'comme bons citoyens': Faith and politics in the poor relief of later sixteenth century gap

In February 1567, representatives of the Huguenot consistory at Gap appeared before the town’s poor relief bureau to agree with their Catholic counterparts in the confraternities and hospitals to contribute funds to the town’s relief scheme. The funds, they concurred, would be shared equally among the town’s poor, irrespective of faith, solely on the basis of need. In the context of civil wars which wracked France during the latter half of the sixteenth century, and which had caused much of the poverty and suffering that Gap faced then and for years to come, this was the culmination of a remarkable few months in the town’s history and the triumph of a municipal strategy that sought political cohesion and dominance over ecclesiastical authorities, by inclusion of both faiths in its charitable endeavours. This action would, in time, instrumentalise poor relief in significant ways, making it both a reflection and instrument of changing faith, secular and ecclesiastical regimes in the years to come. In this chapter, I analyse the motivations and outcomes of charitable organisation at Gap in the changing contexts of the later sixteenth century during which the town lurched back and forth between Catholic and Huguenot supremacy, and consider what these motivations and their contexts would mean for those who sought assistance from successive bureaux.