Competing Visions of the State and Social Welfare: The Medici Dukes, the Bigallo Magistrates, and Local Hospitals in Sixteenth-Century Tuscany

2001 ◽  
Vol 54 (4-Part2) ◽  
pp. 1319-1355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Terpstra
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The State ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Personal Authority ◽  
Bureaucratic Centralization

In 1542, Florence's Duke Cosimo I established a magistracy to supervise territorial hospitab and consolidate poor relief. Tense relations between the magistracy and these hospitab demonstrate the barriers to bureaucratic centralization in the sixteenth-century state, and underscore the fact that the shift from traditional charity to ‘new philanthropy’ was as much geographical and cultural as temporal. Tensions between the magistracy and successive Medici Dukes also demonstrate how in negotiations between bureaucrats and local communities territorial rulers could play both sides to advance their personal authority, and could learn from the difficulties of one magistracy how better to design another.

Poor Relief and Protestantism: The Evolution of Social Welfare in Sixteenth-Century Emden

2001 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 457
Author(s):  
Thomas Max Safley ◽  
Timothy G. Fehler
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Poor Relief

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 215-226
Author(s):  
Esther Chung-Kim
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Poverty Alleviation ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Community Formation ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Religious Ideals ◽  
Political Persuasion

Religious reformers in sixteenth-century Europe were integral to the development and implementation of poor relief programs. They effectively utilized theological justification through writings, sermons, and strategic political persuasion to gain support and funding for social welfare. The reformers’ unique positions as ecclesiastical authorities allowed them to connect care for the poor with one’s practice of devotion to God and religious ideals of generosity and compassion. The establishment of these reforms emerged in the context of an expanding migration of religious refugees, who required relief but were at first poorly received by city residents. One of the key components of determining poor relief was the importance of community formation and the demarcations in the process of determining poor relief coverage. Ultimately, religious reformers served as a major driving force in the efforts toward poverty alleviation and community motivation in the care for the poor; and their efforts impacted the development of poor relief.

The Pursuit of Social Welfare

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The State ◽  
Citizen Action ◽  
Indian Context ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Do So

Who makes claims on the state for social welfare, and how and why do they do so? This article examines these dynamics in the rural Indian context, observing that citizens living in the same local communities differ dramatically in their approaches to the state. The author develops a theory to explain these varied patterns of action and inaction, arguing that citizen claim-making is best understood as a product of exposure to people and places beyond the immediate community and locality. This social and spatial exposure builds citizens’ encounters with, knowledge of, and linkages to the state. This in turn develops their aspirations toward the state and their capabilities for state-targeted action. The author tests the theory in rural Rajasthan, drawing on a combination of original survey data and qualitative interviews. She finds that those who traverse boundaries of caste, neighborhood, and village are more likely to make claims on the state, and that they do so through broader repertoires of action than those who are more constrained by the same boundaries. The article concludes by considering the extensions and limitations of the theory and the role of the state itself in establishing the terrain for citizen action.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Fitter
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social History ◽  
The State ◽  
Popular Politics ◽  
Measure For Measure ◽  
History Of

Introducing the relatively recent discovery by the ‘new social history’ of an intelligent and sceptical Tudor popular politics, incorporated into the functioning of the state only precariously and provisionally, often insurgent in the sixteenth century, and wooed by discontented elites inadvertently creating a nascent public sphere, this chapter discusses the varied types and fortunes of plebeian resistance. It also surveys the leading ideas of the new historiography, and suggests the need to rethink the politics of Shakespeare’s plays in the light of their exuberant or embittered penetration by plebeian perspectives. Finally, it examines Measure for Measure in the light of its resistance to the polarizing, anti-populist climate of the late Elizabethan ‘reformation of manners’.

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