It remains to trace the history of thought and administration in
relation to (1) the development of charitable responsibility in the
parish, and the use of tithe and church property for poor relief; and
(2) the revision of the theory of charity, with which are associated the
names of St Augustine (354-430), St Benedict (480-542), St Bernard
(1091-1153), St Francis (1182-1226), and St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).
(3) There follows, in reference chiefly to England, a sketch of the
dependence of the poor under feudalism, the charities of the parish, the
monastery and the hospital--the medieval system of endowed charity; the
rise of gild and municipal charities; the decadence at the close of the
15th century, and the statutory endeavours to cope with economic
difficulties which, in the 16th century, led to the establishment of
statutory serfdom and the poor-laws. New elements affect the problem of
charity in the 17th and 18th centuries; but it is not too much to say
that almost all these headings represent phases of thought or
institutions which in later forms are interwoven with the charitable
thought and endeavours of the present day.
The parish and charitable relief.
Naturally, two methods of relief have usually been prominent: relief
administered locally, chiefly to residents in their own homes, and
relief administered in an institution. At the time of Charlemagne
(742-814) the system of relief was parochial, consisting principally of
assistance at the home. After that time, except probably in England, the
institutional method appears to have predominated, and the monastery or
hospital in one form or another gradually encroached on the parish.
The system of parochial charity was the outcome, apparently, of three
conditions: the position and influence of the bishop, the eleemosynary
nature of the church funds, and the need of some responsible
organization of relief. It resulted in what might almost be called an
ecclesiastical poor-law. The affairs of a local church or congregation
were superintended by a bishop. To deal with the outlying districts he
detached priests for religious work and, as in Rome and (774)
Strassburg, deacons also for the administration of relief. Originally
all the income of the church or congregation was paid into one fund
only, of which the bishop had charge, and this fund was available
primarily for charitable purposes. Church property was the patrimony
of the poor. In the 4th century (IV. Council of Carthage, 398) the
names of the clergy were entered on a list (_matricula_ or _canon_),
as were also the names of the poor, and both received from the church
their daily portion (cf. Ratzinger, _Geschichte der kirchlichen
Armenpflege_, p. 117). There were no expenses for building. Before the
reign of Constantine (306) very few churches were built (Ratzinger, p.
120). Thus the early church as has been said, was chiefly a charitable
society. By degrees the property of the church was very largely
increased by gifts and bequests, and in the West before St Gregory's
time the division of it for four separate purposes--the support of the
bishop, of the clergy, and of the poor, and for church
buildings--still further promoted decentralization. Apart from any
special gifts, there was thus created a separate fund for almsgiving,
supervised by the bishop, consisting of a fourth of the church
property, the oblations (mostly used for the poor), and the tithe,
which at first was used for the poor solely. The organization of the
church was gradually extended. The church once established in the
chief city of a district would become in turn the mother church of
other neighbourhoods, and the bishop or priest of the mother church
would come to exercise supervision over them and their parishes.
In France, which may serve as a good illustration, in the 4th century
(Ratzinger, p. 181) the civic organization was utilized for a further
change. The Roman provinces were divided into large areas,
_civitales_, and these were adopted by the church as bishop's parishes
or, as we should call them, dioceses; and the chief city became the
cathedral city. The bishop thus became responsible in Charlemagne's
time both for his own parish--that of the mother church--and for the
supervision of the parishes in the _civitas_, and so for the sick and
needy of the diocese generally. He had to take charge of the poor in
his own parish personally, keep the list of the poor, and houses for
the homeless. The other parishes were at first, or in some measure,
supported from his funds, but they acquired by degrees tithe and
property of their own and were endowed by Charlemagne, who gave one or
more manses or lots of land (cf. Fustel de Coulanges, _Hist, des
institutions politiques de l'ancienne France_, p. 360) for the support
of each parish priest. The priests were required to relieve their own
poor so that they should not stray into other cities (II. Counc.
Tours, 567), and to provide food and lodging for strangers. The method
was indeed elaborated and became, like the Jewish, that contradiction
in terms--a compulsory system of charitable relief. The payment of
tithe was enforced by Charlemagne, and it became a legal due (Counc.
Frankfort, 794; Arelat. 794). At the same time two other conditions
were enforced. Each person (_unusquisque fidelium nostrorum_ or _omnes
cives_) was to keep his own family, i.e. all dependent on him--all,
that is, upon his freehold estate (_allodium_), and no one was to
presume to give relief to able-bodied beggars unless they were set to
work (Charlem. _Capit_. v. 10). Thus we find here the germ of a
poor-law system. As in the times of the _annona civica_, slavery,
feudalism, or statutory serfdom, the burthen of the maintenance of the
poor fell only in part on charity. Only those who could not be
maintained as members of some "family" were properly entitled to
relief, and in these circumstances the officially recognized clients
of the church consisted of the gradually decreasing number of free
poor and those who were tenants of church lands.
Since 817 there has been no universally binding decision of the church
respecting the care of the poor (Ratzinger, p. 236). So long ago did
laicization begin in charity. In the wars and confusion of the 9th and
10th centuries the poorer freemen lapsed still further into slavery,
or became _coloni_ or bond servants; and later they passed under the
feudal rule. Thus the church's duty to relieve them became the
masters' obligation to maintain them. Simultaneously the activity of
the clergy, regular and secular alike, dwindled. They were exhorted to
increase their alms. The revenues and property of "the poor" were
largely turned to private or partly ecclesiastical purposes, or
secularized. Legacies went wholly to the clergy, but only the tithe of
the produce of their own lands was used for relief; and of the general
tithe, only a third or fourth part was so applied. Eventually to a
large extent, but more elsewhere than in England (Ratzinger, pp. 246,
269), the tithe itself was appropriated by nobles or even by the
monasteries; and thus during and after the 10th century a new
organization of charity was created on non-parochial methods of
relief. Alms, with prayer and fasting, had always been connected with
penance. But the character of the penitential system had altered. By
the 7th century private penance had superseded the public and
congregational penance of the earlier church (_Dict. Christian
Antiquities_, art. "Penitence"). To the penalties of exclusion from
the sacraments or from the services of the church or from its
communion was coupled, with other penitential discipline, an elaborate
penitential system, in which about the 7th century the redemption of
sin by the "sacrifice" of property, payments of money fines, &c., was
introduced. (Cf. for instance Conc. Elberti:--Labbeus i. 969 (A.D.
