Preliminary Programme

Tue 13 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Wed 14 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Thu 15 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Fri 16 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

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Tuesday 13 April 2010 8.30
P-1 SOC01 European Almshouses
Auditorium D5, Pauli
Network: Social Inequality Chair: Thomas M. Adams
Organizer: Thomas M. Adams Discussant: Frank Hatje
Nigel Goose : The English almshouse and the mixed economy of welfare c. 1500-1900
The endowment of an almshouse is a highly visible form of charitable giving, requiring relatively substantial investment, the establishment of a trust and the construction or adoption of a physical building. However, while historians have written extensively about both formal and informal poor relief, the role played by the almshouse ... (Show more)
The endowment of an almshouse is a highly visible form of charitable giving, requiring relatively substantial investment, the establishment of a trust and the construction or adoption of a physical building. However, while historians have written extensively about both formal and informal poor relief, the role played by the almshouse in the history of the poor in England has been largely ignored. Indeed, as Dr Alannah Tomkins argued in a recent article, it may be that their image ‘has been over-determined’ by the idealism of their founders and their quaint present-day appearance as part of our ‘heritage’. Perhaps this is why historians have not taken them seriously. Whatever the reason, it is a simple fact that there is not a single, substantial academic study of the place of the English almshouse within the ‘mixed economy of welfare’ for any period in English history after 1500, while it would not be unfair to suggest that work on the medieval period is at best extremely patchy.
Just how important a component of the mixed economy of welfare almshouses became remains to be established. Professor McIntosh’s estimates, themselves very tentative, cover only the years 1400-1600, and indicate the existence of over 500 on the eve of the Reformation, their number being reduced to half this number by the mid 16th century due to the depredations of the Dissolution of the Monasteries and Chantries. We have no comparable information for the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, although W.K. Jordan’s study of ten sample counties containing 3,033 parishes identified 387 permanently endowed almshouses and a further 71 without a stock for maintenance, figures which suggest that 12.75 per cent of English parishes benefited from almshouse provision by the mid 17th century (Jordan 1959: 27, 261-2). Nor do we know very much about exactly who they catered for, except in the case of a small number of institutions that have been the subject of detailed research—most notably the Whittington and Ewelme almshouses studied by Imray and Richmond respectively. The English almshouse, therefore, is badly in need of fuller historical attention.
This paper will present the early results arising from a project adopted by the Family and Community Historical Society which aspires to create a comprehensive gazetteer of English almshouses from 1500 to 1900. While it will (briefly) discuss the evolution of the almshouse over four centuries, it will particularly focus upon the results of an analysis of a substantial sample of nineteenth-century census returns, discussing the geographical distribution of almshouses, the age, gender and social profile of their inmates, and the role that they played within the mixed economy of welfare. (Show less)

