Introduction

The idea that poverty is a relative rather than an absolute concept appears to be widely accepted. Historians recognize that different societies define need and the necessity of relief in different ways. It has even been proposed that the term ‘poverty’ be replaced by ‘deprivation’, in that this automatically suggests greater flexibility and points to the dependency of the threshold of need on culturally determined variables.

The relative nature of the concept of ‘poverty’ is usually attributed to two considerations. First, to a series of conventions about what is regarded as a necessity which define acceptable standards of living. Then, there are boundaries, which are also liable to change, that distinguish between the deserving and the undeserving poor, according to various sets of values and ideological frameworks.

Even though they underline the importance of a relativist approach, historians, it seems, hold on to an element of objectivity in the shape of a hierarchy of need, albeit based on the notion of convention. This is seen as the key criterion through which different social and cultural milieux were accustomed to identify and measure poverty and to model their systems of welfare. Such assumptions, in my view, have deeply influenced studies in the field, imposing two major methodological orientations. On the one hand, such studies have considered that the population in receipt of welfare could be taken as revealing the structure if not the dimensions of poverty.