Gerhard Sauter, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Susan E. Schreiner, University of Chicago
John Van Engen, University of Notre Dame
Robert L. Wilken, University of Virginia
AUGUSTINE, THE TRINITY, AND THE CHURCH
A Reading of the Anti-Donatist Sermons
Adam Ployd
AUGUSTINE’S EARLY THEOLOGY OF IMAGE
A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology
Gerald Boersma
PATRON SAINT AND PROPHET
Jan Hus in the Bohemian and German Reformations
Phillip N. Haberkern
JOHN OWEN AND ENGLISH PURITANISM
Experiences of Defeat
Crawford Gribben
MORALITY AFTER CALVIN
Theodore Beza’s Christian Censor and Reformed Ethics
Kirk M. Summers
THE PAPACY AND THE ORTHODOX
A History of Reception and Rejection
Edward Siecienski
DEBATING PERSEVERANCE
The Augustinian Heritage in Post-Reformation England
Jay T. Collier
THE REFORMATION OF PROPHECY
Early Modern Interpretations of the Prophet & Old Testament Prophecy
G. Sujin Pak
ANTOINE DE CHANDIEU
The Silver Horn of Geneva’s Reformed Triumvirate
Theodore G. Van Raalte
ORTHODOX RADICALS
Baptist Identity in the English Revolution
Matthew C. Bingham
DIVINE PERFECTION AND HUMAN POTENTIALITY
The Trinitarian Anthropology of Hilary of Poitiers
Jarred A. Mercer
THE GERMAN AWAKENING
Protestant Renewal after the Enlightenment, 1815–1848
Andrew Kloes
THE REGENSBURG ARTICLE 5 ON JUSTIFICATION
Inconsistent Patchwork or Substance of True Doctrine?
Anthony N. S. Lane
AUGUSTINE ON THE WILL A Theological Account
Han-luen Kantzer Komline
THE SYNOD OF PISTORIA AND VATICAN II
Jansenism and the Struggle for Catholic Reform
Shaun Blanchard
CATHOLICITY AND THE COVENANT OF WORKS
James Ussher and the Reformed Tradition
Harrison Perkins
THE COVENANT OF WORKS
The Origins, Development, and Reception of the Doctrine
J. V. Fesko
ECONOMICS OF FAITH
Reforming Poor Relief in Early Modern Europe
Esther Chung-Kim
Economics of Faith
Reforming Poor Relief in Early Modern Europe
ESTHER CHUNG- KIM
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Chung-Kim, Esther, 1973– author.
Title: Economics of faith : reforming poor relief in early modern Europe / Esther Chung-Kim, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Claremont McKenna College.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2021] | Series: Oxford studies in historical theology series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020048500 (print) | LCCN 2020048501 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197537732 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197537756 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Church work with the poor—Europe—History—16th century. Classification: LCC BV 639. P6 C487 2021 (print) | LCC BV 639. P6 (ebook) | DDC 362.5/809409031—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048500 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048501
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
To
my sons, Nathan and Eli
1. Wittenberg Reformers: Critique as
2. Johannes Bugenhagen: Diplomat of Poor Relief
3. Heinrich Bullinger: Preacher for Poverty Prevention
4. Migration and Religious Refugees: Poor Relief in Crisis
5. John Calvin: Refugee Pastor and Promoter of the French
6. Swiss Brethren and Dutch Mennonites: Networks of
7.
