In our events we often have members portraying characters of the poorer sort such as beggars and peddlers!

      I am sure the members who portray these characters would like to know what rights they would have under 17th century law.

      It would be wrong to say they had no rights...

     Official concern about the needy and unemployed dates back to the Middle Ages. Causes were as complex as Weather, Diseases, high birth and death rates, unequal wealth distribution, war and civil unrest but the main blow was the liberation of the population from the bondage of serfdom. During the Middle Ages the problem was dealt with by the Church, Parish Care, Craft Guilds and Towns and Cities providing their own form of relief. Although catholic and protestant churches did not differ in their concern for the poor, pre-reformation churches were organised better to deal with the problem.

     Who were the poor? Statutes divided the poor into the disabled and the able-bodied, but it was more complicated than that. We may further divide them into those who were settled or vagrant contrasting groups receiving different treatment. The first were eligible for relief under the poor laws the second were treated as criminals. The ages of sedentary poor suggests there were three phases to poverty, Childhood and early adolescence (up 16) adult (17 up to 60) and the impotent those unable to labour (over 60). (An early form of retirement plan)

     The numbers of settled poor are easy to work out as they were entitled to some form of relief and appeared in parish records. It generally varies from a fifth to a third of the population depending on time and place. The vagrant sector is harder to assess there are no accurate figures. Contemporary figures thought their numbers were great and rising. For what it is worth at least 26,000 were arrested in 1630 or roughly 0.5% of the country’s population. This figure is probably low side, since many no doubt escaped capture (to appear at our events).

     There was concern about this poor segment of the population it was not so much the numbers concerned the worried officials. Rather it was their disruption of the labour system and political order. Most disturbing they were dependent workers, that is, servants, apprentices and labourers who formed the bulk of the labour force in early modern England. If they were idle, production in all sectors would grind to a halt, and unimaginable disorders might ensue.

     If 50 to 60% of the population were unable to support themselves, how did they live? The short answer is badly, and grinding poverty was undoubtedly the lot of many. But in fact we know extremely little about how the poor lived, their housing, diet, health-care, and sources of income, beliefs and expectations. The indirect signs nevertheless suggest hard times from 1500 to 1650.

 

     The Response

     From 1485 to 1662 Parliament passed over two dozen statutes dealing with the poor. The legislation did not cease, moreover, with the fall of Charles I. Social Security and unemployment benefits are the foundation stones of British society today, and only recently have the vagrancy laws been repealed.

     Some of those Laws or Statutes

     1495: An Act Against Vagabonds and Beggars
1 States that the 14th cent laws are too vigorous and costly in the treatment, of vagabonds; provides for punishment in stocks rather than imprisonment:
2 All disabled poor to return to their home parishes, where they are allowed to beg, but not leave their hundreds.

     1531: An Act Concerning Punishment of Beggars and Vagabonds
1 Provision for the whipping of the able-bodied beggars; complaint of rising numbers because of idleness.
2 Disabled to be surveyed and licensed to beg by the Justices of the Peace; if they leave the area they were licensed in, they were to be whipped or placed in the stocks.

     1536; An Act for Punishment of Sturdy Vagabonds and Beggars
1 Open doles to the poor to cease; the able-bodied to be put to continual labour, felony charges for persistent offenders;
2 Voluntary Alms to be collected by churchwardens or two others to relieve the disabled.

     1547: An Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds, Relief of Poor and Impotent Persons
1 Possible enslavement of sturdy beggars for two years; for life if they ran away; offenders to be branded on the chest with a “V”;
2 Cottages to be erected for the disabled and relief given to them;
3 Weekly collections in the parish church after exhortation by a preacher.

     1549: An Act Touching the Punishment of Vagabonds and Other Idle Persons
1 Repeal of the vagrancy clauses of previous Acts;
2 Re-enactment of provisions of the 1547 Act concerning the disabled.

     1552; For the Provision and Relief of the poor
1 None to sit openly begging;
2 Local authorities and householders to nominate two collectors of alms for weekly collections on Sundays;
3 Persons refusing to contribute to be exhorted first by ministers then by bishops;
4 Records to be kept of the names of the poor and contributors.

     1563; An Act for the Relief of the Poor
1 Continues the statutes of 1531 and 1549;
2 Persons refusing to contribute to the poor relief after being exhorted by the bishop is to appear before the justices with the threat of imprisonment;
3 Fines of £2 for officials who neglect their poor relief duties; £10 for refusing to be a collector; £20 for churchwardens who fail to report those unwilling to serve; £2 for ministers who neglect to announce elections for the positions; imprisonment for collectors failing to produce quarterly accounts.

