Almsgiving in the Middle Ages

Paper Summary:

This paper relates that monastic almsgiving during the Middle Ages played a key role in alleviating the effects of poverty in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The paper then explores how the practice of monastic almsgiving changed during the Middle Ages, noting that monastic institutions always sought to relieve need in the middle ages, but the extent to which they absolutely and relatively provided aid to the poor varied as the Middle Ages progressed. More specifcally, the paper relates that almsgiving moved away from unqualified handouts, in the effort to relieve the worst excesses of need, to more limited alms.

From the Paper:

"Famine was a persistent problem for a majority of the medieval peasant population. It contributed massively to poverty in the middle ages, as those peasants who suffered from famine had few provisions to survive, especially if famine occurred in concurrent years. Here we see exceptional charity provided by the clergy and monasteries in times of desperate need during recurrent famine of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For instance the Bishop of Norwich, in 1258, had during a famine given 'all his money, for the benefit of the poor."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cohen, M., Introduction: Poverty and Charity in Past Times, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 35, 2005.
• Dyer, C., Standards of living in the later Middle Ages: social change in England, c. 1200-1520, Cambridge, CUP, 1989.
• Harvey, B., Living and dying in England 1100-1540: the monastic experience, Oxford, OUP, 1993.
• Mollat, M., The poor in the Middle Ages: an essay in social history, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986.
• Miller, E., Medieval England: rural society and economic change, 1086-1348, London, Longman, 1978.

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