Figures
I.1 Charity, engraving by Philip Gale after Pieter Bruegel, 1559, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 2
I.2 Juan Luis Vives, painting by anonymous, 17th century, Museo Nacional del Prado 5
1.1 Wittenberg from the Elbe, drawing in travel album of Count Palatine Otto Heinrich, 1536, University of Würzburg Library 32
1.2 Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560), Martin Luther (1483–1546), and Johann Bugenhagen (1485–1558), Called Dr. Pommer, painting after Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553), Sackville Collection at Knole, Kent 34
1.3 Sermon on Usury, Martin Luther, 1520, woodcut, Richard C. Kessler Reformation Collection, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University 39
2.1 Bugenhagen Epitaph in St. Mary’s Church, Wittenberg, painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger, 1560, digital image from Corpus Cranach, Cranach Research Institute, Heidelberg 54
3.1 Cross of Stadelhofen in 1523, 1605, Zentralbibliothek Zurich 85
3.2 Heinrich Bullinger, 1550, Zentralbibliothek Zurich 89
3.3 Grossmünster, 2019, Zurich 94
3.4 Harsh Winter 1571–1572, drawing in Wickiana, Zentralbibliothek Zurich 105
4.1 Flight of the Huguenots from France, copper engraving by Jan Luyken, 1696, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 113
4.2 View from the Island of Nesserland to Emden, painting by Ludolf Backhuysen, 1698, Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman Foundation 115
4.3 Little Ship of Christ in Emden’s Main Church Archway, Johannes a Lasco Library, Emden 116
5.1 John Calvin Presiding over the Company of Pastors of Geneva in 1549, original painting by Pierre-Antoine Labouchère, ca. 1852, Shipley Art Gallery, digital image from Alamy 147
6.1 Melchior Hoffmann, portrait by Christoffel van Sichem, around 1600, National Graphics Collection, Munich 163
6.2 Anabaptists in Central Europe 1550, reprinted by permission, Herald Press 176
6.3 Dirk Willems Saves His Pursuer, 1569, reprinted from Thieleman van Braght, Martyrs Mirror, 1660 178
7.1 Hutterite Bruderhofs in Moravia, Slovakia, and Transylvania, Mennonite Church USA Archives 189
7.2 Hutterite Family in Erhard’s 1588 Historia, Mennonite Church USA Archives 203
Acknowledgments
This topic captured my interest because it started as a fierce debate that triggered a concerted scholarly effort to understand the interplay between religious change and poor relief reform because there was no easy way to generalize on the relationship between the Reformation and poor relief and the data refused to fit neatly in deductive paradigms. My interest is also personal since a short drive transports me from a comfortable middle-class college town to the poverty-stricken homelessness visible on the streets of the adjacent city. On one of these drives, my kids asked me, “Why are there so many poor and homeless?” This question has persisted for as centuries even though people have worked to tackle the problem of poverty. Like many before me, the search for greater understanding has led me to this point. I am thankful for the advice, guidance, and support that came from a network of people who made this research project possible.
One of the delights of being part of an international scholarly community is that I am surrounded by capable colleagues whose research I have been able to build upon. Initial feedback from multiple colleagues helped clarify many of the ideas presented in this book. I sincerely appreciate the conversations with Timothy Fehler, Barbara Pitkin, Amy Nelson Burnett, Karin Maag, Peter Opitz, Sujin Pak, David Fink, David Whitford, and John D. Roth. I hope this book will enrich the overall study of the Reformation by adding to the multifaceted perspectives in early modern scholarship. With heartfelt fondness, I remember my advisor David Steinmetz who in the months before his passing encouraged me to write this book, and I appreciate Virginia Steinmetz who sent me references to poor relief as she came across them.
I am grateful for the warm welcome to work in the special collections of multiple libraries, including Honnold Library, Luther Seminary Library, Pitts Theological Library at Emory University, Zentralbibliotheck in Zurich, and the Mennonite Historical Library. Special thanks to the Louisville Institute for the Sabbatical Grant for Researchers, which provided me with an additional semester of sabbatical to finish the last chapters of this book.
Since writing this book took longer than initially anticipated, I appreciate my writing buddies Nancy Yuen and Jane Hong, who are professors outside my field but kept me accountable in the daily writing process.
At my own institution, Claremont McKenna College, the Dean’s Faculty Research Grant and The Gould Center for Humanistic Studies Faculty Research Grant supplied research funds to complete multiple stages of this book. I appreciate my colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies as I have talked about this project on and off for quite some time, and I am also grateful for the colleague-friends who gathered at our college writing retreats. We accomplished a lot together. Special thanks to my research assistant Christiane Miesner for help with Swiss German translations, as well as my undergraduate assistants Brandon Piel, Daniel Kim, and Furaha Njoroge for help with finding images.