     1572; An Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds and for the relief of the Poor and Impotent
1 All convicted vagabonds above the age of 14 to be whipped and burned through the right ear unless some honest person takes them into service;
2 Felony charged for second and third offences;
3 Clauses relating to relief that repeat the 1552 and 1563 Acts;
4 Provisions for persons who consider themselves over taxed to be able to appeal to the Quarter Sessions.
5 Beggars children aged from 5 to 14 may be bound out to service.

     1576; An Act for the setting of the Poor into Work, and for the Avoiding of Idleness
1 In every town, officials to gather wool, etc. to set the poor to work;
2 Any persons refusing to work to be committed to a house of correction, which are to be established in all counties and supported by rates.

    1597; An Act for the Relief of the Poor
1 “Overseers of the Poor” to be nominated in all parishes to employ the able poor, especially the young, and to administer relief;
2 Churchwardens and overseers empowered to distrain the goods of any persons refusing to contribute to the poor rates;
3 The same officials to see that habitations are provided for the disabled on waste and common land, with the agreement of the lords of the manors;
4 County treasurers to be appointed to administer funds for the relief of prisoners, soldiers and mariners passing through the county.

     1598; An Act for the Punishment of Rogues, Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars
1 All Previous Acts repealed;
2 Justices to see that houses of correction are erected in all counties and cities;
3 A new definition of vagrants, including as before the ‘masterless’ and dangerous occupations but also persons refusing to work for statutory wages;
4 Provision for incorrigible rogues to be sent overseas;
5 Convicted vagabonds to be whipped and returned to parishes of birth or last residence.

     1601; An Act for the Relief of the Poor
1 Establishment of parochial responsibility, with churchwardens or overseers, from two to four depending on size of parish, allocating relief;
2 Suppression of begging;
3 Provision of work, with
4 Use of county Houses of Correction for vagrants;
5 Setting to work and the apprenticeship of children.

     1604; An Act for the Continuance and Explanation of the Statute Made in the39th year of the Reign of our Late Queen Elizabeth, Entitled “An Act for the Punishment of Rogues, Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars”
1 Provision for the branding of incorrigible rogues with an “R” on their shoulders; felony charges for further offences;
2 All persons expected to apprehend vagrants upon pain of 10s-0d fine.

     1610; An Act for the due Execution of Diverse Laws and Statutes Heretofore Made Against Rogues, Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars and Other Lewd and Idle Persons
1 Building of houses of Correction has been neglected; to be erected in every county; fines for non-compliance;
2 Local officials to carry out searches for rogues at least yearly in all parishes;
3 Justices to commit mothers of bastard children to houses of correction for a year;
4 Persons who desert families shall be judged to be rogues.

     1647; London Corporation of the Poor
1 Erect workhouses and houses of correction;
2 Enforced laws against vagabonds;
3 Set the poor to work.

     1662; Settlement Act, An Act for the Better Relief of the Poor of this Kingdom
1 Allowed the removal from a parish newcomers deemed “likely to be chargeable” upon the parish rates;
2 Allowed ‘Settlement’ in a new parish, thus exemption from removal;
3 Settlement was set at owning land worth £10 per annum, or being in continuous employment for one year.

     One result of this Act was that most terms of employment were set for 364 days thus falling short of a full year. The Settlement part of this Act did not disappear finally until 1948!

 

     Conclusion

     The early poor laws are not simply a series of Acts of Parliament, numerous, wordy and difficult to understand. Like other events in history, they must be viewed with reference to the relevance of their “Life and Times”. The legislation was a very large umbrella indeed. The Acts covered a variety of ‘deviant’ occupational groups ranging from ballad singers to unlicensed medico’s, sexual offenders even the transient minorities such as gypsies an Irish. Poor relief became the Law of the Land and caused changes in secular parish administration and statutory taxation. The Old Poor Laws were finally abolished in 1834 Poor Laws Amendment Act.

     William Cobbett, a radical 18th cent author, proclaimed “that the poor man in England is as secure from beggary as the King upon his Throne, because when he makes known his distress to the parish officers, they bestow upon him, not alms, but his legal dues”. Even in the 17th cent this assertion was substantially correct. This is not to say that the poor laws were always justly and efficiently administered. It is unlikely that weekly doles and the rest transformed the position of the poor, any more than that of today is by social security payments. But for the ruling elites who instituted and administered the legislation, the poor laws had positive results. They protected them from a host of disorders that might otherwise have threatened their social supremacy.

     Many thanks to the following book: -

THE PROBLEM OF THE POOR IN TUDOR AND EARLY      STUART ENGLAND

A. L. Beier published 1983.
Rather a large title for a book with only 42 pages. A compelling book full of information, once you get the hang of the way it is written. This type of information is essential to the understanding of the ways of the poor in our period.
 

       Remember it could be you...