Call for papers - the provision of poor relief in rural Europe
Call for participants to join a session on the provision of poor relief in rural Europe, at the Rural History conference, Bern, Switzerland, 19th-22nd August 2013
Outside of England, the provision of poor relief in the countryside in the past is a neglected topic, in part due to the assumption that it was minimal compared to the provision of relief by large urban institutions and in part because evidence is harder to find than for these same institutions.
Nonetheless, those historians who have paid attention to rural poor relief have shown that many different types of assistance were available for the poor, such as small local hospitals, bread doles, dowry funds, other endowed charities, confraternities and almsgiving of different kinds. By and large, these forms of charity were private, though sometimes administered by public bodies. What has largely not been addressed is the role and significance of such charities. Were funds adequate enough to provide relief in any systematic and sustained fashion? What contribution could they make to the household ‘economy of makeshifts’? Did migration to the cities represent the only option in times of hardship? How did they change over time? How did elite and popular perceptions of the need for and role of relief change? In posing these questions, historians also need to consider the different relationships between family forms and poor relief that may have existed.
Richard Smith and Peter Solar have suggested that the English poor law provided a safety net that mitigated against the hardship traditionally associated with the nuclear family, in particular through provision of relief to the elderly. This raises the question of how poor relief may have functioned in association with other family forms over different stages of the life-cycle and to what extent it substituted for or supplemented provision of relief by kin.
Proposals are sought for papers dealing with any aspect of poor relief in rural Europe, preferably outside of England. Anyone interested in contributing should contact Julie Marfany (julie.marfany [at] history.ox.ac.uk) by 20th February. For details of the conference, see www.ruralhistory2013.org
[Cross-posted, with thanks, from EH Net]