THE EARLY HISTORY OF ENGLISH

POOR RELIEF.

CHAPTER I.

THE BEGINNING OF THE SECULAR CONTROL OF POOR RELIEF.

1. Anglo-Saxon times.

2. The Labour Statutes.

3. The regulation of charitable funds by the state.

4. The control of charitable funds by the towns.

5. Summary of the main features of public control of poor relief before the sixteenth century.

Introduc

tion.

The English system of Poor Relief presents a striking contrast to the rest of our national institutions. In most departments of our social organisation, public control is less extensive in England than in the other countries of Western Europe. But, in regard to the relief of the poor, we have adopted an opposite policy. Since the reign of Charles I., Englishmen have made themselves responsible for the maintenance of those who are destitute. All, who cannot obtain food or shelter for themselves or from their nearest relatives, have a right to relief from compulsory rates levied upon the rest of the community.

It will be our object, in the following pages, to trace the growth of this system. We will examine the causes which led the public authorities of state and town to control the relief of the poor, and the steps which they took to render its administration effective and successful. There can be no

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doubt, that an organisation of this kind was not suddenly imposed by a single Act of Parliament. [Under Henry VIII., the first enactment was passed ordering the regular collection and distribution of alms for the relief of the poor, but it was not until forty years later that the amount to be paid by each individual was assessed and its payment compulsorily enforced while even after ninety years had elapsed, the English organisation of poor relief was still irregularly carried out and of little practical effect. Like other and more famous English institutions, the making and administration of the English Poor Law was a growth, not a creation. It was during the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth centuries that the chief experiments were made in methods of relieving the poor by secular public authorities. But, even before that time, the beginnings of the later organisation may be traced both in the provisions of the statutes and in the regulations of the towns. We will now briefly consider the chief ways in which public secular authorities interfered in the relief of the poor before the sixteenth century. In Anglo-Saxon times, the administration of poor relief was almost entirely under the control of the Church. Almsgiving and hospitality were however inculcated as religious duties of considerable importance, and there is much to make us think that they were extensively practised by Anglo-Saxon kings and noblemen. Bede tells the following story of King Oswald. He was about to dine sumptuously from a silver dish of dainties one Easter day, when the servant who distributed relief to the poor came before him, and told him that there were many needy persons outside the gate, who were begging some alms of the king. The king left the dish untasted and ordered the contents to be carried to the beggars. This story incidentally lets us see that a distribution of alms and a special servant for the purpose

1. AngloSaxon times.

1 27 Hen. VIII. c. 25, 1535-6.

2 14 Eliz. c. 5, 1572.

3 Preamble to Orders and Directions of 1631.

4 Bede's Eccles. Hist., Bk. III. c. vI. King Athelstan ordered the distribution of much help to the poor. He ordered each of his reeves every year to redeem one "wite theow (penal slave) and to entirely feed one poor Englishman. Thorpe, p. 84.

were part of the regular organisation of the household. King Alfred also, we are told, "bestowed alms and largesses on both natives and foreigners of all countries'," and it was the custom of the Anglo-Saxon kings to keep open house for several days and to entertain all comers three times a year, at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide.

But the greater part of the relief of the time was administered by ecclesiastics. Some help was given to the poor in famous abbeys like those of Ely, Croyland and Glastonbury, and there were the offerings distributed by the priests. The nearest approach we have to state interference with the relief of the poor is found in the law of Ethelred, which probably enforced the existing custom with regard to tithe. One third part of the tithe which belonged to the Church " given to "Gods poor and needy men in thraldom 3."

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was to be

But, from the beginning of the thirteenth century, we find greater activity in the matter. Two causes seem to have influenced the secular public authorities of the time to interfere; first, the desire to repress vagrants, and secondly, the wish of state and town to control some of the charitable endowments, Many of the regulations, made with the object of repressing vagrants and able-bodied beggars, were closely connected with the statutes concerning labour, enacted from the middle of the fourteenth century onwards.

2.

Labour

statutes.

After the Black Death of 1348-9, labourers were scarce and wages rose rapidly; a series of enactments was therefore passed, designed to force every able-bodied man to work, and to keep wages at the old level.

