8 - The perils of gifts

Summary

For all the vigour and force sustaining informal support, the wide-ranging forms of giving and help practiced over the course of the period were not immune to failures and risks. Numerous examples point to the friction that at times transpired amidst an economy of gift offering – women and men who refused food at the gate or door, masters who abused their servants, patrons who failed to offer favours and neighbours who cheated or violated the trust of fellow parishioners and friends. The varied and extensive record we have of these types of failures casts considerable doubt on an older and cherished tradition of thinking, which assumed that small communities in the pre-modern era were characterized by a wealth of solidarity and a sort of ‘organic’ cohesion that guaranteed their stability over time. What these examples still suggest, however, is that for all the vitality and drive propelling an economy of giving, and regardless of the moral and religious fervour with which it was reinforced, the highly personalized transactions and commitments that nourished informal support were vulnerable to certain failings. Anthropologists do indeed point to the danger that may accompany gift exchange, in the event that donors are perceived as evil and their gifts suspected of ‘pollution’, or if the recipients themselves misuse and manipulate the gift and those who offer it. Sociologists underscore the time dimension that is inherent to relations of exchange.