I appreciate the efforts of those who assisted in this book’s publication, including the anonymous reviewers, Richard Muller, the series editor, and Cynthia Read, Drew Anderla and Isabelle Prince at Oxford University Press.
Finally, I am thankful for my parents and in-laws who took turns holding down the fort while I traveled to research libraries. I am grateful to my husband, Steven, whose consistent support and technological expertise resolved many glitches along the way. In the years of writing this book, both of my boys turned into teenagers. I dedicate this book to them, Nathan and Eli, who would periodically ask, “How is your book going?” I am grateful for their humor, patience, and support.
Abbreviations
AEG Archiv d’État de Genève
BBr Dr. Johannes Bugenhagens Briefwechsel. Edited by Otto Vogt Stettin, Leon Saunier, 1888.
BSW Johannes Bugenhagen: Selected Writings. 2 vols. Edited by Kurt H. Hendel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015.
CCSL Augustine. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 32. Edited by K. D. Daur and J. Martin. Turnout: Brépols, 1962.
Chronicle The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren. Translated and edited by the Hutterian Brethren Rifton. New York: Plough House, 1987. Based on A. J. F. [Andreas Johannes Friedrich] Zieglschmid. Die älteste Chronik der Huterrischen Brüder: Ein Sprachdenkmal aus frühneuhochdeutscher Zeit. Ithaca, NY: Cayuga Press, 1943.
CNTC Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries. 12 vols. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1959–1972.
CO John Calvin. Ioannis Calvini Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia. 59 vols. Corpus Reformatorum. Vols. 29–88. Edited by G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss. Brunsvigae: C. A. Schwetschke, 1863–1900.
CTS Calvin Translation Society edition of Selected Works of John Calvin. Tracts and Letters. 7 vols. Edited by H. Beveridge. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1983.
Decades The Decades of Henry Bullinger. Vols. 7–10. Edited by Thomas Harding, the Parker Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1851.
HBBW Heinrich Bullinger Briefwechsel. 19 vols. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1974–.
HBD Heinrich Bullinger Diarium (Annales vitae) der Jahre 1504–1574. Edited by Emil Egli. Zurich: Theologische Buchhandlung, 1985.
HBS Heinrich Bullinger Schriften. 7 vols. Edited by Emidio Campi, Detlef Roth, and Peter Stotz. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zurich, 2004–2007. In Acta Heinrich Bullinger. In Acta Apostolorum Heinrychi Bullingeri commentariorum liber VI. Tiguri: Christopher Froschauer, 1533. [Reprinted eight times until 1584.]
Institutes John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. 2 vols. Edited by John T. McNeill and F. L. Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960.
LW Martin Luther. Luther’s Works [American edition]. 55 vols. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehmann. St. Louis: Fortress, 1955–1986.
NRSV New Revised Standard Version.
Abbreviations
RC Registres du Conseil de Genève à L’Époque de Calvin. 7 vols. Edited by Sandra Coram-Mekkey, Paule Hochuli Dubuis, et al. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2003–2018.
RCP Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève. 13 vols. Edited by Jean-François Bergier, Robert Kingdon, et al. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1962–2001.
R. Consist. Registres du Consistoire de Genève au Temps de Calvin. 14 vols. Edited by Thomas Lambert, Isabella Watt, and Jeffrey Watt. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1996–2020.
SC Supplementa Calviniana Sermon inédits. 11 vols. Vol. 8 Sermons of the Acts of the Apostles. Edited by Willem Balke and Wilhelmus Moehn. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1994.
StAZ Staatarchiv Zürich, Archiv des Kanton Zurich
TEC The Essential Carlstadt: Fifteen Tracts. Edited and translated by Edward J. Furcha. Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 1995.
WA Martin Luther. D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 72 vols. Weimar: H. Böhlau, 1883–2007.
WABr D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Briefwechsel. 18 vols. Weimer: H. Böhlau, 1930–1985.
