ABSTRACT
Until the 1970s most studies on health care provision and poor relief in Counter-Reformation Europe were locked between the apologias of Catholic-minded historians and the accusations of ‘Whig’, ‘Weberian’ and, in general, Protestant-minded ones. The former used to praise the charitable works for social welfare provision promoted by the complex institutional network making up the Roman Catholic Church, on the assumption that for any Catholic country poor relief and social assistance were synonymous with Christian charity unless that country stopped being Catholic. On the contrary, the latter claimed that poor relief in Catholic countries was-I quote Linda Martz’s words-‘disorganized and haphazard, controlled by an overindulgent church that sought to preserve a class of paupers so the rich would have ample opportunity to exercise their charitable obligations’, in contrast to a supposed ‘new form of rational, discriminating relief, directed by secular authorities’ provided by Protestantism.1
