Philanthropy In England 1480 1660 A Study Of The Changing Pattern Of English Social Aspirations

This study documents a momentous shift which occurred in men's aspirations for their society in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The author has examined gifts and bequests left for charitable causes over a period of nearly two centuries. in ten English counties, in order to assess the changing pattern of social aspirations and observe the different 'velocities of change' among the several social classes. Professor Jordan examines the problem of poverty in the early modern world and discusses the various measures taken by the Tudors and Stuarts to deal with the needs of the poor. He concludes that poverty was principally relieved by an immense outpouring of charitable wealth. This wealth flowed principally from an urban aristocracy determined not only to care for the hopelessly destitute but so to enlarge the 'area of opportunity' so that poverty could be prevented. At the same time, the Elizabethan law of charitable uses marshalled this generous wealth into effective agencies. The study closes with a full assessment of the noble achievements of the period: the founding of a widespread and effective system of education, the establishment of almshouses in all parts of England, and extraordinairy adn fertile experiments with the several agencies of social rehabilitation. The author records in this voluma a great and enduring historical achievement; he records as well the triumph of the secular preoccupations of mankind. This book was first published in 1959.

This book presents professional historians addressing the dominant issues and theories offered to explain the history of American philanthropy and its role in American society. The essays develop and enlighten the major themes proposed by the books' editors, oftentimes taking issue with each other in the process. The overarching premise is that philanthropic activity in America has its roots in the desires of individuals to impose their visions of societal ideals or conceptions of truth upon their society. To do so, they have organized in groups, frequently defining themselves and their group's role in society in the process.

On the Parish? is a study of the negotiations which took place over the allocation of poor relief in the rural communities of sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth century England. It analyses the relationships between the enduring systems of informal support through which the labouring poor made attempts to survive for themselves; the expanding range of endowed charity encouraged by the late sixteenth century statutes for charitable uses; and the developing system of parish relief co-ordinated under the Elizabethan poor laws. Based on exhaustive research in the archives of the trustees who administered endowments, of the overseers of the poor who assessed rates and distributed pensions, of the magistrates who audited and co-ordinated relief and of the royal judges who played such an important role in interpreting the Elizabethan statutes, the book reconstructs the hierarchy of provision of relief as it was experienced among the poor themselves. It argues that receipt of a parish pension was only the final (and by no means the inevitable) stage in a protracted process of negotiation between prospective pensioners (or 'collectioners', as they came to be called) and parish officers. This running theme is itself reflected in a series of chapters whose sequence seeks to mirror the experience of indigence, moving gradually (and by stages) from the networks of care provided by kin and neighbours into the bureaucracy of the parish relief system, emphasising in particular the importance of labour discipline in the thinking of parish officers. By illuminating the workings of a relief system in which notions of entitlement were both under-developed and contested, On the Parish? provides historical perspective for contemporary debates about the rights and obligations of the poor in a society where the dismantling of the welfare state implies that there is, once again, no right to relief from cradle to grave.

Addresses a neglected element of English welfare history, examining the role and significance of English almshouses in the period 1550 - 1725 and the contribution they made within the developing welfare systems of the time

Empowered by new wealth and by their faith, early modern Londoners began to use philanthropy to assert their cultural authority in distant parts of the nation. Culture, Faith, and Philanthropy analyzes how disputes between London and provincial authorities over such benefactions demonstrated the often tense relations between center and periphery.