305), with Conc. Berghamstedense, Wilkins, Conc. p. 60 (A.D. 696), and
the Penitential (p. 115) and Canons (A.D. 960), p. 236.) The same sin
committed by an overseer (_praepositus paganus_) was compensated by a
fine of 100 _solidi_; in the case of a _colonus_ by a fine of 50. So
amongst the ways of penitence were entered in the above-mentioned
Canons, to erect a church, and if means allowed, add to it land ... to
repair the public roads ... "to distribute," to help poor widows,
orphans and strangers, redeem slaves, fast, &c.--a combination of
"good deeds" which suggests a line of thought such as ultimately found
expression in the definition of charities in the Charitable Uses Act
of Queen Elizabeth. The confessor, too, was "_spiritualis medicus_,"
and much that from the point of view of counsel would now be the work
of charity would in his hands be dealt with in that capacity. For
lesser sins (cf. Bede (673-735), _Hom._ 34, quoted by Ratzinger) the
penalty was prayer, fasting and alms; for the greater sins--murder,
adultery and idolatry--to give up all. Thus while half-converted
barbarians were kept in moral subjection by material penances, the
church was enriched by their gifts; and these tended to support the
monastic and institutional methods which were in favour, and to which,
on the revival of religious earnestness in the 11th century, the world
looked for the reform of social life.
Medieval revision of the theory of charity.
To understand medieval charity it is necessary to return to St
Augustine. According to him, the motive of man in his legitimate effort
to assert himself in life was love or desire (_amor_ or _cupido_). "All
impulses were only evolutions of this typical characteristic" (Harnack,
_History of Dogma_ (trans.), v. iii.); and this was so alike in the
spiritual and the sensuous life. Happiness thus depended on desire; and
desire in turn depended on the regulation of the will; but the will was
regulated only by grace. God was the _spiritualis substantia_; and
freedom was the identity of the will with the omnipotent unchanging
nature. This highest Being was "holiness working on the will in the form
of omnipotent love." This love was grace--"grace imparting itself in
love." Love (_caritas_--charity) is identified with justice; and the
will, the goodwill, is love. The identity of the will with the will of
God was attained by communion with Him. The after-life consummated by
sight this communion, which was here reached only by faith. Such a
method of thought was entirely introspective, and it turned the mind
"wholly to hope, asceticism and the contemplation of God in worship."
"Where St Augustine indulges in the exposition of practical piety he has
no theory at all of Christ's work." To charity on that side he added
nothing. In the 11th century there was a revival of piety, which had
amongst its objects the restoration of discipline in the monasteries and
a monastic training for the secular clergy. To this Augustinian thought
led the way. "Christianity was asceticism and the city of God" (Harnack
vi. 6). A new religious feeling took possession of the general mind, a
regard and adoration of the actual, the historic Christ. Of this St
Bernard was the expositor. "Beside the sacramental Christ the image of
the historical took its place,--majesty in humility, innocence in penal
suffering, life in death." The spiritual and the sensuous were
intermingled. Dogmatic formulae fell into the background. The picture of
the historic Christ led to the realization of the Christ according to
the spirit ([Greek: kata pneuma]). Thus St Bernard carried forward
Augustinian thought; and the historic Christ became the "sinless man,
approved by suffering, to whom the divine grace, by which He lives, has
lent such power that His image takes shape in other men and incites them
to corresponding humility and love."
Humility and poverty represented the conditions under which alone this
spirit could be realized; and the poverty must be spiritual, and
therefore self-imposed ("wilful," as it was afterwards called). This led
to practical results. Poverty was not a social state, but a spiritual;
and consequently the poor generally were not the _pauperes Christi_, but
those who, like the monks, had taken vows of poverty. From these
premisses followed later the doctrine that gifts to the church were not
gifts to the poor, as once they had been, but to the religious bodies.
The church was not the church of the poor, but of the poor in spirit.
But the immediate effect was the belief for a time, apparently almost
universal, that the salvation of society would come from the monastic
orders. By their aid, backed by the general opinion, the secular clergy
were brought back to celibacy and the monasteries newly disciplined. But
charity could not thus regain its touch of life and become the means of
raising the standard of social duty.
Next, one amongst many who were stirred by a kindred inspiration, St
Francis turned back to actual life and gave a new reality to religious
idealism. For him the poor were once again the _pauperes Christi_. To
follow Christ was to adopt the life of "evangelical poverty," and this
was to live among the poor the life of a poor man. The follower was to
work with his hands (as the poor clergy of the early church had done and
the clergy of the early English church were exhorted to do); he was to
receive no money; he was to earn the actual necessaries of life, though
what he could not earn he might beg. To ask for this was a right, so
long as he was bringing a better life into the world. All in excess of
this he gave to the poor. He would possess no property, buildings or
endowments, nor was his order to do so. The fulness of his life was in
the complete realization of it now, without the cares of property and
without any fear of the future. Having a definite aim and mission, he
was ready to accept the want that might come upon him, and his life was
a discipline to enable him to suffer it if it came. To him humility was
the soul making itself fit to love; and poverty was humility expanded
from a mood to a life, a life not guarded by seclusion, but spent
amongst those who were actually poor. The object of life was to console
the poor--those outside all monasteries and institutions--the poor as
they lived and worked. The movement was practically a lay movement, and
its force consisted in its simplicity and directness. Book learning was
disparaged: life was to be the teacher. The brothers thus became
observant and practical, and afterwards indeed learned, and their
learning had the same characteristics. Their power lay in their
practical sagacity, in their treatment of life, outside the cloister and
the hospital, at first hand. They knew the people because they settled
amongst them, living just as they did. This was their method of charity.
