Church briefs in England and Wales from Elizabethan times to 1828

Abstract

From Tudor times until the early nineteenth century, church or charity briefs were officially issued to individuals or groups who had suffered catastrophic financial losses, allowing them to solicit donations from a wide community of Christians. The article looks at the legal and institutional background of briefs and the changing contexts in which they operated, as well as exploring their nature, aims, receptions, and limitations. It puts a particular mechanism of charity back into the context of welfare machinery as a whole and uses its development to chart the changing (and geographically varied) relationships between institutions and society.