ABSTRACT
The recent work of Professor W. K. Jordan on charitable benefactions in the period between 1480 and 1660 has focused the attention of historians on this aspect of social history, and there is no doubt that his studies have made a significant contribution to the understanding of these years. In the medieval period, moreover, it is often impossible to separate pious gifts from charitable ones, because no such differentiation existed in the mind of the donor, and the carrying out of the division depended on the executors, of whose actions there is no record. Gifts to public works, particularly to the maintenance and repair of roads, were fairly common, and on occasion might represent a considerable part of a man’s total charities. All in all it would be true to say that the pious and charitable benefactions of late medieval London were similar in type to those of the Post-Reformation period.