The inspiration that drew St Francis to this method was the
contemplation of the life of Christ. But it was more than this. The
Christ was to him, as to St Bernard, an ideal, whose nature passed into
that of the contemplating and adoring beholder, so that, as he said,
"having lost its individuality, of itself the creature could no longer
act." He had no impulse but the Christ impulse. He was changed. His
identity was merged in that of Christ. And with this came the conception
of a gracious and finely ordered charity, moving like the natural world
in a constant harmonious development towards a definite end. The
mysticism was intense, but it was practical because it was intense. In
that lay the strength of the movement of the true Franciscans, and in
those orders that, whether called heretical or not, followed
them--Lollards and others. Religion thus became a personal and original
possession. It became individual. It was inspired by a social endeavour,
and for the world at large it made of charity a new thing.
St Thomas Aquinas took up St Bernard's position. Renunciation of
property, voluntary poverty, was in his view also a necessary means of
reaching the perfect life; and the feeling that was akin to this
renunciation and prompted it was charity. "All perfection of the
Christian life was to be attained according to charity," and charity
united us to God.
In the system elaborated by St Thomas Aquinas two lines of thought are
wrought into a kind of harmony. The one stands for Aristotle and
nature, the other for Christian tradition and theology. We have thus a
duplicate theory of thought and action throughout, both rational and
theologic virtues, and a duplicate beatitude or state of happiness
correspondent to each. On the one hand it is argued that the good act
is an act which, in relation to its object, wholly serves its purpose;
and thus the measure of goodness (_Prima Secundae Summae Theolog. Q._
xviii. 2) is the proportion between action and effect. On the other
hand, the act has to satisfy the twofold law, human reason and eternal
reason. From the point of view of the former the cardinal factor is
desire, which, made proportionate to an end, is love (_amor_); and,
seeking the good of others, it loses its quality of concupiscence and
becomes friendly love (_amor amicitiae_). But this rational love
(_amor_) and charity (_caritas_), the theologic virtue, may meet. All
virtue or goodness is a degree of love (_amor_), if by virtue we mean
the cardinal virtues and refer to the rule of reason only. But there
are also theologic virtues, which are on one side "essential," on the
other side participative. As wood ignited participates in the natural
fire, so does the individual in these virtues (II. II.^ae lxii. l).
Charity is a kind of friendship towards God. It is received _per
infusionem spiritus sancti_, and is the chief and root of the
theologic virtues of faith and hope, and on it the rational virtues
depend. They are not degrees of charity as they are of (_amor_) love,
but charity gives purpose, order and quality to them all. In this
sense the word is applied to the rational virtues--as, for instance,
beneficence. The counterpart of charity in social life is pity
(_misericordia_), the compassion that moves us to supply another's
want (_summa religionis Christianae in misericordia consistit quantum
ad exteriora opera_). It is, however, an emotion, not a virtue, and
must be regulated like any other emotion (... _passio est et non
virtus. Hic autem motus potest esse secundum rationem regulatus_, II.
II.^ae xxx. 3). Thus we pass to alms, which are the instrument of
pity--an act of charity done through the intervention of pity. The act
is not done in order to purchase spiritual good by a corporal means,
but to merit a spiritual good (_per effectum caritatis_) through being
in a state of charity; and from that point of view its effect is
tested by the recipient being moved to pray for his benefactor. The
claim of others on our beneficence is relative, according to
consanguinity and other bonds (II. II.^ae xxxi. 3), subject to the
condition that the common good of many is a holier obligation
(_divinius_) than that of one. Obedience and obligation to parents may
be crossed by other obligations, as, for instance, duty to the church.
To give alms is a command. Alms should consist of the
superfluous--that is, of all that the individual possesses after he
has reserved what is necessary. What is necessary the donor should fix
in due relation to the claims of his family and dependants, his
position in life (_dignitas_), and the sustenance of his body. On the
other hand, his gift should meet the actual necessities of the
recipient and no more. More than this will lead to excess on the
recipient's part (_ut inde luxurietur_) or to want of spirit and
apathy (_ut aliis remissio et refrigerium sit_), though allowance must
be made for different requirements in different conditions of life. It
were better to distribute alms to many persons than to give more than
is necessary to one. In individual cases there remains the further
question of correction--the removing of some evil or sin from another;
and this, too, is an act of charity.
It will be seen that though St Thomas bases his argument on a
duplicate theory of thought, action and happiness, part natural, part
theologic, and states fully the conditions of good action, he does not
bring the two into unison. Logically the argument should follow that
alms that fail in social benefit (produce _remissionem et
refrigerium_, for instance) fail also in spiritual good, for the two
cannot be inconsistent. But in regard to the former he does not press
the importance of purpose, and, in spite of his Aristotle, he misses
the point on which Aristotle, as a close observer of social
conditions, insists, that gifts without purpose and reciprocity foster
the dependence they are designed to meet. The proverb of the "pierced
cask" is as applicable to ecclesiastical as to political almsgiving,
as has often been proved by the event. The distribution of all
"superfluous" income in the form of alms would have the effect of a
huge endowment, and would stereotype "the poor" as a permanent and
unprogressive class. The proposal suggests that St Thomas contemplated
the adoption of a method of relief which would be like a voluntary
poor-law; and it is noteworthy that his phrase "necessary relief"
forms the defining words of the Elizabethan poor-law, while he also
lays stress on the importance of "correction," which, on the decline
and disappearance of the penitential system, assumed at the
Reformation a prominent position in administration in relation not
only to "sin," but also to offences against society, such as idleness,
&c.
