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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
Recent research on poverty in Tudor-Stuart England has produced no surprises, no controversies. The scene has been one of quiet industriousness. Yet surely a stock-taking from time to time serves a useful purpose in any area of historical investigation. It clarifies. It offers an understanding of the current state of the question. It asks, what questions are now being posed? What interpretations are being advanced? What appears to be the most promising of the current areas of inquiry? This essay is a selective review of the fruits of recent research on the three questions which have particularly interested students of poverty in Tudor-Stuart England. Those questions are: 1) how were the poor defined?, 2) what was public policy toward them?, and 3) how did Englishmen themselves understand the problem of poverty?
1 Oxley's, Geoffrey W.Poor Relief in England and Wales, 1601–1834 (London, 1974)Google Scholar, which examines the types of local evidence available to researchers; Pound's, JohnPoverty and Vagrancy in Tudor England (London, 1971)Google Scholar, which is an analysis with documents; and Death, Leslie Clarkson's, Disease and Famine in Pre-industrial England (New York, 1975)Google Scholar, which examines the factors affecting birth and death rates especially among the poor, are recent examples of that quiet industriousness. Each surveys some aspect of recent research.
2 The Norwich Census of the Poor, 1570, ed. by Pound, John F. (Norwich, 1971), pp. 23.Google Scholar
3 Fessler, Alfred, “The Official Attitude toward the Sick Poor in Seventeenth Century Lancashire”, in: Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, CII (1952), p. 98.Google Scholar
4 Everitt, Alan, “Farm Labourers”, in: The Agrarian History of England and Wales, IV: 1500–1640, ed. by Thirsk, Joan (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 399.Google Scholar
5 See Past & Present, No 71 (1976). pp. 126–34Google Scholar, for a debate on the issue of the vagrant's willingness to work by J. F. Pound and A. L. Beier.
6 Clark, Peter, “The Migrant in Kentish Towns, 1580–1640”, in: Crisis and Order in English Towns, 1500–1700, ed. by Clark, Peter and Slack, Paul (Toronto, 1972), pp. 152.Google Scholar Clark's evidence and tentative conclusions can be profitably compared to Hufton's, Olwen “Begging, Vagrancy, Vagabondage and the Law: an Aspect of the Problem of Poverty in Eighteenth-Century France”, in: European Studies Review, II (1972), pp. 97–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and to Wade, Robert, “A Culture of Poverty”, in: Institute of Developmental Studies Bulletin (University of Sussex, England). October 1973, pp. 4–30.Google Scholar
7 Beier, A. L., “Vagrants and the Social Order in Elizabethan England”, in: Past & Present, No 64 (1974), p. 14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Thomas Harman's part-fictional, part-factual A Caveat for Common Cursitors (1566) viewed Elizabethan vagrants as wily petty criminals. The nomenclature he used to describe their social world was often uncritically invoked by later writers.
8 Slack, Paul A., “Vagrants and Vagrancy in England, 1598–1664”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, XXVII (1974), p. 365.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., p. 368.
10 Ibid.
11 Pound, John F., “An Elizabethan Census of the Poor: The Treatment of Vagrancy in Norwich, 1570–1580”, in: University of Birmingham Historical Journal, VIII (1961–1962), p. 139.Google Scholar
12 Webb, John, Poor Relief in Elizabethan Ipswich (Ipswich, 1966), pp. 78, 80, 81, 83, 85, 86, 89.Google Scholar
13 See Patten, John, Rural-Urban Migration in Pre-Industrial England [Research Papers, School of Geography, Oxford University, No 6] (Oxford, 1973)Google Scholar, who reviews recent research on the subject and, in passing, presents an excellent critique of the relative value of the types of evidence available for migration studies: freeman records, apprentice indentures, wills, settlement records and depositions. For additional data on vagrants see Paul Slack, “Poverty and Politics in Salisbury, 1597–1666”, in: Crisis and Order, op. cit., pp. 166ff; Hill, J. W. F., Tudor and Stuart Lincoln (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 38Google Scholar; Johnson, Robert C., “The Transportation of Vagrant Children, 1618–1622”, in: Early Stuart Studies: Essays in Honor of David Harris Willson, ed. by Reinmuth, Howard S. (Minneapolis, 1970), pp. 137–51Google Scholar; Howson, W. G., “Plague, Poverty, and Population in parts of Northwest England, 1580–1720”, in: Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, CXII (1961), pp. 49–55.Google Scholar
14 Hull, Felix, “Agriculture and Rural Society in Essex, 1540–1640” (unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, London University, 1950), pp. 471.Google Scholar