Henk Looijesteijn : Founding almshouses in the Netherlands, ca. 1500-1800
The research project on major gifts will focus on courts-of-almshouses (hofjes), a peculiar form of providing cheap accommodation for the elderly which was widespread in the Netherlands and which was a favourite form of charity with private benefactors: most hofjes were private foundations, sometimes run for generations by the descendants ... (Show more)
The research project on major gifts will focus on courts-of-almshouses (hofjes), a peculiar form of providing cheap accommodation for the elderly which was widespread in the Netherlands and which was a favourite form of charity with private benefactors: most hofjes were private foundations, sometimes run for generations by the descendants of the founders. Almshouses in general were the jewels in the crown of Dutch charitable giving. From far and wide, foreigners came to visit and marvel at the number and monumental facades of such buildings for elderly men and women and widows and the comfortable life they provided compared with the situation in England, France, and Germany. The Dutch themselves often included prints and descriptions of the almshouses in urban histories and topographies, and regarded these almshouses with civic pride. They often endowed these almshouses generously, especially the orphanages.
Elderly Dutch in need of (some) assistance lived in a greater variety of institutions, many of which were private by contrast, such as the hofjes, private almshouses which invested the benefactor with more than a hint of immortality. Hofjes-founders invariably lavished great care on their foundations, which gave rise to notarial transactions, regulations, naming issues, as well as inspiring works of art, paintings, laudatory poems, and plays. Generous benefactors imposed conditions, for instance on where the building was to be located, for whom it was intended, what the residents were and were not permitted to do. They also determined the name of the almshouse. In this study the focus will be on the motives of the founders for setting-up such capital-intensive and time-consuming private almshouses, for a brief glance at monumental facades covered with heraldic crests and poems praising the founders by name and title suggests that the founders’ intentions were not simply to do good, but to do so in public.
We know quite a lot about almshouses. Many of them still exist today, together with their archives, and much has already been published about them, though an overview-study of the Dutch hofjes is still lacking. Aside from this rich secondary literature, this study will also make use of a database of hofjes, constructed over a number of years at the IISH, which lists per Dutch locality every known almshouse, the date of its foundation, its capacity, entry rules (some were restricted to retired Protestant sailors or Catholic widows older than 50 for example), the name(s) of the benefactor(s), their social position, and the size of their gift. In many cases there is abundant additional historical information on the benefactors, including their social background and intentions, and the laudatory prose and verse read on the occasion of the almshouse’s foundation – not to mention paintings and sculptures. (Show less)

Angela Schwarz : Jewish foundations in Hamburg against homelessness
The contribution of Jews toward earning Hamburg the title of "Capital of Foundations" in Germany was disproportionately higher than the general population. Foundations were set up for traditional purposes but Jewish benefactors proved for example especially sensitive to social problems in the urbanisation process in the 19th century. Poverty and ... (Show more)
The contribution of Jews toward earning Hamburg the title of "Capital of Foundations" in Germany was disproportionately higher than the general population. Foundations were set up for traditional purposes but Jewish benefactors proved for example especially sensitive to social problems in the urbanisation process in the 19th century. Poverty and neediness remained a crucial subject under the conditions of the growing metropolis and Jewish philanthropists in particular devoted themselves in innovative ways and to a notable extent.
Because charity in Judaism was conceived of in terms of religious and social values and had been an act of religious duty and human obligation since ancient times, the Jews in Hamburg built up a comprehensive net of care for needy members of the Jewish community. In the course of time, a system of relief based on normative social ethics gradually brought forth many offshoots and was extended to the whole society. Jewish charity went together with the concept of Hamburgs’s republican civic community and became a decisive factor for permeability between general and Jewish philanthropy. Confessional equality was first brought into charity by Jewish benefactors.
A negative symptom of urbanisation was in Hamburg lack of housing and exorbitant rents affecting not only the poorer but now also the middle classes. Foundations were set up for providing rental assistance as well as for rent-free flats. The Jewish share of Housing trusts, this typically Hamburg form of charity, was outstanding. In the 1920s a third of all 76 institutions had been founded by Jews at a population share of about 1.7 per cent. In contrast to the non-Jewish foundations of rent-free flats the terms of admission often have been extended to people with very low income and also the Old People's Home of the German Israelite Community based on a foundation.
The donors took up an old Hamburg tradition of private charity with ecclesiastical roots in the middle-ages, which has been transformed by an increasing importance of civic-minded charity that always had been valued highly in the republican coummunal structures. Although Hamburg Jews not until 1849 attained the possibility of obtaining the “Bürgerrecht”, the central key to the bourgeoisie and the right to buy the necessary sites, they before have been creative and innovative in developing this concept of responsibility for the community.
The success of this Jewish welfare goal underscores on the one hand the deep bonds of the Hamburg Jews to their hometown, as on the other hand it also speaks for impressive efforts in warding off homelessness. (Show less)

Christina Vanja : Hospitals and care for the Elderly in Hesse, 1500-1800
My paper will be given in the section "European Almshouses" (Chair Prof. Dr. Thomas M. Adams). Central will be the question how elderly people lived and were treated in early modern hessian hospitals.



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