On this foundation was built up the classification of acts of charity,
which in one shape or another has a long social tradition, and which St
Thomas quotes in an elaborated form--the seven spiritual acts
(_consule_, _carpe_, _doce_, _solare_, _remitte_, _fer_, _ora_),
counsel, sustain, teach, console, save, pardon, pray; and the seven
corporal (_vestio_, _poto_, _cibo_, _redimo_, _tego_, _colligo_,
_condo_) I clothe, I give drink to, I feed, I free from prison, I
shelter, I assist in sickness, I bury (II. II.^ae xxxii. 2). These in
subsequent thought became "good works," and availed for the after-life,
bringing with them definite boons. Thus charity was linked to the system
of indulgences. The bias of the act of charity is made to favour the
actor. Primarily the benefit reverts to him. He becomes conscious of an
ultimate reward accruing to himself. The simplicity of the deed, the
spontaneity from which, as in a well-practised art, its freshness
springs and its good effects result, is falsified at the outset. The
thought that should be wholly concerned in the fulfilment of a definite
purpose is diverted from it. The deed itself, apart from the outcome of
the deed, is highly considered. An extreme inducement is placed on
giving, counselling, and the like, but none on the personal or social
utility of the gift or counsel. Yet the value of these lies in their
end. No policy or science of charity can grow out of such a system. It
can produce innumerable isolated acts, which may or may not be
beneficent, but it cannot enkindle the "ordered charity." This charity
is, strictly speaking, by its very nature alike intellectual and
emotional. Otherwise it would inevitably fail of its purpose, for though
emotion might stimulate it, intelligence would not guide it.
There are, then, these three lines of thought. That of St Bernard, who
invigorated the monastic movement, and helped to make the monastery or
hospital the centre of charitable relief. That of St Francis, who,
passing by regular and secular clergy alike, revived and reinvigorated
the conception of charity and gave it once more the reality of a social
force, knowing that it would find a freer scope and larger usefulness in
the life of the people than in the religious aristocracy of monasteries.
And that of St Thomas Aquinas, who, analysing the problem of charity and
almsgiving, and associating it with definite groups of works, led to its
taking, in the common thought, certain stereotyped forms, so that its
social aim and purpose were ignored and its power for good was
neutralized.
Charity and social conditions in England.
We have now to turn to the conditions of social life in which these
thoughts fermented and took practical shape. The population of England
from the Conquest to the 14th century is estimated at between 1-1/2 and
2-1/2 millions. London, it is believed, had a population of about
40,000. Other towns were small. Two or three of the larger had 4000 or
5000 inhabitants. The only substantial building in a village, apart
perhaps from the manor-house, was the church, used for many secular as
well as religious purposes. In the towns the mud or wood-paved huts
sheltered a people who, accepting a common poverty, traded in little
more than the necessaries of life (Green, _Town Life in the 15th
Century_, i. 13). The population was stationary. Famine and pestilence
were of frequent occurrence (Creighton, _Epidemics in Britain_, p. 19),
and for the careless there was waste at harvest-time and want in winter.
Hunger was the drill-sergeant of society. Owing to the hardship and
penury of life infant mortality was probably very great (Blashill,
_Sutton in Holdernesse_, p. 123). The 15th century was, however, "the
golden age of the labourer." Our problem is to ascertain what was the
service of charity to this people till the end of that century. In order
to estimate this we have to apply tests similar to those we applied
before to Greece and Rome and the pre-medieval church.
_The Family._--Largely Germanic in its origin, we may perhaps set down
as elemental in the English race what Tacitus said of the Germans.
They had the home virtues. They had a high regard for chastity, and
respected and enforced the family tie. The wife was honoured. The men
were poor, but when the actual pressure of their work--fighting--was
removed, idle. They were born gamblers. Much toil fell upon the wife;
but slavery was rather a form of tenure than a Roman bondage. As
elsewhere, there was in England "the joint family or household"
(Pollock and Maitland, _English Law before Edward I._ i. 31). Each
member of the community was, or should be, under some lord; for the
lordless man was, like the wanderer in Homer, who belonged to no
phratry, suspected and dangerous, and his kinsfolk might be required
to find a lord for him. There was personal servitude, but it was not
of one complexion; there were grades amongst the unfree, and the
general advance to freedom was continuous. By the 9th century the
larger amount of the slavery was bondage by tenure. In the reign of
Edward I., though "the larger half of the rural population was
unfree," yet the serf, notwithstanding the fact that he was his lord's
chattel, was free against all save his lord. A century later (1381)
villenage--that is payment for tenancy by service, instead of by
quit-rent--was practically extinguished. So steady was the progress
towards the freedom and self-maintenance of the individual and his
family.
_The Manor._--In social importance, next to the family, comes the
manor, the organization of which affected charity greatly on one side.
It was "an economic unit," the estate of a lord on which there were
associated the lord with his demesne, tenants free of service, and
villeins and others, tenants by service. All had the use of land, even
the serf. The estate was regulated by a manor court, consisting of the
lord of the manor or his representative, and the free tenants, and
entrusted with wide quasi-domestic jurisdiction. The value of the
estate depended on the labour available for its cultivation, and the
cultivators were the unfree tenants. Hence the lord, through the
manor-court, required an indemnity or fine if a child, for instance,
left the manor; and similarly, if a villein died, his widow might have
to remarry or pay a fine. Thus the lord reacquired a servant and the
widow and her family were maintained. The courts, too, fixed prices,
and thus in local and limited conditions of supply and demand were
able to equalize them in a measure and neutralize some of the effects
of scarcity. In this way, till the reign of Edward I., and, where the
manor courts remained active, till much later, a self-supporting
social organization made any systematic public or charitable relief
unnecessary.
