5 - The recipients of relief

Summary

PARISH POOR AND HOSPITAL PATIENTS

No matter how diligently one searches, discussions about poor relief in sixteenth-century Europe are limited by the documentation available. The bulk of the extant records have to do with the finances of charitable institutions or with the individual who was wealthy enough to make a last will and testament, while the recipients of poor relief remain colourless and vaguely defined individuals in among the mass of humanity known as the poor.

The usual recourse for anyone in search of generalizations about the more humble estates of society is a quotation from literary sources, but utilization of contemporary opinions is hazardous. Should one quote from Domingo de Soto:

And who doubts but that in solemn holy days, especially during Holy Week, that the sight and clamour of the poor melt hearts to feel the passion of Christ;

(Deliberatión, p. 122)

or from Juan de Robles:

How much better Holy Week seems now that the services are celebrated in quiet and silence instead of the noise previously made by those persons who neither looked at the service nor considered the mysteries of Holy Week, but only how they could pull money out of the persons from whom they begged;

(De la orden, p. 268)

or from Saint Teresa of Jesus:

I think I have much more compassion for the poor than I used to have.… They cause me no repulsion, even when I mix with them and touch them, and this, I now see, is a gift of God, for, though I used to give alms for the love of Him, I had no natural compassion.