25/04/2022
For the first time at the state level, Gaius Julius Caesar introduced military pensions in the Roman Empire[2]. In the seventh century, pensions were introduced by Caliph Umar in the Righteous Caliphate as a form of zakat (charity), one of the five pillars of Islam. Taxes (including zakat and jizya) collected into the treasury of the Government were used to provide income to the needy, including the poor, the elderly, orphans, widows and the disabled.
For the first time, the word "pension" (from the Latin pension — "payment") It appeared in the documents of the Paris Court of Accounts during the reign of Louis XI in the second half of the XV century and meant the amounts transferred annually to the first chamberlain of the English king Edward IV, William Hastings and other English dignitaries. In fact, they were bribes.
The payment of pensions under Louis XIV acquired a special scope, one of whose nicknames was "the breadwinner king". Age did not play any role in the appointment of royal pensions. For example, Louis XIV granted a pension of two thousand livres a year to the young widow of the poet Scarron, who later became a royal favorite and became known as the Marquise de Maintenon[3].
