old age

Assistance to the Aged

Because so much preindustrial work involved physical labor, and because even the middling sorts were often in vulnerable economic situations, old age often brought with it downward economic mobility. Older individuals generally tried to remain self-supporting, and there were expectations of familial aid, but the elderly poor often depended on public assistance. In most European countries, poor relief was not regulated, but individual communities provided assistance for some of their elderly members. Forms of poor relief varied by country, region, and city, but community assistance usually took one of three forms: statutory poor relief, institutions like hospitals and asylums, and charity.

England's "Old Poor Law" serves as the clearest example of statutory poor relief. Under the Elizabethan Poor Acts of 1601, unpaid churchwardens and overseers in each of the country's parishes collected poor-relief taxes and redistributed the money to the poor residents of the parish. The statute specifically called for "necessary relief" to be given to the aged and decrepit poor. Historians differ in their assessment of the scope, generosity, and regional variation of the Old Poor Law's provision for the elderly, but it is certain that this system generated assistance ranging from occasional handouts to subsistence-level pensions for a significant minority of the aged population in many parishes in early modern England. The nature of the assistance changed as poor relief grew more extensive throughout the country. By the end of the eighteenth century, especially in southern and eastern parishes, parish poor relief to the aged could be very extensive. The Old Poor Law provided an important safety net for the aged, especially old widows. This system should not be mistaken for a prototype of modern social security (there was always a very strong and moralistic social-control element to early modern poor relief), but its extensive presence in the economic landscape and cultural expectations of this period is a significant aspect of the history of old age.