This book is not what it claims to be. It treats neither “the science or art of household management” nor “the branch of knowledge [. . .] that deals with the production, distribution, consumption, and transfer of wealth [or] the application of this discipline to a particular sphere,” the first definitions offered by the Oxford English Dictionary. It considers “belief in and acceptance of the doctrines of a religion” only indirectly. “Reforming poor relief” captures the author's conviction—not the evidence adduced in its support.

“This book argues that the collective efforts toward religious reform stimulated a reimagining of the Christian community that affected social welfare reform during a time of centralization of scattered charities into a system of organized poor relief” (8). To do so, the author adopts an approach that is narrowly intellectual and theological, offering brief synopses of the writings of various evangelical leaders on poverty, begging, and charity. These include the “Wittenberg reformers” Martin Luther and Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Johannes Bugenhagen, Heinrich Bullinger, refugee pastors such John a Lasco, John Calvin, the “Swiss Brethren and Dutch Mennonites,” and the “Hutterites.” Readers will find most of this familiar, excluding perhaps only the chapters on Bugenhagen and the Hutterites, both less well-known to non-specialists.

They may wonder, however, how one might prove that the Reformation helped shape the further development of poor relief—a contention that has not been seriously questioned but has yielded a variety of responses—without at least some attention to religious teachings on poverty and poor relief before the sixteenth century. Apart from a superficial treatment of Juan Luis Vivès's familiar De subventione pauperum, the author gives little thought to “Catholic” prescriptions. Missing, for example, are the Franciscan penitential preachers, such as Bernardino of Siena, whose fiery condemnations of wealth and usury led directly to the foundation of monti di pietà in cities too numerous to mention. Readers might further wonder how one can establish the actual influence of evangelical tracts and counsels without some understanding of the material and institutional structures of poor relief and the efforts of municipal authorities to manage both long before the city governments of Bruges and Leisnig asked Vives and Luther, respectively, for advice. The author treats perfunctorily such “secular” precursors or social realities. The iconic histories of poor relief in Augsburg, Florence, Nuremburg, Strasbourg, Venice, and Zurich, to name a very few, where efforts at rational, civic control of poor relief began as early as the fourteenth century, have not shaped her thinking.

This study consistently confuses prescription for description, the ideal for the real. The author alleges that reformers “were crucial in four ways: preaching and communicating the values of social reform; recommending aid for students and laborers instead of mendicants; facilitating the organization of the common chest as a funding source; and establishing the theological foundations for the political, social and cultural transition to a secular poor relief program” (51). Be that as it may, she nowhere acknowledges the fact that these activities were not all unique to the evangelicals. Their predecessors and opponents also advocated social reform, supported alternate funding sources, and offered theological justification for forms of poor relief that were not solely ecclesiastical. Moreover, she misses the fact that her sources show only that evangelical reformers attempted (my emphasis) to influence social policy. Without appropriate documentation, such as the minutes of council meetings, correspondence among political leaders, or records of the administration of relief, the degree to which religious advice actually “affected social welfare reform” remains unknown.

There are exceptions. Those refugee communities, whether reformed or “radical,” often depended on their own resources to ameliorate need. In such cases, the prescriptions of religious leaders might translate into social and cultural realities more seamlessly than otherwise. Once again, these histories are familiar. This study offers little that is new, but it offers several cautionary tales. Among the Moravian Hutterites, for example, the principle of “community of goods” has long attracted attention. Yet the tendency of these communities to suffer schism precisely over the ways in which those goods were distributed raises questions about the practice. The author acknowledges that “Hutterite communalism had a predominantly religious basis” (199), then proceeds to suggest that it “included an implicit critique of existing societal norms,” one that “resolved poverty and begging through a community of goods” (200). Here, she appears to read Walpot without any critical distance whatsoever, a problem that arises repeatedly over the course of her book. She may be correct, but without the actual records of poor relief, as in every previous case brought forward, she cannot demonstrate it.

“The history of poor relief cannot be complete without understanding the impact of religious reform as a dynamic source integrating poor relief into the formation of new communities” (225). No serious historian of the topic would completely deny it; many not cited in this study have proven it. “Any attempt to eschew religious movements, marginalize them as an afterthought or a sideshow, or simply seek to disentangle the religious from the political and economic context, would miss a major part of the whole story” (225). The author falls victim to her own canon: by privileging “religious movements” and ignoring “the political and economic context,” she not only misses the whole story but distorts it.