth defects or leprosy. The boy sits on a wheelbarrow, which is pushed by an adult, possibly his father. The boy and the man share the same curly, red hair, which may signal their father-son relationship. The almsgiver’s elegant pendant sleeves and the long tail of his hood signal his status as a rich man, and he reaches into his purse to produce a donation for the disabled youth.

This marginal illumination of a disabled beggar child appears in the Luttrell Psalter, a manuscript created for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell in the 1330s.

The suspicion that disabled people may be faking their disability goes back a long way. ​Medieval elites often suspected that beggars were pretending to be ill or else deliberately changing their appearance in order to receive more pity, and therefore more money. 

Sometimes disabled people begged to raise money for a pilgrimage in the hope of being cured. For instance, in one canonization testimony a disabled child and her father begged in London for ten years before collecting enough money to complete their pilgrimage to St Thomas Cantilupe's shrine in Hereford.

This image shows the boy using a wheelbarrow as a mobility aid. This would allow father and son to travel further afield and avoid repeatedly begging alms from the same people. 

Despite the general suspicion of disability, this image appears to highlight the virtue in almsgiving. 

Source (including detailed image description):
Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index: Disabled Beggar Child