‘One has to know the roots of evil in order to reduce them.’ Explaining rural poor relief practices: the Campine and Coastal area (Southern Low Countries) compared during the first quarter of the 19th century.

This conference paper builds further on these findings by offering more in-depth data
for more than 90 rural poor relief institutions in the Southern Low Countries in 1821.More specifically, I will question how one institution - the Benevolent Bureaux - is used in different societal constellations, thus questioning the haphazard nature of continental rural relief practices. I will ask if spatial variation in both the institutional income and expense-structure is noticeable and whether this variation correlates with differences in the socio-economic structure or not. If so, I will question which differences did occur. As the English historiography suggests that not only the quantity of recipients varies from the continent, but also their nature, I will also analyse some features of the demographic background of these recipients.