_The Parish and the Tithe._--The conversion of England in the 7th
century was effected by bishops, accompanied by itinerant priests, who
made use of conventual houses as the centres of their work. The
parochial system was not firmly established till the 10th century
(970). Then, by a law of Edgar, a man who had a church on his own land
was allowed to pay a third of his tithe to his own church, instead of
giving the whole of it to the minister or conventual church. Theodore,
archbishop of Canterbury (667), had introduced the Carolingian system
into England; and, accordingly, the parish priest was required to
provide for strangers and to keep a room in his house for them. Of the
tithe, a third and not a fourth was to go to the poor with any
surplus; and in order to have larger means of helping them, the
priests were urged to work themselves, according to the ancient canons
of the church (cf. Labbeus, IV. Conc. Carthag. A.D. 398). The
importance of the tithe to the poor is shown by acts of Richard II.
and Henry IV., by which it was enacted that, if parochial tithes were
appropriated to a monastery, a portion of them should be assigned to
the poor of the parish. At a very early date (1287) quasi-compulsory
charges in the nature of a rate were imposed on parishioners for
various church purposes (Pollock and Maitland, i. 604), though in the
14th and 15th centuries a compulsory church rate was seldom made.
Collections were made by paid collectors, especially for Hock-tide
(q.v.) money--gathered for church purposes (Brand's _Antiquities_,
p. 112). But there must have been many varieties in practice. In
Somersetshire the churchwardens' accounts (1349 to 1560) show that the
parish contributed nothing to the relief of the poor, and it seems
probable that the personal charities of the parishioners, and the
charities of the gild fellowships and of the parsonage house sufficed
(Bishop Hobhouse, _Churchwardens' Accounts, 1349-1560_, Somerset
Record Society). Many parishes possessed land, houses and cattle, and
received gifts and legacies of all kinds. The proceeds of this
property, if given for the use of the parish generally, might, if
necessary, be available for the relief of the poor, but, if given
definitely for their use, would provide doles, or stock cattle or
"poor's" lands, &c. (Cf. Augustus Jessopp, _Before the Great Pillage_,
p. 40; and many instances in the reports of the Charity Commissioners,
1818-1835.) Of the endowments for parish doles very many may have
disappeared in the break-up of the 16th century. There were also
"Parish Ales," the proceeds of which would be used for parish purposes
or for relief. Further, all the greater festivals were days of
feasting and the distribution of food; at funerals also there were
often large distributions, and also at marriages. The faithful
generally, subject to penance, were required to relieve the poor and
the stranger. In the larger part of England the parish and the vill
were usually coterminous. In the north a parish contained several
vills. There were thus side by side the charitable relief system of
the parish, which at an early date became a rating area, and the
self-supporting system of the manor.
_The Monasteries._--As Christianity spread monasteries spread, and
each monastery was a centre of relief. Sometimes they were
established, like St Albans (796), for a hundred Benedictine monks and
for the entertainment of strangers; or sometimes without any such
special purpose, like the abbey of Croyland (reorganized 946), which,
becoming exceeding rich from its _diversorium pauperum_, or almonry,
"relieved the whole country round so that prodigious numbers resorted
to it." At Glastonbury, for instance (1537), L140 16s. 8d. was given
away in doles. But documents seem to prove (Denton, _England in
Fifteenth Century_, p. 245) that the relief generally given by
monasteries was much less than is usually supposed.
The general system may be described (cf. Rule, _St Dunst. Cant.
Archp._ p. 42, Dugdale; J.B. Clark, _The Observances_, Augustinian
Priory, Barnwell; Abbot Gasquet, _English Monastic Life_). The almonry
was usually near the church of the monastery. An almoner was in
charge. He was to be prudent and discreet in the distribution of his
doles (_portiones_) and to relieve travellers, palmers, chaplains and
mendicants (_mendicantes_, apparently the beggars recognized as living
by begging, such as we have noted under other social conditions), and
the leprous more liberally than others. The old and infirm, lame and
blind who were confined to their beds he was to visit and relieve
suitably (_in competenti annona_). The importunity of the poor he was
to put up with, and to meet their need as far as he could. In the
almonry there were usually rooms for the sick. The sick outside the
precincts were relieved at the almoner's discretion. Continuous relief
might be given after consultation with the superior. All the remnants
of meals and the old clothes of the monks were given to the almoner
for distribution, and at Christmas he had a store of stockings and
other articles to give away as presents to widows, orphans and poor
clerks. He also provided the Maundy gifts and selected the poor for
the washing of feet. He was thus a local visitor and alms distributor,
not merely at the gate of the monastery but in the neighbourhood, and
had also at his disposal "indoor" relief for the sick. Separate from
the rest the house there was also a dormitory and rooms and the
kitchen for strangers. A _hospitularius_ attended to their needs and
novices waited on them. Guests who were laymen might stay on, working
in return for board and lodging (Smith's _Dict. Christian Antiq._,
"Benedictine").
The monasteries often established hospitals; they served also as
schools for the gentry and for the poor; and they were pioneers of
agriculture. In the 12th century, in which many monastic orders were
constituted, there were many lavish endowments. In the 14th century
their usefulness had begun to wane. At the end of that century the
larger estates were generally held in entail, with the result that
younger sons were put into religious houses. This worldliness had its
natural consequences. In the 15th century, owing to mismanagement,
waste, and subsequently to the decline of rural prosperity, their
resources were greatly crippled. In their relation to charity one or
two points may be noted: (1) Of the small population of England the
professed monks and nuns with the parish priests (Rogers, _Hist.
Agric. and Prices_, i. 58) numbered at least 30,000 or 40,000. This
number of celibates was a standing protest against the moral
sufficiency of the family life. On the other hand, amongst them were
the brothers and sisters who visited the poor and nursed the sick in
hospitals; and many who now succumb physically or mentally to the
pressure of life, and are cared for in institutions, may then have
found maintenance and a retreat in the monasteries. (2) Bound together
by no common controlling organization, the monasteries were but so
many miscellaneous centres of relief, chiefly casual relief. They were
mostly "magnificent hostelries." (3) They stood outside the parish,
and they weakened its organization and hampered its development.
_The Hospitals._--The revival of piety in the 11th century led to a
large increase in the number of hospitals and hospital orders. To show
how far they covered the field in England two instances may be quoted.
