The Political and Social Dynamics of Poverty, Poor Relief and Health Care in Early-Modern Portugal

By the end of the fifteenth century most European countries had witnessed a profound reformation of their poor relief and health care policies. As this book demonstrates, Portugal was among them and actively participated in such reforms. Providing the first English language monograph on this topic, Laurinda Abreu examines the Portuguese experience and places it within the broader European context. She shows that, in line with much that was happening throughout the rest of Europe, Portugal had not only set up a systematic reform of the hospitals but had also developed new formal arrangements for charitable and welfare provision that responded to the changing socioeconomic framework, the nature of poverty and the concerns of political powers. The defining element of the Portuguese experience was the dominant role played by a new lay confraternity, the confraternity of the Misericórdia, created under the auspices of King D. Manuel I in 1498. By the time of the king's death in 1521 there were more than 70 Misericórdias in Portugal and its empire, and by 1640, more than 300. All of them were run according to a unified set of rules and principles with identical social objectives. Based upon a wealth of primary source documentation, this book reveals how the sixteenth-century Portuguese crown succeeded in implementing a national poor relief and health care structure, with the support of the Papacy and local elites, and funded principally through pious donations. This process strengthened the authority of the royal government at a time which coincided with the emergence of the early modern state. In so doing, the book establishes poor relief and public health alongside military, diplomatic and administrative authorities, as the pillars of centralisation of royal power.

Federative dynamics in the EU under the influence of EU citizenship rights in times of crisis

The federative debate has been tied to the history of the EU integration from the start. Even though the EU is a polity in formation, the comparison with the state model has limited usefulness in assessing the evolution of federative dynamics in the EU. In the context of the EU, federalism should not be regarded as a static arrangement, but rather as a process that has been unfolding despite or because of EU integration setbacks. By the same token, EU citizenship is necessarily distinct from national citizenship. Our purpose in this article is to understand the federative dynamics of the EU in relation to the emergence of a “community of rights”. We also aim to establish if, and how, the on-going crisis has triggered a change in the EU federative process as a result of the weakening/strengthening of citizenship rights.