Gifts and Favors: Informal Support in Early Modern England

Abstract

The shift from medieval to early modern society has been widely perceived in terms of the decline of informal support. Since Karl Marx and Max Weber, historical thinking about the transition to modern society has typically centered on the supposed decline of personal obligations and the emergence of more calculating, selfish norms. The Reformation, the rise of markets, the expansion of towns, the Poor Laws, and the growing powers of the State were invariably associated with this decline.1 Recent research on various aspects of informal support in early modern English society suggests that, at least for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this view is no longer sustainable. Research on philanthropy and charity has shown that English women and men (like their continental counterparts) from the sixteenth century onward continued to give, sometimes on a large scale, in bequests and voluntary contributions to institutions and sponsored a wide variety of schemes for the relief of the poor.2 Organized and institution-