At Canterbury (Creighton, _Epidemics_, p. 87) there were four for
different purposes, two endowed by Lanfranc (1084), one for poor,
infirm, lame and blind men and women, and one outside the town for
lepers. These hospitals were put under the charge of a priory, and
endowed out of tithes payable to the secular clergy. Later (Henry
II.), a hospital for leprous sisters was established, and afterwards a
hospital for leprous monks and poor relations of the monks of St
Augustine's. In a less populous parish, Luton (Cobbe, _Luton Church_),
there were a hospital for the poor, an almshouse, and two hospitals,
one for the sick and one for the leprous. The word "leper," it is
evident, was used very loosely, and was applied to many diseases other
than leprosy. There were hospitals for the infirm and the leprous; the
disease was not considered contagious. The hospital in its modern
sense was but slowly created. Thus St Bartholomew's in London was
founded (1123) for a master, brethren and sisters, and for the
entertainment of poor diseased persons till they got well; of
distressed women big with child till they were able to go abroad; and
for the maintenance, until the age of seven, of all such children
whose mothers died in the house. St Thomas's (rebuilt 1228) had a
master and brethren and three lay sisters, and 40 beds for poor,
infirm and impotent people, who had also victual and firing. There
were hospitals for many special purposes--as for the blind, for
instance. There were also many hospital orders in England and on the
continent. They sprang up beside the monastic orders, and for a time
were very popular: brothers and sisters of the Holy Ghost (1198),
sisters of St Elizabeth (1207-1231), Beguines and Beghards (see
BEGUINES), knights of St John and others.
_The Mendicant Orders._--The Franciscans tended the sick and poor in
the slums of the towns with great devotion--indeed, the whole movement
tells of a splendid self-abandonment and an intensity of effort in the
early spring of its enthusiasm, and with the aid of reform councils
and reformations it lengthened out its usefulness for two centuries.
Medieval endowed charities.
As in the pre-medieval church, the system of relief is that of
charitable endowments--a marked contrast to the modern method of
voluntary associations or rate-supported institutions.
(1) _The Church as Legatee._--The church building among the Teutonic
races was not held by the bishop as part of what was originally the
charitable property of the church. It was assigned to the patron saint
of the church by the donor, who retained the right of administration,
of which his own patronage or right of presentation is a relic.
Subsequently, with the study of Roman law, the conception of the
church as a _persona ficta_ prevailed; and till the larger growth of
the gilds and corporations it was the only general legatee for
charitable gifts. As these arise a large number of charitable trusts
are created and held by lay corporations; and "alms" include gifts for
social as well as religious or eleemosynary purposes. (2) _Freedom
from Taxation and Service._--Gifts to the church for charitable or
other purposes were made in free, pure and perpetual alms ("_ad
tenendum in puram et perpetuam eleemosynam sine omni temporali
servicio et consuetudine_"). Land held under this _frankalmoigne_ was
given "in perpetual alms," therefore the donor could not retract it;
in free alms, therefore he could exact no services in regard to it;
and in pure alms as being free from secular jurisdiction (cf. Pollock
and Maitland). (3) _Alienation and Mortmain._--To prevent alienation
of property to religious houses, with the consequent loss of service
to the superior or chief lords, a licence from the chief lord was
required to legalize the alienation (Magna Carta, and Edw. I., _De
viris religiosis_). Other statutes (Edw. I. and Rich. II.) enacted
that this licence should be issued out of chancery after
investigation; and the principle was applied to civil corporations.
The necessity of this licence was one lay check on injurious
alienation. (4) _Irresponsible Administration._--Until after the 13th
century, when the lay courts had asserted their right to settle
disputes as to lands held in alms, the administration of charity was
from the lay point of view entirely irresponsible. It was outside the
secular jurisdiction; and civilly the professed clergy, who were the
administrators, were "dead." They could not sue or be sued except
through their sovereign--their chief, the abbot. They formed a large
body of non-civic inhabitants free from the pressure and the
responsibilities of civil life. (5) _Control_.--Apart from the control
of the abbot, prior, master or other head, the bishop was visitor, or,
as we should say, inspector; and abuses might be remedied by the visit
of the bishop or his ordinary. The bishop's ordinary (2 Henry V. i. 1)
was the recognized visitor of all hospitals apart from the founder.
The founder and his family retained a right of intervention. Sometimes
thus an institution was reorganized, or even dissolved, the property
reverting to the founder (Dugdale, _Monasticon Anglicanum_, vi. 2.
715). (6) _Cy-pres._--Charities were, especially after Henry V.'s
reign, appropriated to other uses, either because their original
purpose failed or because some new object had become important. Thus,
for instance, a college or hospital for lepers (1363) is
re-established by the founder's family with a master and priest, _quod
nulli leprosi reperiebantur_; and a similar hospital founded in Henry
I.'s time near Oxford has decayed, and is given by Edward III. to
Oriel College, Oxford, to maintain a chaplain and poor brethren. Thus,
apart from alienation pure and simple, the principle of adaptation to
new uses was put in force at an early date, and supplied many
precedents to Wolsey, Edward VI. and the post-Reformation bishops. The
system of endowments was indeed far more adaptable than it would at
first sight seem to have been. (7) _The Sources of Income._--The
hospitals were chiefly supported by rents or the produce of land; or,
if attached to monasteries, out of the tithe of their monastic lands
or other sources of revenue, or out of the appropriated tithes of the
secular clergy; or they might be in part maintained by collections
made, for instance, by a commissioner duly authorized by a formal
attested document, in which were recounted the indulgences by popes,
archbishops and bishops to those who became its benefactors (Cobbe, p.
