Juan Luis Vives and 16th-century poor relief

From 'poor tables' to the efficient morality of 'policing the poor'

Mar 25, 2025

Juan Luis Vives statue serenaded by a guitarist in Bruges (my 2017 photo)

Humanist philosophical clothing on policing the poor

I don’t imagine that the guitarist knew who he was serenading when I took this photo in 2017 of a statue to Juan Luis Vives in a corner of Bruges (Brugge – Belgium is bilingual in French and Flemish); this is where Vives died. Who he? ‘…[T]he theoretical foundation for all subsequent social work and social policy (Michielse, 1990, p. 2)’ according to a translated article about his famous book De subventione pauperum. Sidney and Beatrice Webb (1927), in their history of the English Poor Law claimed that it was a best-seller in its time, very influential.

Being ‘foundational’ is a big claim, but at least he was an important contributor to the history of our ideas. And in many ways as an important humanist thinker, his views on the education and psychology were as, or more, important than his work on poverty (Fantazzi, 2008).

You see from the inscription on the plinth that Vives lived from 1492 to 1540. Gonzalez (2008: p. 361), in a review of his influence, says that he

…enjoyed exceptional prestige, both in the Catholic world and among the reformed. His books circulated also in the Spanish and English colonies of America, and the Jesuits brought him with them as far as Goa in India. It may be said without fear of error that the Valencian was, after Erasmus, the most read humanist of the sixteenth century.

This celebrated status later declined, and Michielse was seeking to restore the importance of understanding his contributions to thinking about poverty.

Prior to his writings being published, a number of German and Dutch towns were developing systems of poor relief, and the poor relief administration of Ypres was particularly influential. Vives’s writings put philosophical clothing on the practical ‘ordinances’ of the Ypres and other administrations. In fact, when Ypres magistrates got into trouble for their policies, they had Vives’s book translated into Dutch to support their point of view.

Shifting from Christian charity to social salvation

The most significant change that Vives promoted, and represented in his arguments, is the shift from the medieval view which gave priority in poor relief to the spiritual salvation of charity donors. Around his time, attitudes moved towards focusing on the social salvation of recipients of relief instead. It became a ‘social administration’ rather than a range of opportunities for benevolence by Benedictine monks, local mensa Spiritus Sancti (tables of the Holy Ghost; ‘poor table’). All this was religiously motivated caritas, but charity in the name of God’s love gave irregular support, even if it left the poor free to decide how they used it. So more effective administration seemed to be needed.

Instead, secular administrations formed a ‘common Chest (p. 2)’ (aûmone général) for the locality, rather than a maze of Christian charities. Begging, an accepted practice of former ‘pauperes Christi’ because it allowed people to find easily charitable causes to help, developed instead a systematic and disciplined programme of education and improvement, a policing approach.

By 1500 in Vives’s childhood, urban poor relief in Europe had become a lay process, even though it had religious motivation. Most provision was in almshouses and hospitals for sick and aged people and ‘poor tables’. But there was still cooperation between civil administrations and religious organisations. Local donations and bequests still had their role, but could not provide for the need. Economic and demographic change led to a large increase in need around 1500. As a young man, these changes were public issues that Vives, among others, began to grapple with (pp 3-4).

Almshouse administrations continue to this day, providing housing with care for older people. The next Bruges photo from my visit in 2017 shows some almshouses still in use. Of course, this is not unique to Belgium or the Netherlands, since I could easily show you pictures of almshouses still functioning in the UK (and probably will when the occasion arises).

Balstraat almshouses, Bruges (my 2017 photo)

Poor relief, public order and public health

Vives provided a philosophical justification for civic administration (as opposed to church charity organisations) to care for people in poverty on grounds of public order, while an individual’s religious motivation to help was still based on Christian caritas and natural human law. If neglected, poorer members of society may be dangerous, the new policy said, and Vives noted a ‘potential for the poor to wander, steal, rape and riot’ (p. 4). They might neglect their children, become vagabonds, desert the Church and God’s word.

