JUAN LUIS VIVES AND THE EUROPEAN REFORMS

Within the vast domains of the Emperor Charles V, it was the Netherlandish cities that were among the leaders in providing welfare controversies in the 1520s and 1530s. As a resident of one of these cities, the Spanish humanist, Juan Luis Vives, was able to keep abreast of the latest welfare reforms, hear the debates, and formulate his own ideas. Vives is an important figure in the history of sixteenth century welfare because in his 1526 treatise, De subventione pauperum, he crystallized and articulated what are usually known as the ‘new’ ideas about the poor and their relief, ideas that were to enjoy, in one form or another, success throughout much of western Europe.

Though a Spaniard by birth, the Iberian affiliations of Vives should not be overemphasized since he left his native Valencia in 1509 and never again set foot on Spanish soil. It is now well known that the humanist suffered the stigma of Jewish blood; his father was arrested by the Inquisition in 1522 and executed three years later, so Vives' life of exile was dictated as much by necessity as by choice. After several years in Paris and then in England at the court of Henry VIII, Vives settled amidst the congenial colony of Spanish merchants who inhabited the city of Bruges where he met and married the daughter of another Jewish refugee from Valencia.