75); or, in the case of leper hospitals, by a leper with a "clapdish,"
who begged in the markets; or by a proctor, in the case of more
important institutions in towns, who "came with his box one day in
every month to the churches and other religious houses, at times of
service, and there received the voluntary gifts of the congregation";
or they might receive inmates on payment, and thus apparently a
frequent abuse, decayed servants of the court and others, were "farmed
out." (8) _Mode of Admission._--The admission was usually, no doubt,
regulated by the prior or master. At York, at the hospital of St
Nicholas for the leprous, the conditions of admission were: promise or
vow of continence, participation in prayer, the abandonment of all
business, the inmate's property at death to go to the house. This may
serve as an example. The master was usually one of the regular clergy.
(9) _Decline of the Hospitals._--It is said that, in addition to 645
monasteries and 90 "colleges" and many chantries, Henry VIII.
suppressed 110 hospitals (Speed's _Chronicle_, p. 778). The numbers
seem small. In the economic decline at the end of the 15th and
beginning of the 16th centuries many hospitals may have lapsed.
Gild and municipal charities.
In the 15th century the towns grew in importance. First the wool trade
and then the cloth trade flourished, and the English developed a large
shipping trade. The towns grew up like "little principalities"; and for
the advancement of trade, gilds, consisting alike of masters and
workmen, were formed, which endeavoured to regulate and then to
monopolize the market. By degrees the corporations of the towns were
worked in their interests, and the whole commercial system became
restrictive and inadaptable. Meanwhile the towns attracted newcomers;
freedom from feudal obligations was gained with comparative ease; and a
new _plebs_ was congregating, a population of inhabitants not qualified
as burghers or gild members, women, sons living with their fathers,
menial servants and apprentices. There was thus an increasing
restriction imposed on trade, coupled with a growing _plebs_. Naturally,
then, lay charities sprang up for members of gilds, and for burghers and
for the commonalty. Men left estates to their gilds to maintain decayed
members in hospitals, almshouses or otherwise, to educate their
children, portion their daughters, and to assist their widows. The
middle-class trader was thus in great measure insured against the risks
of life. The gilds were one sign of the new temper and wants of burghers
freed from feudalism. Another sign was a new standard of manners. Rules
and saws, Hesiodic in their tone, became popular--in regard, for
instance, to such a question as "how to enable a man to live on his
means, and to keep himself and those belonging to him." The boroughs
established other charities also, hospitals and almshouses for the
people, a movement which, like that of the gilds, began very early--in
Italy as early as the 9th century. They sometimes gave outdoor relief
also to registered poor (Green i. 41), and they had in large towns
courts of orphans presided over by the mayor and aldermen, thus taking
over a duty that previously had been one of conspicuous importance in
the church. As early as 1257 in Westphalian towns there was a
rough-and-ready system of Easter relief of the poor; and in Frankfort in
1437 there was a town council of almoners with a systematic programme of
relief (Ratzinger, p. 352). Thus at the close of the middle ages the
towns were gradually assuming what had been charitable functions of the
church.
Statutory wage control.
While a new freedom was being attained by the labourer in the country
and the burgher in the town, the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient
supply of labour for agriculture must have been constant, especially at
every visitation of plague and famine. In accordance with a general
policy of state regulation which was to control and supervise industry,
agriculture and poor relief and to repress vagrancy by gaols and houses
of correction, the state stepped in as arbiter and organizer. By
Statutes of Labourers beginning in 1351 (25 Edw. III. 135), it aimed at
enforcing a settled wage and restraining migration. From 1351 it
endeavoured to suppress mendicity, and in part to systematize it in the
interest of infirm and aged mendicants. Each series of enactments is the
natural complement of the other. In the main their signification, from
the point of view of charity, lies in the fact that they represent a
persistent endeavour to prevent social unsettlement and in part the
distress which unsettlement causes, and which vagrancy in some measure
indicates, by keeping the people within the ranks of recognized
dependence, the settled industry of the crafts and of agriculture, or
forcing them back into it by fear of the gaol or the stocks. The extreme
point of this policy was reached when by the laws of Edward VI. and
Elizabeth the "rogue, vagabond or sturdy beggar" was branded with an R
on the shoulder and handed over as a bondman for a period to any one who
would take him. On the other hand, it was desired that relief should be
a means of preventing migration. In any time of general pressure there
is a desire to organize mendicity, to prevent the wandering of beggars,
to create a kind of settled poor, distinguished from the rest as infirm
and not able-bodied, and to keep these at least at home sufficiently
supported by local and parochial relief; and this, in its simpler form
all the world over, has in the past been by response to public begging.
The argument may be summed up thus: We cannot have begging, which
implies that the beggar is cared for by no one, belongs to no one, and
therefore throws himself on the world at large. Therefore, if he is
able-bodied he must be punished as unsocial, for it is his fault that he
belongs to no one; or we must make him some one's dependant, and so keep
him; or if he is infirm, and therefore of no service to any one--if no
one will keep him--we must organize his mendicity, for such mendicity is
justified. If he cannot dig for the man to whom he does or should
belong, he must beg. Then out of the failure to organize mendicity--for
relief of itself is no remedy, least of all casual relief--a poor-law
springs up, which, afterwards associated with the provision of
employment, will, it is hoped, make relief in some measure remedial by
increasing its quantity by means of compulsory levies. This argument,
which combined statutory wage control and statutory poor relief, seems
to have been firmly bedded in the English legislative mind for more than
two centuries, from 1351 till after 1600; and until 1834 these two
series of laws effectually reduced the English labourer to a new
industrial dependence. To people imbued with ideas of feudalism the way
of escape from villenage seemed to be not independence, but a new
reversion to it.
The decadence.
Many elements produced the social and economic catastrophe of the 16th
century, for the condition into which the country fell can hardly be
considered less than a catastrophe. With the growing independence of the
people there was created after the 13th century an unsettled
"masterless" class, a residue of failure resulting from social changes,
which was large and important enough to call for legislation. In the
15th century, "the golden age of the English labourer," the towns
increased and flourished. Both town and country did well. At the end of
the century came the decadence. The measure of the strain, when perhaps
it had reached its lowest level, is indicated by the following
comparison: "The cost of a peasant's family of four in the early part of
the 14th century was L3:4:9; after 1540 it was L8" (Rogers, _Hist, of
Agric. and Prices_, iv. 756).