Thanks for reading Social work bites! This post is public so feel free to share it.

To Vives, this was not their fault. Rulers had a duty to turn poor people into good citizens, rather than drag them to court for punishment. He also put forward a public health argument: poverty led to contagion, infectious diseases, plague, leprosy and ‘other afflictions disgusting even to speak of (p. 4).’ Trade and industry also needed labour, which the poor could provide to everyone’s benefit. Vives supported the politically experienced Ypres magistrates, because the clergy neglected people who did not go to Church or profess the faith. He criticised the church’s wealth, gained by appropriating the property of people in poverty

We see here some of the concerns about threat to the both the public health and the social order from people in poverty which are still commonplace. Not always universal, and often mostly at times of social crisis, but it’s still there. There is also some of the political analysis of the duty of the state (or at least the civil authority) and critical political thinking about the oppression of faith communities and of the rich.

The new 16th century discourse on poverty

Michielse analyses new discourse about people in poverty arising at this time. The medieval view saw poverty as a sign of God’s grace; Vives was living at the time that such ideas were being challenged. In the 12th century, people such as St Francis and St Dominic saw the poor as a contrast to the pride, violence and avarice of the rich and powerful, playing a role in showing up the weaknesses of Christian society.

Church authorities were concerned that radical poverty movements were heretical. Worry that the poor might be a dangerous class led the churches to a legalistic canon-law approach to poor relief. They thought they neeeded to be concerned to identify ‘false paupers (p. 6)’. There had to be scrutiny and restriction of professional begging as a threat to the moral order. This in turn caused developments such as people receiving relief having to wear the ‘beggar’s badge’

Humanists such as Vives fought against such views. He started from a position that argued for the ‘natural law’ – ‘how it is natural to do good for others (p. 7)’. But he also suggested that the casuistry of a legalistic concern for social order and public health had diverted this social approach (casuistry refers to detailed, devious and legalistic reasoning implying moral probity but oppressive in its effect through lways looking for trouble-making 'false paupers’ ). Vives, nevertheless, went along with the arguments about an ungrateful poor being resistant to moral and social improvement, The traditional ‘natural’ concern for the poor had been misused. Achieving civic, public and, social order argued for efficient provision of poor relief to re-establish people in poverty as part of the citizenship and to contribute to the economy.

Historians have debated whether this new strategy for poor relief derives from the influence of the Protestant work ethic, as in some parts of Europe Protestantism began to displace Catholic thought. Michielse identifies an alliance in the Netherlands of:

civil authorities concerned with public order (the ‘governors’),
merchants engaged in an early of phase of globalisation representing maritime and commercial capitalism particularly deriving from the Netherlands (the ‘capitalists’),
humanists seeking a secular moral, intellectual and religious reformation of society allied to the ‘Enlightenment’ phase of social thinking (the ‘humanists’).

In particular the humanists like Vives represented a ‘third force’ between the reformation (in some protestant parts of northern Europe), and the counter-reformation (in some parts of the largely Catholic, Mediterranean countries). Remember Vives was a fugitive from Catholic Spain, formerly the colonial power over the Netherlands and Belgium, where he ended up. Humanists sought (in an Austrian phrase) for example, the Zivilisation des Dialogs (civilisation by debate). Vives, ‘meek and mild’ (p. 9), a fugitive from Catholic Spain, wrote an important work on peace, arguing for kings and emperors to be peace-loving and for nations to avoid religious intolerance. The civilisation of dialogue, though, did not include the poor, who needed to be efficiently brought to order, hard work and virtue through work and supervision.

Vives was not alone in his view of the poor. The humanist writer Erasmus also argued for the policing of beggars. Thomas More wrote in his Utopia that begging and idleness would be forbidden and relaxation and rest provided in each working day. The humanists like Vives were for a rationalistic effectiveness in managing paupers, matching the capitalists’ need for labour and the governors’ wish for social order. All this alliance thus sought ‘a mass of disciplined, socially useful and politically harmless paupers (p. 1)’. You can see this is Vives’s argument.

