Poverty and Poor Relief

In February 1751 the churchwardens of Frederick County, Virginia, bound Hester Ryan,a month-old infant,to the man her mother had declared to be her father—Joseph Roberts. Her mother of the same name was already indentured to Roberts. Hester was apprenticed to him in lieu of his providing a guarantee to the parish that he would reimburse them if they had to pay for her nursing and care in her first few years of life. The churchwardens bound Hester without her mother’s consent. Instead of custody of her daughter, Hester’s mother received 25 lashes on her bare back. While Roberts could have paid a fine to let Hester avoid that lashing, he refused to help. When she finished her indenture, she had to leave her daughter behind.1 In fact, the courts left few illegitimate children with their mothers or even with their fathers unless, like Roberts, they were masters themselves. Masters often assumed custody of the illegitimate children born to their servants. The vestry book of Frederick County also gives numerous examples of infant bastard children supported by unrelated families, and the court records reveal that illegitimate children were bound as apprentices at an average age of barely four (4.4) years during the 1750s. Children whose fathers died with little property, if their mother had no broader family to rely on,were also bound soon after their father’s deaths. “Poor”children,when their families turned to the county or vestry for relief, were quickly apprenticed, at an average age of 6.6 years during the same decade. All in all, 7.3 percent of all children were bound as apprentices in Frederick County during the 1750s, many at a very young age. 184 children bound to labor Apprenticeship in colonial Virginia, and especially in Frederick County, was both a way of accessing and controlling children’s labor, at the same time that it was the main welfare policy. While it was exploitative—indeed,in its treatment of the poor, it bears some resemblance to hereditary slavery—it was not simply the thirst for labor in early Virginia that shaped this institution. Taking apprenticeship seriously means taking hereditary status seriously in early Virginia.

Despite the growth in the number of detailed case-studies of poor relief patterns in individual parishes during the 'crisis' of the Old Poor Law in England, there are still relatively few comparative studies, and very few studies that draw detailed comparisons between relief levels in English regions. More general cross-regional analyses in England offer a less detailed overview, while more detailed parochial case-studies tend not to be comparative between regions. The significance of regional variation has been emphasized by historiographical developments since the publication of King's monograph on regional variation in the Old Poor Law in 2000. Research by Hartley, Healey, Jones and King, Boulton, Sokoll, and Hindle has emphasized the importance of local negotiation in settling the levels and inclusivity of poor relief. They have shown that although claimants were relatively disadvantaged in power relationships with parochial authorities, they could still exercise a degree of agency in obtaining, contesting and increasing relief. In addition, Peter King, Costello, and Hindle have shown that parish authorities were constantly subject to magisterial oversight, and even interventions from the higher courts. Recently, Shave has demonstrated how voluntary administrative reform could spread between regions, along with the adoption of enabling legislation, without necessarily being directed from the centre. Overall, this research presents the Old Poor Law in the eighteenth century as being more rule-bound, subject to greater external oversight, but also more varied in its practices than was previously assumed. This paper assesses the regional variations in poor relief, by focusing on the form of parish assistance that could be the most variable-irregular relief payments made to claimants who were not receiving regular weekly pensions. It will compare their variations with those in regular pensions, to determine whether different types of claimants were receiving these forms of relief in the case-study settlements. However, its focus on irregular relief payments gives an insight into the section of the relieved population who are the most difficult to investigate, because their relief 'histories' can only be reconstructed through systematic retrieval of all payments relating to them within parish overseers' accounts.

Charity, Welfare and Emotions in Early Modern Britain and Ireland: A Royal Historical Society Symposium

Nottingham Trent University, 5th September 2019, 9.30-17.00

All are welcome to attend this exploration of the relationship between emotion and experiences of poverty, charity, and welfare in the early modern British Isles. Thanks to generous support from the Royal Historical Society, this event is free for all to attend.

