Who done it: Workers, intellectuals, or someone else? Controversy over Solidarity's origins and social composition

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 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 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 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 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. Keywords: poverty, charity, hospital, the Congregation of Mission, Vilnius, nobles, eighteenth century.

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Pay, Promotion, and Democratization

10.1093/oso/9780198759973.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Matthew S. Seligmann

Keyword(s):

Officer Corps ◽

Social Reformer ◽

Winston Churchill ◽

Social Composition ◽

The Social ◽

The Many ◽

Naval Officers ◽

Lower Deck

As soon as he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, Winston Churchill sought to buttress his credentials as a social reformer by improving conditions for sailors in the Navy and widening the social composition of the officer corps. This chapter examines his efforts towards both of these ends. It shows how he fought against the Treasury and his Cabinet colleagues to offer sailors their first meaningful pay rise in decades. It similarly catalogues the many schemes he introduced to entice people from a wider range of backgrounds, including sailors from the lower deck, to become naval officers. As with enhanced naval pay, this required him to persevere against entrenched interests, but as this chapter will show, his achievements in this area were considerable.

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Humanist Engagements

10.1093/oso/9780198800149.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Howell A. Lloyd

Keyword(s):

Educational Provision ◽

The Third ◽

Social Composition ◽

Cultural Life ◽

Law Faculty ◽

Editorial Work ◽

Governmental Institutions ◽

The University ◽

The City

Bodin arrived in Toulouse c.1550, a brief account of the economy, social composition, and governmental institutions of which opens the chapter. There follow comments on its cultural life and identification of its leading citizenry, with remarks on the treatment of alleged religious dissidents by the city itself, and especially on discordant intellectual influences at work in the University, most notably the Law Faculty and the modes of teaching there. The chapter’s second part reviews Bodin’s translation and edition of the Greek poem Cynegetica by Oppian ‘of Cilicia’, assessing the quality of his editorial work, the extent to which allegations of plagiarism levelled against him were valid, and the nature and merits of his translation. The third section recounts contemporary wrangling over educational provision in Toulouse and examines the Oratio in which Bodin argued the case for humanist-style educational provision by means of a reconstituted college there.

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The Social Composition of the Military in the Process of State Formation in the Arabian Desert

The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland ◽

10.2307/2844424 ◽

1965 ◽

Vol 95 (2) ◽

pp. 174 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Henry Rosenfeld

Keyword(s):

State Formation ◽

Social Composition ◽

The Social ◽

The Military

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La Storia dell’Età Moderna nelle „Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Biblioteken“: lo specchio di un secolo di ricerche

Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken ◽

10.1515/qufiab-2020-0004 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 100 (1) ◽

pp. 40-46

Author(s):

Irene Fosi

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

20Th Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Early Modern Period ◽

Historical Events ◽

Social Composition ◽

Modern Period ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Papal Court

AbstractThe article examines the topics relating to the early modern period covered by the journal „Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken“ in the hundred volumes since its first publication. Thanks to the index (1898–1995), published in 1997 and the availability online on the website perpectivia.net (since 1958), it is possible to identify constants and changes in historiographical interests. Initially, the focus was on the publication of sources in the Vatican Secret Archive (now the Vatican Apostolic Archive) relating to the history of Germany. The topics covered later gradually broadened to include the history of the Papacy, the social composition of the Curia and the Papal court and Papal diplomacy with a specific focus on nunciatures, among others. Within a lively historiographical context, connected to historical events in Germany in the 20th century, attention to themes and sources relating to the Middle Ages continues to predominate with respect to topics connected to the early modern period.

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Green Politics and the New Class: Selfishness or Virtue?

Political Studies ◽

10.1111/j.1467-9248.1989.tb01479.x ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 205-223 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

Robyn Eckersley

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Production Process ◽

Green Movement ◽

New Class ◽

Green Parties ◽

New Middle Class ◽

Social Composition ◽

The Social ◽

Green Politics ◽

Material Values

The predominantly new middle-class social composition of the green movement has become a matter of increasing interest in the wake of the success of green parties and the growth of an international green movement. This paper considers the concept of the ‘new class' in relation to two explanations for the social composition of the green movement. The class-interest argument seeks to show that green politics is a means of furthering either middle-class or new-class interests while the ‘new childhood’ argument claims that the development of the green movement is the result of the spread of post-material values, the main bearers of which are the new class. Against these arguments a more comprehensive explanation is presented, which focuses on the education of the new class and its relative structural autonomy from the production process.

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