Poor Relief In England 1350 1600

Between the mid-fourteenth century and the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, English poor relief moved toward a more coherent and comprehensive network of support. Marjorie McIntosh's study, the first to trace developments across that time span, focuses on three types of assistance: licensed begging and the solicitation of charitable alms; hospitals and almshouses for the bedridden and elderly; and the aid given by parishes. It explores changing conceptions of poverty and charity and altered roles for the church, state and private organizations in the provision of relief. The study highlights the creativity of local people in responding to poverty, cooperation between national levels of government, the problems of fraud and negligence, and mounting concern with proper supervision and accounting. This ground-breaking work challenges existing accounts of the Poor Laws, showing that they addressed problems with forms of aid already in use rather than creating a new system of relief.

This ground-breaking work traces developments in poor relief from the mid fourteenth century to the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601.

At the cutting edge of new social and demographic history, this book provides a detailed picture of the most comprehensive system of poor relief operated by any Elizabethan town. Well before the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, Hadleigh, Suffolk--a thriving woolen cloth center with a population of roughly 3,000--offered a complex array of assistance to many of its residents who could not provide for themselves: orphaned children, married couples with more offspring than they could support or supervise, widows, people with physical or mental disabilities, some of the unemployed, and the elderly. Hadleigh's leaders also attempted to curb idleness and vagrancy and to prevent poor people who might later need relief from settling in the town. Based upon uniquely full records, this study traces 600 people who received help and explores the social, religious, and economic considerations that made more prosperous people willing to run and pay for this system. Relevant to contemporary debates over assistance to the poor, the book provides a compelling picture of a network of care and control that resulted in the integration of public and private forms of aid.

This pamphlet examines recent research into the poor laws of Tudor and Stuart England. Dr Beier asks the question ‘who were the poor?’ and in answering it places the ‘problem of the poor’ in its historical context, examining it in relation to medieval provisions for dealing with poverty. He shows how far legislation was influenced by economic changes, by ideas about poverty and by the interests of the legislators themselves. Dr Beier evaluates the varying interpretations of the poor laws, from those who have seen them as an early ‘welfare state’ to those who have considered them to be the manifestation of a ‘Protestant ethic’. The major poor-law statues are summarized in an appendix, and there is a useful bibliography.

At the cutting edge of new social and demographic history, this book provides a detailed picture of the most comprehensive system of poor relief operated by any Elizabethan town. Well before the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, Hadleigh, Suffolk—a thriving woolen cloth center with a population of roughly 3,000—offered a complex array of assistance to many of its residents who could not provide for themselves: orphaned children, married couples with more offspring than they could support or supervise, widows, people with physical or mental disabilities, some of the unemployed, and the elderly. Hadleigh's leaders also attempted to curb idleness and vagrancy and to prevent poor people who might later need relief from settling in the town. Based upon uniquely full records, this study traces 600 people who received help and explores the social, religious, and economic considerations that made more prosperous people willing to run and pay for this system. Relevant to contemporary debates over assistance to the poor, the book provides a compelling picture of a network of care and control that resulted in the integration of public and private forms of aid.

A concise synthesis of past work on a unique and important system of social welfare.

Excerpt from The Early History of English Poor Relief The present account of the early history of English poor relief is chiefly derived from the municipal records of London and Norwich and from the reports of the justices of the peace which are included amongst the state papers. Information on the subject is also contained in the Privy Council Register, while some of the orders of both Privy Council and justices and a few of the overseers' accounts are to be found in the collections of the British Museum. A fairly effectual system of relieving the destitute by public authority has had in England a continuous existence since the seventeenth century. Attempts to found such a system of poor relief in the sixteenth century were common to most of the countries of Western Europe, but the continued existence of any organisation of the kind is peculiar to England. Possibly this fact has an important influence on our national history. We are apt to consider the facts that we are a law-abiding people and that we have not suffered from violent revolutions to be entirely due to the virtues of the national character and the excellence of the British Constitution. But before the introduction of our system of relieving the poor we were by no means so free from disorder. The poor laws themselves were at least partly police measures, and, until they were successfully administered, the country was repeatedly disturbed by rebellions and constantly plagued by vagrants. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.