ZBZ Zentralbibliothek Zurich, University of Zurich
Introduction
Religious Foundations of Reform
“Nobody ought to go begging among Christians,” wrote Martin Luther in the first of his three tracts in 1520. “There should be no beggars among Christians,” asserted Andreas Karlstadt in his January 1522 tract.1 In these quotes, two of the earliest Wittenberg reformers set a new standard for poor relief. A Christian society could not neglect taking care of the poor, but it was a tall order in an era of plagues, harsh winters, crop failures, and economic downturns. Religious leaders, in their multiple roles as preachers, policymakers, advocates, and community leaders, sought to help create another layer of support for the vulnerable because poverty was a problem too big for any one group to tackle.
This study examines the role of religious leaders in the development of poor relief reforms during the Reformation to provide a greater understanding of how religious ideals and rationales fueled the reformations of church and society. The emphasis on the approaches of the Protestant reformers is to represent the variations of religious influence and to contextualize the simultaneous reform of religion and poverty that emerged in continental Europe. Religious leaders imagined that like a family whose members take responsibility and care for one another, a community united by economic, political, social, and religious bonds should also seek to care for its members. Yet poor relief in early modern Europe was an immensely complicated topic. The most significant challenges to poor relief were shifting religious ideals of poverty, procuring continuous sources of funding, reducing begging, defining the boundaries of community, and meeting overwhelming needs.
1 Luther, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate 1520, LW 44:189; Karlstadt, On the Removal of Images and That There Should Be No Beggars among Christians (Von Abtuhung der Bilder und Das Keyn Bedtler unther den Christen seyn sollen), TEC 100–28.
Traditional Catholic charity models focused on person-to-person charity or the handout of alms to needy beggars as the common method of giving. Almsgiving was an integral way to express religious devotion and piety by loving God through loving one’s neighbor, and seeking peace and order in the city.2 In Catholic practice, the sacramental character of the poor themselves meant that the beggars served as a point of access to the kingdom of God where one met Christ in the act of mercy and therefore almsgiving had a special spiritual purpose.3 Representing one of the seven virtues, Figure I.1 depicts Lady Charity holding a sacred heart in the midst of the distribution of alms, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving water to the thirsty, visiting the prisoners and the sick, burying the dead, and sheltering the homeless.
A number of canonical decretals and writings of the church fathers stated that the poor were the true and legal owners of the church property and were
2 Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice, 631–32.
3 Anderson, Charity, 3, 6.
Figure I.1 Charity, engraving by Philip Gale after Pieter Bruegel, 1559, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
entitled to assistance and support. To withhold assistance would have been sinful; the poor were entitled to the excess wealth of the rich.4 In the medieval understanding, the virtue of giving alms, as well as asking for them, encouraged giving as a good work that would be deemed meritorious. Meanwhile, mendicant monks who had depended on alms for a living “sanctified” mendicancy and the begging practice expanded into other cities.5 As the number of poor beggars increased, especially in the urban areas, civic rulers attempted to centralize scattered resources and regulate the city’s poor relief. Beggars who were strangers or outsiders were no longer allowed to beg unless they had special permission since priority for poor relief went to local citizens and residents. For example, poor orders in southern German cities described the limitation or prohibition on begging as a means to prevent fraudulent paupers from benefiting from the citizens’ largesse. These cities implemented rigorous measures against foreigners who lingered without permission.6
In the context of sixteenth-century France, Natalie Davis described two concepts of giving. The vertical concept of giving linked human charity to divine providence with the pervasive biblical notion that all good things come from God, while the horizontal giving was a form of reciprocal relationships based on the social needs of a community.7 Just as one received from God and neighbor, one ought to give to God and neighbor. The ongoing challenge for defining social relationships was to figure out how to address human need without the prerequisite expectation of return. Broadly understood, any human need was a type of poverty, and any form of alleviation of such poverty was considered a gift.8 Nobility often communicated the ideals for giving and receiving through their support of parish religion and care for the poor, such as rural lords in France who donated funds to furnish buildings and places of worship.9
Meanwhile, wars and conflicts over religion caused disruptions in the social fabric and contributed to rethinking social welfare and communal identity. The gap between the nobles and the peasants was widening due to the increasing taxes and fewer rights to land, forest, and fishing areas for the
