Oxbridge Notes | Poverty | Oxbridge Notes

GIII Revision Notes.

Poverty.

1. What measures were taken to relieve poverty?

There were different levels of poor relief – from relief payments to tax exemptions.
E.g. Augsburg 1558 – 5% reg relief, 5% in crisis yrs, 47% exempt.
Women and children often prioritised.
E.g. St Gertrude, Louvain, 1541: >1/2 children. 1561 Segovia – women = 60%. Medina del Campo 83%.
Medical needs were sometimes addressed.
More advanced than once thought.
E.g. San Maria Nuova employed visiting physicians and a surgeon. Nurses often ran pharmacies and admin’d medicines.
E.g. Juan de Medina Plan of Poor Relief Practised in Some Spanish Towns (1545) – need for hospitals.
1544-1557: hosps set up in LDN e.g. St Bartholomew’s & St Thomas’ for disease and disability, Christ’s and Bridewell for foundlings and rogues.
Some hosps set up by individuals.
E.g. Hotel-Dieu, Beaune, est 1442 by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to Duke of Burgundy.
E.g. Eng had several hosps: St Leonard, York – 206 places.
Also in countryside e.g. St John the Baptist, Winchester = tiny – 6 places.

E.g. Florence – 8 for poor, 7 for sick, 6 for spec occupations/profs, 5 for women. Santa Maria Nuova (1289 – 2-300 beds), San Paolo (C13th), San Giovanni (1377) and San Matteo (1389).
P Elmer and O P Grell emph desire to help poor here.

E.g. also for military - 1570: permanent military hosp est in Spain (Valois-Habsburg conflict).
1629: first military hosp France.

Emphasised by M Lindemann.
Argues “always assumed great significance”.
E.g. 2000 leper houses France 1225.
P Elmer and O P Grell support.
Although acknowledges rise of clinical med did not happen until 1790s.
‘Poor guardians’ Augsburg 1522. Followed by Nuremberg, Strasbourg, Magdeburg.
The needs of the poor seem to have been addressed on a fairly widespread level.
1522-1545 60 towns on continent reformed poor relief.
Case study: England (Slack).
1572: “A comprehensive PL… went the whole way” (Slack).
JPs to survey the poor then ‘tax and assess’ all inhabitants.
Collectors and overseers employed to manage.
Vagrants punished, work provided for them (furthered 1576 – stocks of materials on which poor employed, county houses est to imprison the incorrigible).
The Vagrancy Act, 1598: Parish officers could deal with vagabonds.
Act for the Relief of the Poor, 1598 (furthered 1601): churchwardens and overseers to deal with poor in every parish.
Two Acts of 1598 prescribed treatment for returning soldiers.
Founding of almshouses and hospitals made easier.
Charitable Uses Act, 1601 – provided for investigations of breaches of charitable trusts.

2. How effective were they?

How severe was the problem?

Poverty rates varied geographically.
E.g. Louvain, mid-C16th, 21.7% v. Leiden 40%. Elizabethan LDN 14%.
E.g. Privy Council and Parl in Eng provided good central direction for poor relief.
E.g. France: little prog achieved until mid-C17th. Mainly then due to efforts of relig group Company of the Blessed Sacrament. E.g. 1638 branch at Aix largely resp for hospital set up 1640.
E.g. France death rate 40% higher than Eng.
It was often worse in the countryside.
E.g. Normandy early 1500s 24% 46 parishes surveyed = ‘poor and beggars’.
Wars were disruptive.
E.g. hosps outside Montpellier razed during siege of 1562.
The organisation of towns emphasised the wealth gap.
E.g. Valladolid, Amiens – rich in centre, poor in outer parishes.
Economic changes (e.g. ‘price rev’ C15th-C17th) worsened problem.
“Converted it into a permanent feature of Western civilisation” (Kamen).
E.g. Alonso de Herrera (Spain, 1513): ‘a pound of mutton now costs as much as a whole sheep used to’.
E.g. rye x 15 1520-1621, wheat x 13, meat x 6.
Land values ^ landlessness. E.g. Myddle, Shropshire: 7% w/out land 1541-70, 31.2% 1631-60).
Real value of wages at lowest pt around 1630.

Exacerbated by lack of econ understanding – inflation blamed firstly on hoarders/speculation.
Unemployment rates were high.
E.g. Amiens, 1578, 6/30,000
Religion was central to old systems of relief, therefore the Ref could be disruptive.
E.g. Robert Aske (P of G, 1536) – ‘much of the relief of the commons was by the succour of abbeys’.
Traditionalists at the Sorbonne in 1531 saw the banning of begging as ‘unCatholic’.
E.g. hospitals damaged. Viewed by Caths as good because of prox to chapel, bed, job schemes. Lindemann talks of “the Ref’s pruning”.
Slack argues that the dissolution of the monasteries etc. was helpful LT as it enabled more central gov’t programmes to take place.
Workhouses, a common method of poor relief (partic Eng, France, N’lands), were v harsh environments.
E.g. Somerset JP, Edward Hext, spoke of how poor had confessed felony so as not to WH.
Statistical difficulties make it hard to find accurate data about the poor.
Changes over time not clearly illustrated due to changes in criteria for exemption.
E.g. those in hospital not counted.

3. What motivated poor relief?

Was it indicative of genuine concern?

Poverty Notes