Programme and registration details are at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/charity-welfare-and-emotions-in-early-modern-britain-and-ireland-tickets-60519906670 (registration is compulsory and closes on 10 August 2019).

Esta investigação pretende compreender como foi organizada a assistência à saúde e à pobreza no interior do Rio Grande do Sul durante a Primeira República, principalmente na cidade de Santa Maria entre os anos de 1903 e 1913. Nossas questões perpassam a análise da divisão das responsabilidades públicas e privadas no financiamento dos socorros prestados aos pobres, doentes e trabalhadores da região central do estado, além da interpretação dos discursos elaborados pela pobreza enquanto estratégia de sobrevivência. Identificamos, na fundação do Hospital de Caridade de Santa Maria, o princípio da organização da assistência pública e privada na região, através da experimentação de um modelo já existente em Porto Alegre e implementado no interior, a partir da mediação de um médico local. Além disso, destacamos a importância de redes sociais que envolveram médicos, políticos e a sociedade civil na busca pela resolução dos problemas urbanos. Também nos interessa compreender a pobreza a partir de seus discursos e ações, bem como através das escolhas de quem prestava o auxílio. Entre as opções disponíveis, percebemos que a Intendência Municipal ocupou um importante papel nesse provimento. Ao construirmos um panorâma da assistência, identificamos os critérios utilizados pelas diferentes instâncias envolvidas e as reivindicações dos próprios pobres. Portanto, entendemos a pobreza através de suas ações e estratégias enquanto uma categoria de análise social. Produzimos um discurso sobre o que era ser pobre no interior do Rio Grande do Sul por meio de fontes do hospital, da Intendência, do Governo Estadual e de jornais locais. Também investigamos a saúde daquela população, através da assistência aos doentes e aos trabalhadores rurais e urbanos de Santa Maria.

Public health and social reforms in Portugal (1780–1805) presents an innovative analysis of a unique period for social and public health policy in Portuguese history. With a firm basis in archival research, the book examines a lesser-known facet of one of the most fascinating and controversial figures in the late Ancien Regime in Portugal: Diogo Inácio de Pina Manique, the Intendant-General of Police from 1780 to 1805. By combining the resources of the Intendancy with those of the Casa Pia, an institution for welfare provision and social control that he set up just a month after being appointed, Pina Manique attempted to introduce a variety of projects designed to create a prosperous, healthy, well-educated, informed, clean and hard-working country less inclined to vice and immorality, in which the people would be obedient and the upper classes more magnanimous. One of his greatest achievements was perhaps to understand the link between ill health and poverty and therefore to regard public health as a key area of governance.

By the end of the fifteenth century most European countries had witnessed a profound reformation of their poor relief and health care policies. As this book demonstrates, Portugal was among them and actively participated in such reforms. Providing the first English language monograph on this topic, Laurinda Abreu examines the Portuguese experience and places it within the broader European context. She shows that, in line with much that was happening throughout the rest of Europe, Portugal had not only set up a systematic reform of the hospitals but had also developed new formal arrangements for charitable and welfare provision that responded to the changing socioeconomic framework, the nature of poverty and the concerns of political powers. The defining element of the Portuguese experience was the dominant role played by a new lay confraternity, the confraternity of the Misericórdia, created under the auspices of King D. Manuel I in 1498. By the time of the king's death in 1521 there were more than 70 Misericórdias in Portugal and its empire, and by 1640, more than 300. All of them were run according to a unified set of rules and principles with identical social objectives. Based upon a wealth of primary source documentation, this book reveals how the sixteenth-century Portuguese crown succeeded in implementing a national poor relief and health care structure, with the support of the Papacy and local elites, and funded principally through pious donations. This process strengthened the authority of the royal government at a time which coincided with the emergence of the early modern state. In so doing, the book establishes poor relief and public health alongside military, diplomatic and administrative authorities, as the pillars of centralisation of royal power.

The Warwick History Postgraduate Conference (University of Warwick, 2019).

