The SAGE Encyclopedia

of World Poverty
Poor Laws

Contributors: Mehmet Odekon

Book Title: The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty
Chapter Title: "Poor Laws"
Pub. Date: 2015
Access Date: November 22, 2015
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc
City: Thousand Oaks
Print ISBN: 9781483345703
Online ISBN: 9781483345727
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483345727.n655
Print pages: 1244-1245
©2015 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE knowledge. Please note that the pagination
of the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
World Poverty Contributor
©2015 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. SAGE knowledge

http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483345727.n655

Poor Laws
The Poor Laws were a legal system of assistance and charity reform that the European
states adopted to relieve the conditions of poor people from the 1520s until the
19th century. As Natalie Davies noted, the study of charity combines different and
debated aspects of charitable reforms, from reforms motivated by economic or spiritual
considerations to the relationship between the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Martin Rheinheimer maintained that it is necessary to consider the heritage and cultural
context of the Middle Ages in order to understand the poor laws. In other words, the
mendicant orders in the Middle Ages had tried to alleviate the situation of poor people
through education, evangelization, and a strong aid system of handouts. Thus, many
families, beggars, and vagrants had become used to receiving charitable assistance.

Many studies emphasize the economical context of charity reform in Europe. Since the
beginning of the modern age, the scale of commerce and manufacture had increased,
and the great commercial fleets were traveling all over the world. A lot of families could
not afford to buy food and clothes or to get shelter on their own; begging and vagrancy
became a disturbing phenomenon, especially in Spain, Flanders, and England, where
economic development had rapidly expanded.

The connections between the material aspects of life and the importance of a social
policy related to poverty and work were significant factors in renewing Catholic faith.
According to Bronislav Geremek, the preachers Joan Greyler of Kayseberg and Juan
Luis Vives inspired a more modern social policy. At the same time, Martin Luther also
wanted to renew the Catholic faith and inspired the Protestant Reformation that split
religious unity in Europe between Catholics and Protestants.

During this period of religious division, the European states assumed the reorganization
of charity. It was imperative to eliminate vices like laziness, trickery, and drunkenness
that were connected with vagrancy and beggary. Therefore, it was necessary to assist
in eradicating real poverty, which was characterized by vulnerability, lack of legal
protection, absence of social standing, and aid assistance. The question is how this
situation could be improved permanently.

Page 3 of 6 The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty: Poor

Laws
World Poverty Contributor
©2015 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. SAGE knowledge

Poor relief reform in Spain and England were characterized by each nation’s own
Catholic or Protestant ideology. Spanish charity continued to be a responsibility of
churches and charitable institutions (poorhouses, orphanages, hospitals, brotherhoods,
sisterhoods, etc.). In England, monasteries were dissolved and their responsibilities
were transferred to municipal civilian authorities. However, despite religious differences,
a comparison of the Spanish court laws (1523–65) and the Elizabethan poor laws
(1601) reveals that there were not many differences between these nation’s social
policies, as Jesus De la Iglesia García noted.

Poor people could obtain charitable assistance, but they were forbidden to beg
outside their home [p. 1244 ↓ ] parishes in England or their villages in Spain. On
the other hand, the Spanish wealthy class continued with the Catholic tradition of
giving alms throughout the community or providing charity to hospitals, where priests
distributed assistance to the poor. Assistance in England was financed through a tax
that landowners paid to the parishes and that municipal lay authorities distributed. In
both cases, the nations’ policies relied upon the social elite to avoid the poor’s animosity
toward the privileged classes.

Assistance for the poor varied according to the different types of poor people. On the
whole, all the European states preferred to help the unable poor (old and diseased
persons) through alms and almshouses. Children and the capable poor were expected
to learn traditional occupations in the interest of communal welfare.

Beggaring and vagrancy were never fully eliminated; moreover, poor-laws were
contradictory. For example, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1531 forbid begging in
the German-speaking lands of his demesne. However, in his reign as King Charles I
of Spain, he allowed begging at the houses, squares, churches, and monasteries, but
in 1523 required beggars to obtain official licenses. Poor relief reform failed in Spain,
where a law adopted in 1565 specified that vagrants also must have official licenses to
beg.

The vagrancy and beggaring phenomenon expanded during the 17th century because
of the permissive Spanish poor laws and economic crisis, but in 1671, a law ordered all
beggars from the Spanish kingdom to register; laws adopted in 1684 and 1778 expelled

Page 4 of 6 The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty: Poor

Laws
World Poverty Contributor
©2015 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. SAGE knowledge

foreigners from the big cities of the kingdom to their villages, and the real beggars were
either designated by a public medallion or sent to the poorhouse or hospitals.

In contrast, the English poor laws were characterized by a repressive nature against the
vagrants, who were treated as criminals. For instance, vagrants could be condemned
to serve two years of forced servitude and branded with a “V” (vagrant or vagabond)
as the penalty for the first offense, and given a death sentence for the second offense.
The Elizabethan poor laws were complemented by the settlement law in 1662. This
law prevented recent immigrants from settling irregularly in the parish and becoming an
additional economic burden, and it prevented the vagrants or false poor from setting up
there. At the same time, this law enabled poor people to leave the parish and change
homes.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the economic principles of liberalism influenced the
European states’ laws about poor relief and it was necessary to adopt new policies
requiring the capable poor to work. However, other studies consider the relevance of
political nationalism on the adoption of new poor laws in the 19th century.

For instance, in 1834, the Elizabethan poor laws were reformed and renamed the new
poor laws. These laws transferred poor relief from the local authorities to a national
aid system controlled by the state, and they specified that the poor had to work in
workhouses. Thus, the poor were assimilated into the working class, which was
necessary for industry. In Spain, after centuries in which the Catholic Church influenced
public policies and laws, the city councils were put in charge of assistance for the poor.

Magdalena Díaz Hernández

University of Seville

See Also: Almshouses; Church of England; Mendicant Orders; Poverty, Culture of;
Poverty, History of; Protestant Churches; Working Poor.

Page 5 of 6 The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty: Poor

Laws
World Poverty Contributor
©2015 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. SAGE knowledge

Further Readings
Badenas Zamora, Antonio. The Patronage of the Poor in Liberal Spain (1833–1868).
Madrid: Dykinson S.L., 2005.

Coats, A. W. “Economic Thought and Poor Law Policy in the Eighteen Century.” The
Economic History Review, v.13/1 (1960).

David, Natalie. “Poor Relief, Humanism and Heresy.” Society and Culture in Early
Modern France, v.2 (1991).

De la Iglesia García, Jesus. “The Poor Debate Treatment During the 16th Century.”
In The Spanish Church and the Charitable Institutions, Francisco Javier Campos, ed.
Spain: Editions Escurialenses, 2006.

Geremek, Bronislav. The Piety and Gibbet: History of Misery and Charity in Europe.
Madrid: Editorial Alianza, 1989.

Rheinheimer, Martin. Poor, Beggar and Vagrant: The Supervivence in the Needs
(1450–1850). Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2009.

http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483345727.n655

Page 6 of 6 The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty: Poor

Laws