15 Ibid., p. 480.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., p. 473.
18 Ibid.
19 Pound, “An Elizabethan Census”, loc. cit., pp. 144ff.
20 Beier, A. L., “Studies in Poverty and Poor Relief in Warwickshire, 1540–1680” (unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1969), pp. 54.Google Scholar
21 Slack, “Poverty and Politics in Salisbury”, loc. cit., p. 166.
22 Ibid., p. 171.
23 Ibid., pp. 173–76.
24 MacCaffrey, Wallace T., Exeter 1540–1640: The Growth of an English County Town (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), pp. 12, 113Google Scholar; Davis, Natalie Z., Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, 1975), pp. 63–64.Google Scholar
25 Chalklin, C. W., Seventeenth Century Kent: A Social and Economic History (London, 1965), pp. 255, 261.Google Scholar
26 Clarkson, L. A., The Pre-Industrial Economy in England, 1500–1750 (London, 1971), pp. 233.Google Scholar
27 Godber, Joyce, History of Bedfordshire. 1066–1888 (Bedford, 1969), pp. 278.Google Scholar
28 Howell, Roger Jr, Newcastle Upon Tyne and the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1967), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar On another reckoning, pp. 12–13, Howell estimates the Newcastle poor to have been 76% of the town's 13,000 population.
29 Beier, “Poverty and Poor Relief in Warwickshire”, op. cit., pp. 210–12.
30 Coleman, D. C., “Labour in the English Economy of the Seventeenth Century”, in: Seventeenth Century England: Society in an Age of Revolution, ed. by Seaver, Paul S. (New York, 1976), pp. 119.Google Scholar
31 Jordan, W. K., Philanthropy in England 1480–1660 (London, 1959), pp. 68.Google Scholar
32 The Norwich Census.op.cit., Appendix IX, p. 101; Howell, Newcastle and the Puritan Revolution, op. cit., pp. 11–12.
33 Slack, , “Poverty and Politics in Salisbury”, p. 176.Google Scholar
34 Kunze, Neil L., “The Origins of Modern Social Legislation: The Henrician Poor Law of 1536”, in: Albion, III (1971), pp. 9–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
35 Elton, G. R., “An Early Tudor Poor Law”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, VI (1953–1954), pp. 55–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 C. S. L. Davies, “Slavery and Protector Somerset: the Vagrancy Act of 1547”, ibid., XIX (1966), pp. 533–49.
37 Emmison, F. G., “The Care of the Poor in Elizabethan Essex: Recently Discovered Records”, in: Essex Review: a County Record, LXII (1953), pp. 7–28.Google Scholar
38 Allen, A. F., “An Early Poor Law Account”, in: Archaeologia Cantiana, LXIV (1951), pp. 74–84.Google Scholar
39 Webb, Poor Relief in Elizabethan Ipswich, op. cit., p. 94.
40 Hull, Felix, “The Spittlehouse of Key Street”, in: Archaeologia Cantiana, LXXXII (1967), pp. 179–83.Google Scholar
41 Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln, op. cit., pp. 67, 92, 135.
42 Godber, History of Bedfordshire, op. cit., p. 221.
43 Fessler, “The Official Attitude toward the Sick Poor”, loc. cit., pp. 85–113.
44 Jones, I. F., “Aspects of Poor Law Administration, Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, from Trull [Somersetshire] Overseers' Accounts”, in: Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Proceedings, XCV (1951), pp. 72–105.Google Scholar
45 Slack, , “Poverty and Politics in Salisbury”, pp. 164–203.Google Scholar
46 Barnes, Thomas Garden, Somerset, 1625–1640: A County's Government during the “Personal Rule” (Cambridge, Mass., 1961).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
47 Morrill, J. S., Cheshire 1630–1660: County Government and Society during the English Revolution (Oxford, 1974).Google Scholar
48 Beier, “Poverty and Poor Relief in Warwickshire”; id., “Poor Relief in Warwickshire 1630–1660”, in: Past & Present, No 35 (1966), pp. 77–100.