The increase in poverty, and the social problems surrounding it, are a common theme of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century social history. In the late fifteenth century royal government introduced new measures to tackle the problem of poverty and begging. The issue continued to hold the attention of government and, from the mid sixteenth century, their measures began to use the parish as the administrative unit for managing central government poor relief policy. Marjorie McIntosh has written much on the changes in the formal role of parishes in poor relief in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Her approach considers poor relief largely as an institution-led movement.

This paper uses testamentary evidence from Reading to investigate how the grassroots participation of inhabitants adapted across time. The mid sixteenth century brought major changes to the pattern of piety, resulting not only from government policy on poor relief itself but from wider religious policy. The evidence reveals a number of features. Firstly, poor relief was practised by parishioners long before it became a statutory duty of parishes, taking a bottom-up form rather than an institution-led form. Secondly, as provision for intercession declined, that of poor relief increased. Thirdly, poor relief was not simply a case of the wealthiest in society supporting the poorest. In fact, where poverty was greatest in Reading, much support came from the less wealthy parishioners as well as the social elite.

Warwick Symposium on Parish Research (University of Warwick, 2019)

The increase in poverty, and the social problems surrounding it, are a common theme of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century social history. In the late fifteenth century royal government introduced new measures to tackle the problem of poverty and begging. The issue continued to hold the attention of government and, from the mid sixteenth century, their measures began to use the parish as the administrative unit for managing central government poor relief policy. Marjorie McIntosh has written much on the changes in the formal role of parishes in poor relief in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Her approach considers poor relief largely as an institution-led movement.

This paper uses testamentary evidence from Reading to investigate how the grassroots participation of inhabitants adapted across time. The mid sixteenth century brought major changes to the pattern of piety, resulting not only from government policy on poor relief itself but from wider religious policy. The evidence reveals a number of features. Firstly, poor relief was practised by parishioners long before it became a statutory duty of parishes, taking a bottom-up form rather than an institution-led form. Secondly, as provision for intercession declined, that of poor relief increased. Thirdly, poor relief was not simply a case of the wealthiest in society supporting the poorest. In fact, where poverty was greatest in Reading, much support came from the less wealthy parishioners as well as the social elite.

Este volumen misceláneo recoge veintidós rigurosas investigaciones inéditas que aportan enfoques novedosos y reflexiones sugestivas que contribuyen a replantear el uso –y a menudo abuso– del término «redes» aplicado a la historia hospitalaria. Desde múltiples puntos de vista, sin restricciones temporales ni geográficas, se ha puesto especial hincapié en el análisis sociológico y económico de las instituciones, profesionales y sujetos de la asistencia. Una serie de contribuciones que constituyen un paso adelante y que revela el interés creciente en los últimos años por los hospitales y la salud en el pasado, así como la consolidación de una red investigadora internacional en la Europa meridional dedicada a su estudio.

«The State abounds in charitable foundations». Poor relief in the territory of the Republic of Genoa in the middle of the Eighteenth century

Although historians have paid attention to the genesis and evolution of charitable organisations operating in the city of Genoa, little is known as concerns poor relief organisation outside the urban area. Thanks to a report prepared during the year 1743-44 by the Genoese government, we are now able to outline the structure and the organisation of poor relief system in the so-called "Dominio di Terraferma" (the mainland territory of the Republic of Genoa). These data allow us to demonstrate that while charitable organisations operating in the city capital were normally considered “modern” and “efficient”, the situation was profoundly different in the other part of the State, were financial means, and assistance activities was often inadequate to the needs of the population.

