ABSTRACT
In an earlier study on treatment of the medieval poor, I expressed the view that, ‘although devout and compassionate people took steps to alleviate suffering, elimination of the state of poverty was not on the medieval agenda. From the study of wills and the foundation of charitable institutions, it is evident that the poor were structural to society’. 1 This is not a new idea. In his work that is in many ways the bedrock of studies on medieval poverty in Europe, Michel Mollat wrote:
Not until the Renaissance and Reformation, when contemporaries began to feel ashamed at the sight of people living in a state considered unworthy of human beings, did anyone dream of eradicating [poverty]. 2
