The present volume continues a history of European welfare traditions, arguing for
a long-term continuity of core values that came into sharp focus at the beginning of
the sixteenth century. Around 1500, a communal dialogue among lawyers,
merchants, Renaissance humanists, and religious reformers articulated a program to
reform how relief was provided to those in need. Measures were designed to assess
need empirically, to consolidate charitable contributions and to distribute from a
common chest according to assessed need. The humanist contribution to this effort
found expression in what might be called an “Erasmian conscience,” as articulated
in the work of Juan Luis Vives, a close associate of Erasmus and Thomas More.
While the call to serve all those in need “without hint of unworthiness” stemmed
from a scholarly synthesis of Christian and Classical texts, it appealed to an optimistic
view of the potential of the law to sustain civic community and a belief in the
importance and dignity of labor.