Morten St George Theory

[Morten St. George]

Nakedness was an iconographic device to illustrate a number of conditions in the Middle Ages. It did not necessarily mean that the people were literally naked.

Most of the time it was used to show the viewer 1) that the people were dead or 2) that they were "lost souls" or 3) that they were beyond redemption, to distinguish them from other people in the drawing.

It was also used to illustrate people who had been or were going to be imprisoned (the nakedness was symbolic of belongings being taken away from prisoners).

I believe it was recorded that they were stripped of their possessions, but whether or not that included the clothing on their backs, I do not know. Nonetheless you make a good point: medieval drawings, including some seen in the VMS, could be symbolic in nature.