Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Poor relief
(1,463 words)

1. Terminology

Poor relief (German Armenpflege), also called Christian charity (German Liebestätigkeit, Latin caritas; in recent German more often Armenfürsorge [care of the poor] and Wohltätigkeit [beneficence]), is a term that has established itself in scholarly literature on poverty since the work of Georg Ratzinger in the 1860s [1]. It covers the basic intellectual, material, structural, and personal issues with respect to treatment of the poor. Poo…

Cite this page
Bräuer, Helmut, “Poor relief”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 10 June 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_017063>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20210107



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