"James William Brodman has written an excellent study
of the institutions of the care of the poor, invalid, and dying in Catalonia.
[He] proposes and to a large degree achieves a synoptic, contextual,
and comparative study of charity and welfare for Western Europe... This
book is rich in historiographic comparisons and careful distinctions. Brodman
especially wants to distinguish between secular and lay as a means of refuting
those who claim that hospitals became increasingly secular after 1300.
Charity may have come under lay and public authority, but Brodman demonstrates
that it remained deeply religious in character nevertheless... This review
can only hint at the richness of the discourse and the historiographic
reflection in Brodman's book. He has insightful discussions of a wide variety
of questions including the diet and daily caloric intake of patients, child
abandonment, hospital personnel, and gendered care. The author has written
a valuable study of Catalonian charity and contributes a valuable synthesis
of contemporary reflection on Western European charity and welfare from
1100 to 1500." James R. Banker in the American Historical Review "Whether intentional or not, Brodman's book brought frequent comparisons
in this reviewer's mind to contemporary issues in these same areas and
provided a different way of viewing them. Most of those setting welfare
policy probably will not read this interesting and extensively documented
book, but it provides its readers with much information and much to consider
as well." Kristine Utterback in Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies "This is a book brimming with facts that never lapses into reductionism...
Though this is not designed as a primer on the history of medieval poor
relief, it could nicely serve as one. Brodman is in constant conversation
with other scholars, not just in the footnotes, but also in the main text.
In learning about medieval Catalan poor relief, any judicious reader could
also learn much about the historiography of the larger subject itself.
In fact, because the data collected for this study came primarily from
published texts rather than archival sources, Charity and Welfare
is revisionist is a most unusual way. It relies heavily on the facts unearthed
by other scholars to challenge the larger thesis that guides so many of
them. ... From now on, anyone who wishes to theorize about "modern" or
"secular" welfare systems will have to contend with this book and its attempt
to mess with conventional packaging." Carlos M.N. Eire in Church History "While the author takes care to guard against presentism and read modern
notions into medieval practices,... his theme rings relevant today with
our concerns about social welfare, types of poverty, causes and solutions,
and distinctions between direct intervention and immediate help for the
unfortunate, and longer range social programs for the welfare of elements
in society that have been present always. ... The persistence of need for
social welfare and Christian charity and our current struggle over forms
of program delivery, funding, and matters of conscience, cannot but help
make this investigation into the origins of welfare in our history resonate
with the contemporary. This is not just a book to recommend to medievalists,
therefore, but to the broader audience of social historians and social
science, and beyond history as a background to those studying in such professional
fields as social work, criminology, counselling, nursing, and allied health.
In its pages modern readers will find much to cause them to contemplate
notions of charity and welfare that were articulated centuries before,
are still relevant, and which prompt heightened consciousness of the human
condition and means for helping others. ... As such, this book is thought-provoking
beyond its purely historical dimension." Lawrence J. McCrank in The
Catholic Historical Review
Queen Maria, wife of King Martí, lays the foundation
stone for the Hospital of Santa Creu in 1401.
"James Brodman provides a fascinating and judicious
account of how the poor, sick and hapless were succored or managed in the
Principality of Catalonia and Kingdom of Valencia from the eleventh to
sixteenth centuries. Although the book is entitled Charity and Welfare,
Brodman
avoids an over-simplified narrative of selfless charity giving way to bureaucratic
control of the marginal. He is similarly judicious about applying other
binary models: the supposed movement from symbolic to practical concern
for the poor, from small to large-scale foundations, from ecclesiastical
to municipal sponsorship, or from custodial care of the dying to active
medical treatment. All these developments are considered as intermingling
institutionally and overlapping chronologically. Brodman has an eye for
the individual and the diverse. Skillfully joining together various specialized
and local studies, he describes how assistance to the poor changed in the
face of urban population growth, shifts in piety, and the evolving image
of the unfortunate." Paul Freedman in The Medieval Review
The Cathedral of Barcelona with
its cloister (on the right) which was built on the site
of the medieval Pia Almoina. In the fifteenth century, the Pia Almoina
was relocated in the buildings to the left front of the cathedral.
"As Brodman presents these changes, they are all simply tendencies, not
sharply demarcated transitions, and he is unwilling to agree with historians
like Agustín Rubio Vela and Miri Rubin who he thinks interpret them
as indicators of a new "secularization" of assistance; for him, charitable
and pragmatic motives continued to intermingle in the late medieval practices."
Michael McVaugh in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine "Cette synthèse alerte et claire semble avoir été
écrite avant toute pour les besoins de l’enseignement universitaire
américain. Les undergraduates y trouveront un exposé
limpide et bien construit non suelement du cas catalan mais aussi les principales
lignes de force de l’histoire hospitalière. Gageons que ce livre
trouvera une place méritée dans les reading lists.
Pour un public plus large, il fournira un pratique compendium de la littérature
existante...” Charles de Miramon in Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales
