.. for aide or
ease of any poore Inhabitants conc[er]ninge paymente of Fifteenes,
settinge out of Souldiers and other Taxes [etc.]...."[233]
As for money and goods left by testators or given _inter vivos_ for
_Temporary Expenses_ or _Special Occasions_ (as opposed to the
creation of permanent trusts and endowments), we find a constant
stream of such benefactions throughout the Elizabethan period.
By the Queen's Injunctions of 1559 parsons are diligently to exhort
their parishioners, "and especially when men make their testaments,"
to give to the poor-box, the surplus of which, after provision for the
needy, might be devoted to church and highway repair.[234]
Bequests made to the highways or bridges were considered as donated
_in pios usus_. "I thinke," wrote a prebendary of Durham Cathedral in
1599, "it also a deade of charitie and a comendable worke before God
to repaire the high-wayes, that the people may travaille saifely
without daunger. I therefore will to the mending of the highwayes
[etc.]...."[235]
Noblemen and wealthy men were expected to help maintain the local poor
in particular. Elizabethan ballads celebrate the liberality
to the destitute of an Earl of Huntingdon,[236] of an Earl of
Southampton,[237] or of an Earl of Bedford.[238] At the funeral of
George, Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1591, eight thousand got the dole
served to them, and it was thought that at least twice that number
were in waiting, but could not approach because of the tumult.
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