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I looked this up and the earliest reference I could find for the "poor house" was in the 1800's and this well past the middle ages. They were also called poor farms and I found out that people were auctioned off to another person for a year or so to work for the person in exchange for rent. Again, though, this was in the 1800's. So, if you were poor ( most people were very poor in the middle ages) there was no place for you to go to. To have a "poor house" there has to be social services and a thinking that people need to be helped in someway. The society of the middle ages was feudal which meant that 90% of the people were peasant or serf and had to work for a place to live.

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15y ago

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