Social Welfare in Pre-Industrial England

Paul A. Fideler crosses period boundaries to establish the five-centuries-long symbiosis between the pre-industrial market economy and parish-centered social welfare institutionalized in the Elizabethan Poor Law. Utilizing recent work in economic social demographic political medical and welfare history and attending to developments in religion ethics and political thought he highlights the unique assumptions perceptions and repertoire of relief initiatives that sustained the Elizabethan social welfare tradition until its demise in the early decades of industrialization.