4 Tierney, Medieval Poor Law, 38.
5 Ruccius, John Bugenhagen Pomeranus, 117.
6 Lorentzen, Johannes Bugenhagen als Reformator der öffentlichen Fürsorge, 171.
7 Davis, The Gift, 13.
8 Davis, The Gift, 13.
9 Tingle, “Rural Seigneurs and the Counter Reformation,” 61.
peasants. Empowered in part by Martin Luther’s 1520 treatise On the Freedom of a Christian, peasants formulated their demands in a pamphlet called the Twelve Articles of the Peasantry in Swabia. These included lowering taxes and the freedom to elect their own parish priests. When the landlords and upper nobility refused them, they joined forces with artisans, merchants, lower nobility, and radical religious reformers in village uprisings. From 1524–1525, the German Peasants’ War devastated rural areas in Tyrol and Swiss lands, from Alsace and Swabia to Franconia and Thuringia. The princes’ retaliation was swift and unforgiving, and by the end of the great revolt, roughly 100,000 peasants were killed.
Political leaders and religious reformers often shared the goal of providing effective poor relief to their community, but the balance of civic and ecclesiastical involvement in poor relief institutions varied by city. For example, certain cities, such as Leiden, preserved existing welfare systems as city magistrates took complete control over them. Meanwhile other cities, such as Haarlem and Amsterdam, permitted church-run welfare systems administered by deacons alongside the civic system, and some other cities, such as Dordrecht and Groningen, placed poor relief entirely under the supervision of the church’s deacons.10 Emerging new beliefs and practices created a momentum to reconsider and often introduce a range of reforms in parts of the German, Swiss, Dutch, Scandinavian, English, French, and Eastern European regions. As Protestant reformers supported the efforts of civic magistrates striving to centralize, rationalize, and secularize welfare in their cities, they relegated the Catholic rationale for almsgiving by emphasizing a new religious rationale for communal responsibility.
As large numbers in the Low Countries migrated from the depressed countryside to the city and a greater proportion of the population depended on charity, the haphazard system of almsgiving and relief along with various hospices proved to be inadequate.11 Luther and other Protestants had already criticized the practices of the Catholic Church that increased the financial burden on the people. They castigated mendicant orders whose vows of poverty made them dependent on begging. In 1520, Luther called for the German nobility to reform church and society, specifically urging cities to take responsibility for caring for their own poor and to get rid of the
free-for-all begging that “hurts the common people.”12 Soon afterward, between 1522 and 1524, several German cities started reforming their systems of poor relief and outlawing begging in the streets. The central debate over charity and poor relief was the conflict over a system that relied primarily on voluntarism or government intervention.13 When Catholic humanist Juan Luis Vives, depicted in Figure I.2, published his On the Support of the Poor (De Subventione Pauperum) in 1526, he supported the government’s responsibility for organizing welfare, but the mechanism for funding was mostly voluntary without a theological rationale that would sustain reliable funding for continuous poor relief.14 In his 1526 treatise, Vives described the hospital
