Description
Between the mid-fourteenth century and the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, English poor relief moved from a more decentralized system to a more cohesive and comprehensive network of support. The study 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.
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. Review: '... a magisterial account of the early evolvement of practices that were to become the pillars of the 'mixed economy' of caring for the poor over the course of the entire early modern era. Superbly researched and cogently written, the book is an essential reading for students and scholars of society and politics in late medieval and early modern times.' Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos, author of The Culture of Giving: Informal Support and Gift-Exchange in Early Modern England 'On the basis of an extraordinary amount of painstaking research on an enormously wide range of manuscript material, both in the national archives and in local record repositories, Marjorie McIntosh's fine new book skilfully reunites the mediaeval and early modern historiographies of poor relief; and convincingly argues that the unjustly neglected and often misunderstood statutes of 1552, 1563 and 1572 must take pride of place in our understanding of the chronology and meaning of the nascent system of welfare in early modern England.' Steve Hindle, Director of Research, The Huntington Library 'As she does so often, Marjorie McIntosh's work helpfully crosses the medieval-early modern divide, allowing her to consider the developments of the late medieval and early Reformation period as a single entity ... The book is the culmination of three decades of work in over seventy archives as well as printed sources, and both time span and archives are reflected in this study.' Journal of British Studies
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