The Poor Law of Old England: Institutional Innovation and Demographic Regimes.

The article discusses the English old poor law (OPL), instituted during the reign of British Queen Elizabeth I and continuing through the 1830s. It explores the historiography of studies of OPL, as well as considering changes in standards of living, the relationship between life expectancy and mortality rates during the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries, and changes in real wages between the late medieval and early modern periods. Other subjects considered include British public health policies and public charities, the social impact of the plague, and how the OPL and poor relief benefited women.