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Between The Middle Of The Fifteenth Century And Eighteenth Century, There Was A Wide Range Of Views Of The Poor And Disenfranchised In Western Europe, Including The Treatment And Health Of The Poor, Religious Attitudes, Social Sympathy, And Punish...

Between the middle of the Fifteenth century and Eighteenth century, there was a wide range of views of the poor and disenfranchised in Western Europe, including the treatment and health of the poor, religious attitudes, social sympathy, and punishment of the vagabonds, all of which varied from person to person. These points of views were reflected from the people during the period of increasing superiority of Europe, due to the scientific revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Beggars and vagabond’s numbers were much higher because people had barely the amount of good and shelter to survive. Lack of social welfare led the poor to find new ways of acquiring aid, which allowed the attitudes to spread through society.
Despite the lack of government social welfare, there were occasions were governments willing gave aid to the poor. In 1482 in Dijon, France the town council chose to rent a barn for the poor to stay in at night. However, reasons may not have been moral. “Poor children who go shrieking at night throughout this city” suggests that the council main reason was to keep the streets at night quiet. Another city council, Rouen, decided to do other things to benefit the poor. Rouen wanted to help finding work for others until they can find a trade for themselves to work in. Like people in its day, the council does not mind to help the poor, but hates the “idlers” who walks around aimlessly. They should not be considered poor and leave society. A political instinctive might have been the reason for the view of Richelieu. During the reign of Cardinal Richelieu, he tried to centralize the power of the nation under a sing monarchy, and by making such moves and seeming charitable can gain more support of the people. While people throughout Europe would be willing to help the poor, they weren’t always exuberant about it. In Rijin’s Beggars Receiving Alms at the Door of a House shows a man giving the beggars some money. However, the body language shown by the man...