1st Edition

Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe 1500-1700

Edited By Andrew Cunningham, Ole Peter Grell Copyright 1997

    The problem of the poor grew in the early modern period as populations rose dramatically and created many extra pressures on the state. In Northern Europe, cities were going through a period of rapid growth and central and local administrations saw considerable expansion. This volume provides an outline of the developments in health care and poor relief in the economically important regions of Northern Europe in this period when urban poverty became a generally recognized problem for both magistracies and governments. With contributions from international scholars in the field, including Jonathan Israel, Paul Slack and Rosalind Mitchison, this volume draws on research into local conditions and maps general patterns of development.

    1 The Reformation and changes in welfare provision in early modern Northern Europe 2 The Protestant imperative of Christian care and neighbourly love 3 Dutch influence on urban planning, health care and poor relief: the North Sea and Baltic regions of Europe, 1567–1720 4 Continuity and change: attitudes towards poor relief and health care in early modern Antwerp 5 Health care provision and poor relief in early modern Hanseatic towns: Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck 6 Poor relief and health care provision in sixteenth-century Denmark 7 The wrath of God: Christian IV and poor relief in the wake of the Danish intervention in the Thirty Years’ War 8 Health care and poor relief in Sweden and Finland: c.1500–1700 9 Health care and poor relief in Danzig (Gdansk): the sixteenth- and first half of the seventeenth century 10 Poor relief and health care in Scotland, 1575–1710 11 Hospitals, workhouses and the relief of the poor in early modern London

    Biography

    Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell, both of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Cambridge.

    'This is a broad-ranging and detailed collection.' - Medical History

    'The book is a welcome addition to the history of early modern social welfare the scholarship of the articles is very high, and it is highly recommended ' - T. McHugh