ABSTRACTThis article presents a case study of the founders of almshouses for the elderly in the Dutch city of Leiden during the late middle ages and the early modern age. First, an overview of Leiden's almshouses is given and an assessment made of their importance for the elderly. Next, a prosopography of Leiden's almshouse founders is presented, and reasons for founding almshouses discussed, focusing on religion, status, and the support of one's nearest and dearest. This is followed by an analysis of the social class of almshouse inhabitants. This article contends that via almshouse foundations the wealthy and privileged upper classes of Dutch society looked after (distant) family members, employees and other dependants in their patronage orbit, and that almshouses thus in practice served mostly as a respectable way out of open and disgraceful poverty for members of the lower middle class and the class of wage-dependants.

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