Dbq Essay On Assistance To The Poor

People in authority tend to disregard those who and that which does not benefit them, since the poor did not seem to benefit anybody, people in authority found them useless. (documents 2,3,4) Emperor Charles V had said in an imperial decree for the Netherlands in 1531, that the poor should be helped enough to have the power to survive on their own and not constantly giving them alms (Doc 2). “Many errors and abuses will result, for they will fall into idleness” (Doc 2) Charles V had stated that those who constantly beg for food or money take advantage of the kindness of the European population which will cause them to maintain that lifestyle of only begging for someone to help. Since Emperor Charles V is someone who has to give orders and have

For example Juan Luis Vives a Spanish Humanist had stated in a piece of writing entitled On Assistance to the Poor in Bruges, Spanish Netherlands in 1526, that the poor have no sense of direction in their lives anymore. (Doc 1) “We do not know by what law the poor live, nor what practices or beliefs are.” (Doc 1) Vives clearly paints a picture in our head of people walking around with no expression expecting pity which gives the impression of them only waiting for someone to make their lives better. With this classification of poverty we can clearly state that those who have lived the life where they have nowhere to leave they turn against everything not just God. Juan Luis Vives has been witnessing this first hand and would most likely be stating the facts for his piece so it can become popular amongst the population. Rembrandt van Rijn shows in his work Beggars Receiving Alms at the Door of a House, in the Netherlands 1648 that some people take their families to ask for Alms (Doc 6). Vives includes an image of a family standing before a man who’s giving them some type of charity. We can interpret and state that family beg together to cause pity because of the people who go around begging for help due to the fact that they don’t have enough money to feed their kids. Although Juan Luis Vives and Rembrandt van Rijn have similar ideas they are both from different social classes Vives being a Spanish Humanist and Rijin an artist have different beliefs they describe their experiences in the same way just different formats one in painting and another in words. However they both have similar aspects on the way the poor live their daily