Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe

An accessible and authoritative account of poverty and deviance during the early modern period.

Robert Jütte (Author)

9780521423229, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 31 March 1994

260 pages, 8 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.8 cm, 0.405 kg

"[JÜtte] has effectively shown how scholars focusing on poverty and deviance have 'modernized' their field of study by incorporating the perspectives of anthropology, linguistics, semiotics, and the new cultural history." | Steven G. Reinhardt, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

This study provides an accessible and authoritative account of poverty and deviance during the early modern period, informed by those perspectives on the role of the poor themselves in the provision of welfare services characteristic of much recent social history. Robert Jütte shows how the notions of poverty and social deviance that preoccupied much contemporary thought saw their ultimate fruition in the systematic programmes for social welfare that emerged during the nineteenth century. Contrary to the once-traditional historical emphasis on the ameliorative role of individual reformers, Professor Jütte's account looks much more closely at the poor themselves, and the complex network of social and communal relationships they inhabited. He examines the lives not only of poor relief recipients but of the vast number of destitute individuals who had to find other means to stay alive, and how these people shaped their own patterns of survival within given communities.

List of illustrations
List of tables
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Images of poverty
3. The causes of poverty
4. The extent of poverty
5. Standards of living among the poor
6. The poor helping themselves
7. The reorganization of poor relief
8. Forms of deviance
9. Strategies of marginalization
10. Reactions to marginalization
11. Conclusion
Appendices
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]