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Do good unto all: Charity and poor relief across Christian Europe, 1400-1800

Online ISBN:
9781526179647
Print ISBN:
9781526162472
Publisher:
Manchester University Press
Book

Do good unto all: Charity and poor relief across Christian Europe, 1400-1800

Timothy G. Fehler (ed.),
Timothy G. Fehler
(ed.)
Furman University
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Jared B. Thomley (ed.)
Jared B. Thomley
(ed.)
University of Aberdeen
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Published online:
18 January 2024
Published in print:
18 July 2023
Online ISBN:
9781526179647
Print ISBN:
9781526162472
Publisher:
Manchester University Press

Abstract

For nearly two millennia, Christians have tried to make sense of the Bible’s reminder that the poor are ‘always among us’. This volume explores the diverse range of ideas, institutions, and experiences early modern Europeans brought to bear in response to this biblical adage. Do good unto all traces the concept and practice of charity across the four major early modern Christian confessions – Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anabaptist – and over a wide range of geographical areas from Scotland to Switzerland and the Spanish Atlantic World. By bringing such a diverse set of localised studies into concert for the first time, this volume exposes the many intersections and tensions that arose between and within communities as they attempted to translate the ideal of charity into practice. This comparative approach shifts the focus from binary definitions of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor or ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’. Instead, Do good unto all charts a new course for the study of charity beyond institutional poor relief, where the matrix of individual ideas and experiences can be fully appreciated. Organised into three thematic parts, the book’s chapters consider, in turn, the definitions of charity, the ways in which charity was implemented or institutionalised, and the experience of charity across the spectrum from benefactors, administrators, and the poor themselves.

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