Deliberation on the Cause of the Poor

May beggars be excluded from public spaces? May vagabonds be denied access to foreign cities? Should assistance to the poor rely on private charity rather than public welfare institutions? These and similar questions are at the heart of Deliberation on the Cause of the Poor, a remarkable treatise on poor relief by Domingo de Soto (1495-1560), one of Spain's most famous jurist-theologians. Confronted with the reform of poor laws in cities across Europe, Soto warns against the potentially dir...