12 Luther, To the Christian Nobility, LW 44:115–217; WA 6:404–69.
13 Spicker, The Origins of Modern Welfare, xviii.
14 Spicker, Origins of Modern Welfare, xxiii; Lindberg, Beyond Charity, 81.
Figure I.2 Juan Luis Vives, painting by anonymous, 17th century, Museo Nacional del Prado
as a Latin rendition of the Greek word ptochotrophia, referring to the place that took care of beggars and the needy rather than the sick. Such hospitals for poor beggars had been in existence in many parts of Europe, but Vives held that these institutions must be subject to the surveillance of the city.15
While Vives wrote this treatise for the specific context of Bruges, his proposals to create an organized system for poor relief challenged the status quo because he believed that the existing method of poor relief was outdated. While some city leaders had initiated measures to ease taxes, designate public lands for cultivation, and distribute surplus funds to those in need, Vives asserted that these measures required specific conditions that appeared only rarely; therefore, more enduring solutions should be sought.16 Vives envisioned humans as interdependent members of society because of a common religious identity and a shared social life that relied on solidarity, reciprocity, exchange, and mutual support.17 Based on this vision of solidarity and altruism, he supported voluntary charity among a “common humanity” but did not go so far to advocate redistribution of goods by the government.18 Tensions over the reform of poor relief intensified when the calls for reform included the dissolution of existing Catholic institutions of charity. Hence, Vives’s treatise was suspected of being heretical and Lutheran.19
The call for reform was not unusual since various Catholic reformers had clamored for some changes. But what made these proposals sound Lutheran was the suggestion that city magistrates could be the primary administrators for poor relief and the emphasis that the poor should work to receive alms. In chapter 1 of his proposals, Vives outlined the obligation of city administrators toward the poor by arguing that a wise government would work for the common good by not leaving a part of the citizenry in a condition of uselessness, which would be harmful to themselves and to others. 20 Concerning the poor earning their aid, Vives grounded his view in the creation account of Genesis 3 in which “the Lord imposed on the human race as a punishment for the many sins that each should eat the bread which is the fruit of his labor.” 21 Vives defined the fruit of labor as anything related to the sustenance of the body, including food, clothing, shelter, and fuel since “none among the poor should be
15 Fantazzi, “Vives and the Emarginati,” 101.
16 Vives, De Subventione Pauperum, 37.
17 Spicker, Origins of Modern Welfare, xx.
18 Spicker, Origins of Modern Welfare, xxiii.
19 Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 17.
20 Vives, De Subventione Pauperum, 36.
21 Vives, De Subventione Pauperum, 39.
idle as long as he is by age and health able to work, for even the poor who live at home should receive work from the public officials, hospitals or private citizens.” 22 Other Catholic thinkers varied in their response to Vives’s treatise. As Fantazzi notes, Gabriel de Toro in his brief 1534 treatise, Tratado de la misericordia divina y humana , defended the practice of begging, while Domingo de Soto in his In causa pauperum deliberatio distinguished between deserving or “legitimate beggars and illegitimate vagabonds, but not between native and foreign beggars,” since this distinction went against Christian principles. 23 While De Soto did not trust the city officials to discern the various needs of the poor and believed in doing works of mercy regardless of the merits of the recipient, Juan de Robles, sympathetic to Vives’s position, published his treatise defending the duty of work to improve the condition of the poor and prioritized the public good over individual liberties; yet both De Soto and Robles clearly opposed the secularization of the care of the poor as implied in Vives’s proposals. 24
Reforming poor relief in Protestant regions often included the confiscation of monasteries, convents, and other formerly Catholic property, as well as the prohibition of begging. Even imperial cities engaging in a cautious reformation still desired to take over church property for the welfare of the common good, namely, to transfer a monastery’s goods, income, and rents to their poor hospital.25 In Lutheran cities, the mandates of the city councils revealed a shift from the “reactive medieval begging edicts that had negatively regulated begging” to the “active poor relief edicts that formulated a positive responsibility of the emerging secular authorities to care for the poor.”26 Those who defended the civic model of community still wanted to ensure that impoverished citizens could rely on regular assistance and that the “house poor,” who lived in their homes but needed regular assistance, were differentiated from the growing numbers of wandering beggars. Meanwhile, minority groups, such as religious refugees, created a network of individuals and families whose entitlements were based more on confession and moral behavior than on residential status.27
22 Vives, De Subventione Pauperum, 42.
23 Fantazzi, “Vives and the Emarginati,” 107.
24 Fantazzi, “Vives and the Emarginati,” 107–108.
25 Close, The Negotiated Reformation, 11.
26 Kahl, “The Religious Roots of Modern Poverty Policy,” 97.
27 De Swaan, In Care of the State, 106.
I. Religious Reform Incorporates Poor Relief
The Reformation in the sixteenth century contributed to shifts in politics and religion as well as in social relationships.28 Population growth and rising grain prices progressively impoverished the laboring classes. Religious warfare, migration, disease, and recurrent harvest failures worsened their plight. Because socioeconomic crises acted as the impetus for political authorities to implement new policies on poor relief, some scholars have assumed that religious reformers played a marginal role. Scholars have also claimed social reforms had no connection to the Protestant movement because poor relief systems were found in Catholic regions,29 while other scholars have documented the significant impact of Protestant initiatives on social welfare reform.30 This book argues that the collective efforts toward religious reform stimulated a reimagining of the Christian community that affected social welfare reform during a time of centralization of scattered charities into a system of organized poor relief.