In 1695, Jan Teofil Plater and his wife Aleksandra founded a hospital for six impoverished nobles in Vilnius. Situated near the newly built church of the Ascension and the convent of the Congregation of the Mission in the Subocz suburb beyond the city walls, this hospital was the first and, until the end of the eighteenth century, the only charitable institution providing care for individuals of particular social status. The article, based on the hospital’s registry book and other sources, examines the quantitative, as well as qualitative characteristics of the institution’s clientele, such as its fluctuations in size, its social composition, and the causes of its inmates’ impoverishment. The research revealed that, despite the demand for care, the overseers managed to maintain a stable number of inmates, rarely admitting more than one or two persons every year, and thus ensuring a steady operation of the hospital (see table 1). However, in contrast with other charitable institutions in Vilnius, the clientele of the Congregation of the Mission hospital changed frequently because of expulsions (39.6 percent of all cases) and inmates leaving the hospital on their own initiative (20.1 percent) already in the first year of their stay. The mortality of inmates (27.8 percent) affected the size and turnover of the clientele to a much lesser extent than observed in other hospitals. Although there are no reliable data on the inmates’ age and health, such statistics show that they probably were younger and healthier than the clients of other charitable institutions in Vilnius. Moreover, the Congregation of the Mission hospital’s inmates differed from the clients of other institutions in respect of social composition. Impoverished petty
nobles, originating mainly from the districts of Lida and Oszmiana, constituted the majority (56.25 percent) of the hospital’s inmates whose social status is noted in the registry book (62.5 percent). The nobles became clients of the Congregation of the Mission hospital either because of old age, disability, as well as other accidental causes, or because of increased social vulnerability outside mutual aid networks, comprised of family members, kin or neighbours. The article argues that the foundation of a hospital designated to provide care primarily for impoverished nobles shows that the poverty of nobles was recognized by contemporaries as a social problem that should be tackled.

This study uses data on income and distribution of relief payments from local poor relief tables for 512 rural parishes in Flanders (present-day Belgium) in 1807 to examine spatial variation in poor relief practices in a region characterised by well-established local poor relief institutions and marked socio-economic differences. By combining data on poor relief with local data on population, landholding and occupational structure, we map out the relative importance of regional economies and local variation in producing distinct poor relief regimes. The results show that although local variation was considerable, the nature and extent of this variation interacted with structural socio-economic characteristics to produce regional patterns, signalling that local variation did not so much contradict as constitute regional patterns in poor relief regimes. The importance of socio-economic characteristics in determining both regional patterns and local variation supports our more general contention that local and regional levels of analysis represent a more fruitful avenue for understanding variations in poor relief practices than national differences in legislation, and therefore has implications for the comparative study of poor relief practices in a wider international context.

Using the acts of the cathedral chapter and annual income-expenditure registers, this article focuses on the charitable activities of the Vilnius Cathedral Chapter in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The first section of the article is concerned with the chapter's support for charitable institutions (hospitals, a dowry fund, a home for aged and infirm priests) under its patronage. The second section focuses on the patterns of occasional almsgiving.

The increasing focus on (wealth) inequality in economics today has put redistribution to the forefront again. In his influential work Piketty emphasised the role of redistribution, via taxation and the social safety net of the welfare state in the significant drop in inequality after WWII.1 Redistribution via these channels is also put forward as a solution for the searing inequality levels we witness today.2 Still, there is a growing tendency in the literature to suggest that 'real' redistribution can only come about as a consequence of a large-scale disaster. Scheve and Stasavage for example claim that the increasing taxation of the rich, which was essential for the post WWII drop in inequality only came about as a compensation for sacrifices 'ordinary' people made during this war.3 This link between disaster and inequality was taken back further in time, as for example Scheidel claimed that only disasters such as wars, revolutions and epidemics were historically able to redistribute means to an extent that it influenced the level of (in)equality.4 However, this 'absolute' approach of redistribution, focussing on moments of transition between inequality and equality in a given area, tends to shroud the fact that levels of redistribution could significantly differ between societies even under 'normal' circumstances and often link this to the prevailing (in)equality levels within these societies. For present-day democracies it has for example been suggested that redistributive policies are more supported when the distance between middle income voters and the poor is small relative to the Work in progress – do not quote without permission