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Article: The poor and disabled in early eighteenth-century Russian towns.
- Article from:
- Journal of Social History
- Article date:
- September 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Journal of Social History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Pre-industrial Europe recognized two basic categories of impoverishment. The first group - the disabled, those who endured serious chronic or acute disease, the insane, the aged, and the orphan - had always earned the pity and charity of those who were better off. Sometimes called the "structural" poor, these unfortunates were incapable of earning a living, and therefore wholly dependent upon begging and charity. The second group (the "conjunctural" poor) included the able-bodied who had fallen into penury through some crisis, whether meteorologic, epidemic, or economic. Members of this second group, whose numbers grew significantly in the sixteenth and seventeenth ...