The Protestant shift that came with Lutheran doctrine was that Christ was the only mediator and God’s grace was a gift which the believer received by faith; therefore, one no longer accrued good works, including acts of charity, to gain greater merit, but rather good works emerged out of faith in God and love of neighbor. Likewise, a community of the faithful would take care of its poor, and there would no longer be the need for begging. This religious idea undercut the basis of mendicant orders, who begged for their sustenance. Indeed, Luther called for the abolition of begging in his 1520 Address to the German Nobility and called on cities to make a law that required every city to support its own poor.31 While medieval predecessors, as well as humanist intellectuals, addressed poverty, early Protestants envisioned a godly society without any poor beggars.32 Because religious leaders contributed to the development of poor relief organizations, religious ideals played a vital role in shaping many of those reforms.33
28 Vago, Social Change, 8–9.
29 Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe, 29.
30 Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, “The Reformation and Changes in Welfare Provision in Early Modern Northern Europe,” in Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe, 37.
31 Luther, To the Christian Nobility, LW 44:189.
32 Lindberg, “ ‘There Will Be No Poor Among You,’ ” 139–60.
33 Fehler, Poor Relief and Protestantism, 28. Fehler notes that “to identify the social and economic pressures as the primary catalysts is not to argue that religious motivations did not play a vital part in shaping the changes.” For example, the creation of the Reformed church office of deacons to handle most of Emden’s poor relief demonstrates that the city’s new ecclesiology provided a new shape to the administrators of the poor.
A. Problem of Poverty
In the context of religious diversity and increased migration, the continuous effort to define the boundaries of community appeared in various forms of inclusion and exclusion. According to Larry Frohman, the history of early modern poor relief in Germany can be seen as successive attempts to devise an administrative apparatus for effectively policing the distinctions between deserving and undeserving poor.34 In particular, Frohman writes that the inability to grasp poverty as inadequate wages intensified the marginalization of itinerant poor by “demonizing” them as culprits of their own misfortune.35 This treatment was especially common for those without a fixed home, and, at the time, there were many people traveling from place to place seeking alms. However, as Katherine Lynch has noted, government-sponsored policies toward the poorest of the poor and anti-begging policies designed to expel wandering beggars did not capture the whole story of local poor relief.36 Examining the treatment and policies toward poor citizens and inhabitants known within the community, she suggests there was a clear continuity of obligation to the residential poor within communities. In the organization of urban assistance to the house poor, Protestant reformers supported the growth of reinvigorated systems of assistance to the local poor to help shape a city’s civic and/or confessional commitments.37 Hence, the developments of poor relief indicated that the efforts toward centralization of poor relief systems contributed to the process of European community building.38
While some historians have seen religious reformers as the impetus for reforming poor relief, others have emphasized the continuity with earlier poor relief originating before the Reformation to portray such earlier poor relief reform as paving the way for later reforms. In reaction to a flood of earlier scholarship that touted the Reformation as the herald of the modern era, many historians have stressed the continuity between sixteenth-century reforms and medieval trends. For example, Philip Kintner’s work highlights the continuity in the poor relief systems of south German imperial cities by using examples of poor relief practices and begging policies from before and after the Reformation. In his study, Kintner builds on the work of other