The technology of poor relief

The policing approach to poor relief, therefore, prohibited begging, but Vives balanced this with positive elements to provide directed and regulated support, work creation, and re-education of people in poverty. This sort of view favours what current policy regards as ‘positive or enabling activation’ (support to enable people to take up work’ alongside ‘negative or demanding activation’ to provide behavioural and economic incentives to people to work (see my previous Social work bites post on activation).

There was concern about the ‘anonymity of the mass’. Thus, earlier ideas of classification of people in poverty, individualising them and detailing various forms of poverty in detail. Poor relief administrations therefore had to investigate the poor, recording the results of their inquiries; you can see the link with social work’s history of concern to investigate and really know its clients and their social situations. Vives distinguished between three groups:

Sick and disabled people who required hospital care
The house-poor, who endured poverty at home
Beggar and vagabonds with not place to live or need to be cared for

The ‘house-poor’ would all be registered and visited by ‘two senators accompanied by a scribe’ to scrutinise what sort of people they were and how they lived. Beggars and vagabonds would be herded into a public place and asked their names and how they lived. They would be pushed into work for both efficiency’s and morality’s sake.

The primary means of education was forced labour, not only compulsion to work, but work creation (p. 15). Vives quoted St Paul that as penance for sins ‘all should earn their bread and other necessities’. Each category of pauper should have a definition of what labour they should do, in businesses, hospitals or public works (except for people affected by age, disability or illness). People who could not or would not learn a trade should be given work such as digging ditches, sweeping or pushing barrows, which anyone could learn.

Vives’s efficient morality included a chapter pursuing his view that all children should be given education. Foundlings would be housed in a special institution and ‘appointed women’ would act as mothers to them. Children would go to school from age six to learn obedience, good manners, reading and writing, Christian piety and ‘the right way of thinking’ (p. 16). Brighter children should learn a trade, to read and to manage basic practical skills such as sewing and household namagement, courtesy and thrift.

Once poor relief was given, people receiving it would continue to be checked on, including the lifestyle of elderly women capable of witchcraft (Vives supported persecuting witches – p. 14). By increasing the visibility of the poor, they could be more easily supervised, especially if they wore the beggar’s badge. In 1526, the Ypres magistrate made wearing the badge compulsory for people who had been begging for more than a year and those leading an unstable life, such as drunkards and vagabonds. But the University of Leuven argued against the way in which this was sometimes applied to the ‘worthy poor’ (p.14). Here, there is evidence that some traditional distinctions between the deserving and undeserving poor remained alongside the efficient morality poor relief technology.

The idea had already arisen that ‘sound advice is the alms of the soul’ (p. 14 - no better statement of social work ideals than this), better than money or goods, and various exhortations about paupers’ ways of life should be coupled with threats of punishment and restrictions in assistance. Taverns and gambling dens were to be prohibited.

Conclusion - debate about poor relief technology renews itself

Michielse argues, therefore, that policing the poor in Ypres was not isolated from other aspects of social development. Where merchant capitalism thrived so also did the techniques of policing the poor. After Vives’s death, the numbers of poor people in urban areas on the Netherlands increased so much that, in 1556, begging was allowed, but when economic and political conditions improved, civic authorities quickly returned to policing. In Leiden, policing on the Ypres system was not introduced in 1529, but when the town was liberated from the Spanish in 1577, it was introduced very rapidly.

Wherever there was social change and crisis, policing techniques were renewed and extended. For example, in Amsterdam, an important port centre of globalised merchant capitalism, by the end of the century, institutions such as workhouses were introduced. Michielse suggests that these structures were maintained until the 1950s, when ‘asocial families’ were still treated with Vives’s techniques, to make the poor ‘more useful and less politically dangerous with the help of techniques of social administration – guidance, help aad education’ (p. 18).