scholarly journals Diets in Welfare Institutions and in Outdoor Poor Relief in Early Modern Western Europe.

1985 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Jütte
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Welfare Institutions

The will to give: charitable bequests, inter vivos gifts and community building in the Dutch Republic, c. 1600–1800

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELISE VAN NEDERVEEN MEERKERK
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Charitable Giving ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
The Will ◽  
Charitable Bequests

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of different social groups in early modern Dutch towns in organising and financing poor relief. Examining both the income structure of Dutch urban poor relief organisations and voluntary donations and bequests by citizens reveals what motivations lay behind their involvement, and how and why these changed over time. In the seventeenth century, ‘middle groups’ donated more often and higher mean amounts, reflecting their efforts to contribute to urban community building. In the eighteenth century, the elite became relatively more involved in charitable giving. Also, the urge to give to one's own religious group seems to have increased in this period.

The Birth of the National Historical Writing in England and France

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Palamarchuk ◽  
◽  
Ekaterina Terenteva ◽  
Sergey Fyodorov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Complex Analysis ◽  
Legal Consciousness ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Past ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Prevalent Form ◽  
Xviith Century

The monograph is a study of main trends of emergence and evolution of the national historical writing in Western Europe in the XVIIth century. Based on a complex analysis of several phenomena which defined the development of the Early Modern historical writing, it provides a comparative analysis of the regional schools of historical writing (particularly those of the English antiquaries and French érudits) in the process of their respective growth and formation accomplished by the end of XVIIth century with the advent of the national historiography. The conceptual unity of the book is verified within the context of the rise of the national states in England and France, which stipulated a consistent demand for reinforcing the nationally orientated discourses not only in a historical writing but also in legal and political thought. The perception of England as an empire, entrenched in the insular historical and legal consciousness, recurring during the reigns of the Stuarts and extending to the whole British archipelago, determined the establishment of chorography as a prevalent form characteristic of the English historiography. Chorographic structure of the narrative unfolding the space of the territorial “empire” to the reader corresponded to the method of “intellectual appropriation” of the British Isles by the English antiquarians which could be defined as “cultural-historical”. A considerable role was devoted to reactualization of ethnogenetic myths at different levels: while some of them (primarily – the Galfridian myth) were regarded as relevant to the pan-British cultural and historical past, others emphasized autonomous dimensions of the past and present of distinct composites (Scotland, Ireland, Wales) The continental French variant of proto-national historiography also utilized the idea of empire but in a different mode defined by the formula “rex in regno suo imperator est”. The emerging school of érudits modelled principles of its narratives on patrimonial structures rooted in the feudal medieval society (dynasty; royal family; aristocratic lineages; seigneurial rights and vassal obligations; the system of offices created by the monarch stemming from the royal household etc.). The unity of the subjects of the French kingdom was ensured not by the shared territorial commonality but by their loyalty to the king. Therefore, the French variant of “intellectual appropriation” was developed in a socio-political direction in contrast to the territorial.

scholarly journals Not for Sale, but for Own Need”: Trade of the Volhynian Gentry in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Second Half of the 16th — First Half of the 17th Century

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-100
Author(s):  
Ihor Huliuk
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Traded Goods ◽  
Classical Economic ◽  
Economic Nature ◽  
Eastern And Western Europe ◽  
General Criticism

The article analyzes socioeconomic processes in the early modern Europe, in particular trade in its separate regions. It considers the classical economic model focused on the industry and agriculture, which Eastern and Western Europe followed in their multifaceted development. It studies legislation, namely the Second Lithuanian Statute and the Sejm Constitutions for assessing the involvement of gentry representatives in commerce. It indicates that the activity of the Volhynian gentry in the internal trade of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was due to both external changes in the market, primarily the demand for products from Eastern Europe, and the tendency observed on the continent when running a household became a business that made incomes grow. It analyzes general criticism in the intellectual circles of the trade activity of the gentry as such, which could lead to a certain deterioration of traditions. Man-knight and man-merchant intersections in the society of that time were acceptable if a nobleman traded goods from his own estates and could prove it with an oath.The article also investigates key areas of trade of the Volhynian gentry in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the basis of documentary material of court books of the 16th–17th-century Volhynia and previously published sources of economic nature. It studies main range of goods sold and bought by the representatives of the elite, observes the participation of the Volhynian gentry in trade operations with the core centers of the Polish-Lithuanian economy, and their involvement in local fairs and tradings. It shows the role of intermediaries, first of all representatives of the Jewish community and peasants from the gentry fоlwarks, in the trade enterprise of the gentry.