34 Frohman, Poor Relief and Welfare in Germany, 17.
35 Frohman, Poor Relief and Welfare in Germany, 30.
36 Lynch, Individuals, Families and Communities, 104
37 Lynch, Individuals, Families and Communities, 123.
38 Lynch, Individuals, Families and Communities, 135.
scholars, such as Thomas Fischer, who examined records in Basel, Freiburg im Breisgau, and Strasbourg to show that begging ordinances and conciliar involvement in the distribution of alms originated generally in the latter half of the fifteenth century as a result of population displacement caused by a stagnating economy, therefore preceding the Reformation.39
Kaarlo Arffman’s study of church ordinances emphasizes the continuity of poor relief from the late medieval period but also finds that the effort to restructure poor relief forged the way for the evangelical (Protestant) Reformation to take root in select cities. City councils adopted church orders as the policy regulating all city churches and the reorganization of poor relief in several German towns before the official adoption of the Reformation. However, because many people who lived in these towns believed that accepting the Lutheran reform had precipitated the adoption of a common chest, as had occurred in Nuremberg, Arffman argues that the establishment of poor relief funds smoothed the way for the evangelical movement and enabled the “revolution in the church.”40 Even when poor relief reform preceded the Reformation, it was tied to the Reformation because Protestant church orders and leaders supported its development.
Hence continuities with earlier forms of poor relief did not mean that religious reformers had no impact on the development of poor relief institutions. Like many historical shifts, a convergence of past forces building momentum and new forces created opportunities for social change, resulting in modifications during the Reformation. As Timothy Fehler comments, the reforms of the sixteenth century from a historical perspective “marked a distinctly new approach to the previous methods of poor relief.”41 The definitions of continuity and change largely depended on perspective since lasting change usually required some connection to the past. What some view as incremental change could seem to others a significant shift, especially if contemporaries at the time expressed surprise, wonder, or recognition of changes in poor relief. Hence the notion of reform included traditions, as well as enough shifts and changes, that the widespread adoption of these reforms could be considered “new.”42 For example, the laicization of poor
39 Kintner, “Welfare, Reformation and Dearth at Memmingen,” 67–68.
40 Arffman, “The Lutheran Reform of Poor Relief,” 222. Years earlier, Paul Bonenfant had asserted that reform of poor relief in the Low Countries was a “curious and generally unconscious introduction of Lutheran principles into the legislation of Catholic cities and countries.” Bonenfant, “Les origines et le caractère de la Réforme de la bienfaisance publique aux Pays-Bas sous le règne de Charles-Quint,” 230.
41 Fehler, Poor Relief and Protestantism, 18.
42 Fehler, Poor Relief and Protestantism, 19.
relief extended the work of poor relief to a broader group of laypeople instead of primarily the clergy. As Brian Pullan explains, laicization meant “a fuller participation of the laity in religious life, and the breaking down of barriers.”43 Far from infusing a wholly secular mentality into organizations for the provision of the poor, laicization often served mainly as a means to draw more of the laity into practical efforts to build and maintain networks of community based on charitable religious ideals.44
To say that several innovative programs emerged during the Reformation does not negate historical precedents but recognizes that the Reformation helped shape the further development of poor relief, especially in relation to its rationale, organization, and recipients. Examining specific reformers in their contexts illuminates the reforms that were further developments or changes that emerged with the Reformation. Because the spark of a new idea must have a structure to succeed in practice, the broader acceptance of these new structures depended on some consensus around ideals and values considered desirable or normative. Religious reformers, such as teachers, preachers, and social leaders, helped nurture those shared ideals and values about how society should be structured and how to address the dilemma of poverty amid expanding needs and limited resources.
B. Significance of Religious Reformers
Understanding early modern social welfare reform requires knowing the concurrent religious values, goals, and motivations because disregarding the simultaneous religious reform misses a crucial motivating force in early modern social change. As Thomas Max Safley points out, “early modern charity retained its sacred character and religious signification” so that it makes little sense to discount religious motivations “no matter how secular the structure or function of the charity.”45 Likewise, Davis shows that biblical and religious motifs often shaped sensibilities, even when not explicitly religious, about poor relief and charity.46 For Grell and Cunningham, the significance of the Protestant Reformation, including the theological rationale provided by reformers, contributed to the speed and thoroughness of the