The cause of this has now been fairly investigated. The value of land
in the 13th century generally depended chiefly on "the head of labour"
retained upon it. Its fertility depended on mainoeuvre (manure). To
keep labour upon it was therefore the aim of the lord or owner. The
enclosing of lands for sheep began early, and in the time of Edward
III., in the great days of the woolstaple, must have been extensive.
So long as the demand for the exportation of wool, and then for its
consumption at home in the cloth trade, continued, the towns
prospered, and the enclosures did not become a grievance. Even before
the reign of Henry VII., with the decay of trade, the towns decayed,
and their population in some cases diminished extraordinarily. This
reacted on the country, where the great families had already become
impoverished, and were hardly able to support their retainers. In
Henry VIII.'s time the lands of the religious houses were confiscated.
Worked on old lines, the custom of tillage remained in force on them.
Accordingly, when these estates fell into private hands they were
transferred subject to the condition that they should be tilled as
heretofore. The condition was evaded by the new owners, and the
disbandment of farm labourers went on apace. In England and Wales
these changes, it is said, affected a third of the country, more than
12,000,000 acres, if the estimates be correct, or rather a third of
the best land in the kingdom. With towns decaying, the effect of this
must have been terrible. What were really "latifundia" were created,
"great landes," "enclosures of a mile or two or thereabouts ...
destroying thereby not only the farms and cottages within the same
circuits, but also the towns and villages adjoining." A herdsman and
his wife took the place of eighteen to twenty-four farm hands. The
people thus set wandering could only join the wanderers from the
decaying towns. At the same time the economic difficulty was
aggravated by a new patrician or commercial greed; and once more the
land question--the absorption of property into a few hands instead of
its free exchange--led to lasting social demoralization. A few years
after the alienation of the monasteries the coinage (1543) was
debased. By this means prices were arbitrarily raised, and wages were
increased nominally; but nevertheless the price of necessaries was "so
enhanced" that neither "the poor labourers can live with their wages
that is limited by your grace's laws, nor the artificers can make,
much less sell, their wares at any reasonable price" (Lamond, _The
Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. xlvii). No social
reformation, such as the charitable instincts of Wycliffe, More,
Hales, Latimer and other men suggested, was attempted, or at least
persistently carried out. In towns the organization of labour had
become restrictive, exclusive and inadaptable, or, judged from the
moral standpoint, uncharitable. There had been a time of plenty and
extravagance, of which in high quarters the famous "field of the cloth
of gold" was typical; and probably, in accordance with the frequently
observed law of social economics, as the advance in wages and their
purchasing power in the earlier part of the 15th century had not been
accompanied by a simultaneous advance in self-discipline and
intelligent expenditure, it resulted in part in lessened competence
and industrial ability on the part of the workmen, and thus in the end
produced pauperism.
The poverty of the country was very great in the reigns of Edward VI.
and Elizabeth. Adversity then taught the people new manners, and
households became more simple and thrifty. In the reign of James I.,
with enforced economy and thrift, a "slow but substantial improvement in
agriculture" took place, and a new growth of commercial enterprise. The
vigour of the municipalities had abated, so that in Henry VIII.'s time
they had become the very humble servants of the government; and the
government, on the other hand, had become strongly centralized--in
itself a sign of the general withdrawal of self-sustaining activity in
all administration, in the administration of charitable relief no less
than in other departments. A system of endowed charities had been built
up, supported chiefly by rents from landed property. These now had
disappeared, and thus the means of relief, which Edward VI. and Queen
Elizabeth might have utilized at a time of general distress, had been
dissipated by the acts of their predecessors. The civil independence of
the monasteries and religious houses might have been justified,
possibly, when they were engaged in missionary work and were instilling
into the people the precepts of a higher moral law than that which was
in force around them. But afterwards, as the ability and intelligence of
the community increased, their privileges became more and more
antagonistic to charity, and tended to create a non-social and even
anti-social ecclesiastical democracy actuated by aims and interests in
which the general good of the people had little or no place. There was a
growing alienation between religious tradition and secular opinion, as
Lollardism slowly permeated the thought of the people and led the way to
the Reformation. While this alienation existed no national system of
charity, civic and yet religious, could be created. But worse than all,
the ideal of charity had been degraded. A self-regarding system of
relief had superseded charity, and it was productive of nothing but
alms, large or small, isolated and unmethodic, given with a wrong bias,
and thus almost inevitably with evil results. Out of this could spring
no vigorous co-operative charity. Charity--not relief--indeed seemed to
have left the world. The larger issues were overlooked. Then the
property of the hospitals and the gilds was wantonly confiscated, though
the poor had already lost that share in the revenues of the church to
which at one time they were admitted to have a just claim. A new
beginning had to be made. The obligations of charity had to be revived.
A new organization of charitable relief had to be created, and that with
an empty exchequer and after a vast waste of charitable resources. There
were signs of a new congregational and parochial energy, yet the task
could not be entrusted to the religious bodies, divided and disunited as
they were. In their stead it could be imposed only on some authority
which represented the general community, such as municipalities; and in
spite of the centralization of the government there seemed some hope of
creating a system of relief in connexion with them. They were tried,
and, very naturally, failed. In the poverty of the time it seemed that
the poor could be relieved only by a compulsory rate, and the
administration of statutory relief naturally devolved on the central
government--the only vigorous administrative body left in the country.
The government might indeed have adopted the alternative of letting the
industrial difficulties of the country work themselves out, but they had
inherited a policy of minute legislative control, and they continued it.
Revising previous statutes, they enacted the Poor Law, which still
remains on the statute book. It could be no remedy for social offences
against charity and the community. But in part at least it was
successful. It helped to conceal the failure to find a remedy.