Poverty and Welfare Among the Portuguese Jews in Early Modern Amsterdam

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tirtsah Levie-Bernfeld
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
Poor Women ◽  
Relative Tolerance ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Work Education

Early modern Amsterdam was a prosperous city renowned for its relative tolerance, and many people hoping for a better future, away from persecution, wars, and economic malaise, chose to make a new life there. Conversos and Jews from many countries were among them, attracted by the reputed wealth and benevolence of the Portuguese Jews who had settled there. Behind the facade of prosperity, however, poverty was a serious problem. It preoccupied the leadership of the Portuguese Jewish community and influenced its policy on admitting newcomers. This book looks at poverty and welfare from the perspective of both benefactors and recipients. The book analyses benefactors' motives for philanthropy and charts its dimensions; it also examines the decision-making processes of communal bodies and private philanthropists, identifying the cultural influences that shaped their commitment to welfare. At the same time the book succeeds in bringing the poor to life: it examines what brought them to Amsterdam, aspects of their daily life in the petitions they sent to the different welfare institutions, and the survival strategies offered by work, education, and charity. The book also considers the related questions of social mobility and the motivation of the poor for joining the Amsterdam Portuguese community, and finally, to the small but active groups of Sephardi bandits who formed their own clandestine networks. Special attention is paid to poor women, who were often singled out for relief. In this way the book makes a much-needed contribution to the study of gender, in Jewish society and more generally.

Being and Becoming

2021 ◽  
pp. 425-438
Author(s):  
Jan Lorenz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Ethnic Boundaries ◽  
Being And Becoming

This chapter explores conversions to Judaism in pre-modern confessional states that were recognized as central to the experience of European Jews and became common in antiquity in the last two centuries BCE. It talks about the procedure and legal ramifications of conversion to Judaism that first emerged in the reforms that were retroactively attributed to Nehemiah and Ezra. It also explains how conversions to Judaism are considered as a social organization of difference of the situational reorganization of ethnic boundaries, which responds to the perceived threat of Hellenism and assimilation. The chapter looks at accounts of transition to Judaism from early modern western Europe, which were generally kept in secret as they ran the risk of ostracism by the surrounding Christian world. It discusses how individuals who became Jewish at the time were being driven by intellectual and theological reasoning.

“Constructing the Poor in Early Seventeenth-Century London”1

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-463
Author(s):  
Claire S. Schen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Demographic Pressure ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Undeserving Poor

Historians of early modern Europe have become accustomed to the dichotomy of the deserving and undeserving poor, though they still debate the origins of the transformation of attitudes toward the poor and poverty. Historians have studied less carefully the ways in which these presumably static categories flexed, as individuals and officials worked out poor relief and charity on the local level. Military, religious, and social exigencies, precipitated by war, the Reformation, and demographic pressure, allowed churchwardens and vestrymen to redraw the contours of the deserving and undeserving poor within the broader frame of the infirm, aged, and sick. International conflicts of the early seventeenth century created circumstances and refugees not anticipated by the poor law innovators of the sixteenth century. London’s responses to these unexpected developments illustrate how inhabitants constructed the categories of die deserving and undeserving poor. This construction depended upon the discretion of churchwardens and their fellow officers, who listened to the accounts and read the official documents of the poor making claims on parish relief and charity.

scholarly journals Servitude and Work at the Dawn of the Early Modern Era The Devaluation of Salaried Workers and the “Undeserving Poor”

2015 ◽  
Vol 70 (01) ◽  
pp. 77-85
Author(s):  
Giacomo Todeschini
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Rationality ◽  
Salaried Workers ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Undeserving Poor

Abstract Thomas Piketty’s analysis of the way that neoliberal economists use false meritocracy to justify growing economic inequality invites historians to reconsider the representation of workers in the economic thought and administrative politics of preindustrial Western Europe. This renewed focus on those termed mercenarii in theological, economic, and legal texts, namely salaried workers, shows that since the thirteenth century the literate elites of Christian Europe have interpreted manual labor as the sign of a competence that was useful but also socially and politically devalorizing. The ancient Roman conception of wages as auctoramentum servitutis, or evidence of servitude, reemerges at the end of Middle Ages in the guise of a complex theological, legal, and governmental discourse about the intellectual incompetence and necessary political marginality of salaried workers as manual laborers. At the dawn of the early modern era, the representation of salaried labor as a social condition corresponding to a state of servitude and lack of intellect characterizes both literary works and the economic rationality embodied by the first “scientific” economists.

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