In the first regulation of this kind, the Ordinance of Labourers of 1349, the first step is taken towards the national control of poor relief. The proclamation restrains the liberty of the giver; the private individual may no longer give to

1 Asser, Bohn, p. 68.

2 Athelstan the Atheling gave lands to Ely on condition that they fed a hundred poor men on his anniversary at the expense of his heirs. Kemble, The Saxons in England, 11. p. 510.

3 Ib. p. 545. Eadgar, Archbishop of York, and Aelfric in the canons which bear his name both order the same proportion of tithe to be set aside for the poor. Thorpe, pp. 326 and 345.

whom he chooses. It is provided that no one is to give relief to able-bodied beggars, and the ground of the prohibition is expressly stated to be "that they may be compelled to labour for their necessary living."

The first provision of funds for the relief of the poor made by law, is embodied in one of the same series of labour statutes. The wages of priests were regulated and it was ordered that the fines of those parishioners who paid more than the statutory rate, should be given to the poor1.

Almost as soon as these labour statutes were passed, we hear that labourers fled from county to county in order to elude the operation of the law. The workmen adopted many devices, in order to escape from any part of the country where these regulations were enforced. Some seem to have pretended to be crippled and diseased, and so, when undetected, could wander and beg with impunity. Others, apparently, joined bands of pilgrims, like the famous travellers from the Tabard to Canterbury, and, journeying with them, would reach a district, where they could obtain good wages and be undisturbed by the execution of the labour laws. In 1388, there-fore, regulations were made, restricting the movements, not only of able-bodied beggars, but of all beggars and of all labourers and, at the same time, admitting the right to relief of those who were unable to work for themselves. Servants who wished to depart from the hundred in which they lived, under colour of going a pilgrimage, or in order to serve or dwell elsewhere, were to have a letter, stating the cause of their journey and the time when they were to return, duly signed by the "good man of the hundred" appointed for the purpose. If they were found away from their district, without a letter of this kind, they were to be placed in the stocks and kept there, until they found surety to return to their own neighbourhood. However, a servant who had a certain engagement with a master in another part of the country, was always to be allowed to have a letter, allowing him freely to depart.

136 Edw. III. c. 8.

2 Rolls of Parliament, 46 Edw. III. 1. p. 312. Petition of the Commons. 312 Richard II. c. 3 and c. 7.

Thus the statute prevented a man from wandering about in search of work, but did not prevent him from migrating, when an engagement was already concluded. All these regulations affected beggars: an able-bodied beggar who begged without a letter was to be put in the stocks in the same manner as a labourer without a letter. He could not escape by pretending that he was a labourer, because both were liable to punishment. Neither could he elude the vigilance of the law, by pretending to be disabled, because the impotent poor also were forbidden to wander; they were to stay where they were at the passing of the Act, or, if the people there were unable to support them, were to go, within forty days, to other towns in the same hundred or to the place where they were born.

This statute is often regarded as the first English poor law, because it recognises that the impotent poor had a right to relief, and because it carefully distinguishes between them and the able-bodied beggars. The provisions also imply the responsibility of every neighbourhood for the support of its own poor. Moreover, this enactment may be regarded as a law of settlement. Not only were the impotent poor confined to their own district, but all unlicensed labourers were likewise forbidden to migrate. Probably the Act had little effect because it was too stringent to have been enforced.

Not only Parliament, but the municipal rulers also, made regulations for the restraint of vagabonds. The authorities of the City of London, in 1359 and in 1375, forbade any able-bodied person to beg, and at the end of the fifteenth century the constables were ordered to search, not only for the vagabonds themselves, but also for the people who harboured them1.

Two statutes relating to beggars and vagabonds were passed in the reign of Henry VII.2, but in both the severity of the punishment was decreased, because the king wished by “softer meanes" to reduce them to obedience. The decrease in the severity of this punishment seems to show that there was as yet little sign of the crowds of vagrants, who were a terror to the country under Henry VIII. So far the wanderers 1 Riley's Memorials of London, pp. 304, 390.

11 Hen. VII. c. 2, 19 Hen. VII. c. 12.