1642 års tiggareordning (English: ''Beggar regulation of 1642'') was a Swedish

Poor Law In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of hel ...

which organized the public Poor relief in the Sweden. The regulations of the law, with some alterations, was in effect until the

1847 års fattigvårdförordning 1847 års fattigvårdförordning (English: ''Poor relief regulation of 1847'') was a Swedish Poor Law which organized the public poor relief system in Sweden. With some alterations in 1853 and 1871, it established the basis for the poor relief syste ...

(Poor relief regulation of 1847). In the middle ages, poor care in Sweden was traditionally handled through the rotegångsystem in the country side, and by the poor houses of the church in the cities, a system which was kept after the

Swedish Reformation The Reformation in Sweden is generally regarded as having begun in 1527 during the reign of King Gustav I of Sweden, but the process was slow and did not end definitively until the Uppsala Synod of 1593 and the following War against Sigismund, with ...

, though the responsibility was formally (though not in practice) transferred from the church to the civil authorities (as the church itself became owned by the state). The regulation of 1642 stated that the every parish were responsible for their own paupers. Every parish should have a poor house for old and sick people, and an orphanage for children, financed by the parish church collection. If such facilities did not exist in the parish (and in rural communities, they seldom did, except for the occasional

backstuga A backstuga (literally "slope cottage") is a Swedish language judicial term, previously used in Finland and Sweden, for a kind of rural cottage. Additionally, in architecture, a ''backstuga'' is a cottage built into the southern slope of a hi ...

), then the paupers should either be housed with the parishioners in accordance with the established traditional rotegångsystem, or be given a beggar permit, legal only in their own parish: all other forms of beggary were banned. The 1642 regulation were given some complements and smaller alterations, but it remained as the ground for the poor care system in Sweden until the

(Poor relief regulation of 1847).

References

* Elisabeth Engberg, ''I fattiga omständigheter. Fattigvårdens former och understödstagare i Skellefteå socken under 1800-talet''. n poor circumstances. Poor relief policy and paupers in Skellefteå parish, Sweden, in the nineteenth centuryUmeå 2005, 368 pp. Monograph. {{DEFAULTSORT:1642 ars tiggareordning Social history of Sweden 1642 in law Social law 1642 in Sweden

See also

References