49 Dittbrenner, Curtis H., “Poor Law and Poverty in Norwich and Norfolk, 1660–1760” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1973).Google Scholar
50 Styles, P. H., “The Evolution of the Law of Settlement”, in: University of Birmingham Historical Journal, IX (1963). pp. 33–63.Google Scholar
51 Hoskins, W. G., The Midland Peasant: The Economic and Social History of a Leicestershire Village (London, 1957), pp. 189.Google Scholar
52 Coats, A. W., “The Relief of Poverty, Attitudes to Labour, and Economic Change in England, 1660–1782”, in: International Review of Social History, XXI (1976), p. 104.Google Scholar
53 Willcox, William B., Gloucestershire: A Study in Local Government, 1590–1640 (New Haven, 1940), pp. 266.Google Scholar
54 Jordan, Philanthropy in England, op. cit., p. 76.
55 Fideler, Paul A., “Christian Humanism and poor law reform in early Tudor England”, in: Societas: A Review of Social History, IV (1974), pp. 269–85.Google Scholar
56 Elton, “An Early Tudor Poor Law”, loc. cit.
57 Fideler, Paul A., “Discussions of Poverty in Sixteenth Century England” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1971).Google Scholar
58 Kent, Joan Ruth, “The Social Attitudes of Members of Parliament, 1590–1624” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1971).Google Scholar
59 Hill, Christopher, “Puritans and the Poor” in: Past & Present, No 2 (1952), pp. 32–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., “The Poor and the Parish”, in Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England, pp. 259–97 (London, 1964); see also Kiernan, V. G., “Puritanism and the Poor”, in: Past & Present, No 3 (1953), pp. 45–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a comment on Hill's article, and Breen, T. H., “The Non-Existent Controversy: Puritan and Anglican Attitudes on Work and Wealth, 1600–1640”, in: Church History, XXXV (1966), pp. 273–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jordan, , Philanthropy in England, pp. 155ff.Google Scholar
60 Save for an especially intolerant attitude toward the non-impotent poor, these were also the themes of the Paul's Cross sermons. Maclure, Millar, The Paul's Cross Sermons, 1534–1642 (Toronto, 1958).Google Scholar
61 See Coleman, “Labour in the English Economy”, loc. cit., pp. 112–38; Wilson, Charles, “The Other Face of Mercantilism”, in: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, IX (1959), pp. 81–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
62 This is the approach taken by Clarkson, L. A. in his recent text book The Pre-industrial Economy in England, 1500–1750 (London, 1971).Google Scholar
63 Wilson, “The Other Face of Mercantilism”, loc. cit., p. 87.
64 Tawney, R. H.. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York, 1926), pp. 221.Google Scholar
65 Representative titles are: Observations Manifesting the Conveniency and Commodity of Mount Pietyes, or Public Bancks for Reliefe of the Poor (London, 1661)Google Scholar; Four for a Penny: Or, Robin's, PoorCharacter of an unconscionable Pawnbroker, and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tallyman (London, 1678)Google Scholar; and Experimented Proposals (London, 1666).Google Scholar
66 See Clayre, Alasdair, Work and Play: Ideas and Experience of Work and Leisure (New York, 1976)Google Scholar, for an introduction to the history of work.
67 Attitudes toward work are scattered throughout the writings of Petty, Mun, Child, Hale, Firmin, and lesser lights. Furniss, E. S., The Position of the Laborer in a System of Nationalism: A Study in the Labor Theories of the Later English Mercantilists (Boston, 1920)Google Scholar, remains the standard introduction. See also Coats, “The Relief of Poverty”, loc. cit.
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