The many faces of poor relief

In their article in “Tijd-Schrift: Heemkunde en Lokaal-erfgoedpraktijk” in Vlaanderen, Lambrecht and Winter show how poor relief in rural areas in the county of Flanders was organised during the 18th century. Based on data from the STREAM database, they were able to deduce that almost all municipalities in the former county had revenues for poor relief. The municipalities obtained these revenues from, among other things, rental income from real estate, interest from capital and taxes. Admittedly, there was considerable spatial variation in the sums spent on poor relief. The data on poor relief revenues have been transformed into a map by staff at the Quetelet Center (see figure).