CHAPTER II. THE CAUSES OF THE REORGANISATION OF POOR RELIEF. 1. Increase of vagrants. (1) Harman's description of vagrants in England. (2) Bands of vagrants on the Continent. 2. Reasons why men became beggars. (1) The destruction of the feudal system destroyed employments furnished by war and service. (2) Manufactures on a large scale less stable than old occupations. (3) Rise of prices affected food earlier than wages. (4) In England enclosures were made because sheep were more profitable than corn. 3. Old methods of charity. (1) Private individuals. (3) Hospitals. 4. Attempts at reorganisation on the Continent. (2) Monasteries. 5. Three factors in making of English poor relief: (1) the orders of the towns; (2) the regulations of the statutes; (3) the efforts of the Privy Council to secure the administration of adequate relief. Three periods in the history of the first making of the English system: (1) 1514-1569; (2) 1569-1597; (3) 1597-1644. The earlier years of the sixteenth century began a period of great changes in the position of the poorer classes, and these changes soon resulted in a series of attempts to reform and reorganise the whole system of poor relief. 1. Increase of vagrants. (1) Harman's description of The desire to repress vagrants had already led state and town to make regulations concerning the relief of the poor, but whereas before the sixteenth century, beggars were only an occasional nuisance, they now became a chronic plague. The great increase in the numbers of these vagabonds appears to have begun early in the reign of Henry VIIL Thomas Harman, a gentleman of Kent, in about 1566, wrote an elaborate description of twenty-three varieties whom he had found to be the bands of England. vagrants in in existence'. One of his anecdotes shows that they were already numerous soon after the execution of the Duke of Buckingham in 1521. A man of some importance, he states, died about this time, and crowds of beggars attended the funeral. Some of them were poor householders and these returned to their homes at night. But the others were sheltered in a large barn which, on being searched, was found to contain seven-score men and at least as many women. The bands of these wanderers continued to increase, for Harrison, in his Description of England, tells us, "it is not yet full threescore yeares since this trade began: but how it has prospered since that time it is easie to judge, for they are now supposed, of one sex and another, to amount to above 10,000 persons." Harman's description of this "rowsey ragged rabblement of rakehelles" shows that some sort of organisation existed amongst them. He prints a slang dictionary of thieves' language, and states that this had been in existence for thirty years: he also gives an account of their order of precedence, thus showing that many degrees of roguery were recognised by the rogues themselves. We can see from his account of their pranks, that they were both cunning and daring, and were often a great hardship to the honest citizens of the poorer classes. Not only did they break into houses by night and pilfer the pigs and the poultry, but they were daring enough to pass a hook through the windows and draw the clothes off sleeping men; to rob men on the highway who were travelling home from fairs, and to come by night to lonely houses and force the owners to deliver up what money they had on the premises. Harman's tale on this point may illustrate the dangers of the situation. One night two rogues went to an inn, and sat down and drank merrily, offering the pot to those of the company they 1 Thomas Harman, Caueat or Warening for Common Cursetors. The second edition bears date 1567. 2 Vagrants were already numerous when Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia, c. 1516. 3 W. Harrison's Description of England, edition of 1587, edited by F. J. Furnivall, vol. 1. p. 218. fancied. Amongst others, a priest was there, and when he had gone they began to make inquiries of the hostess concerning him, saying they were nephews of a priest in this neighbourhood and had not seen him since they were six years old. She, suspecting no harm, gave them all the information they wanted; told them the parson kept little company and had but one woman and a boy in the house. The thieves departed with the intention of robbing so defenceless a prey, but they found that his house was built of stone and his windows and doors well fastened. They thought force would avail little, and therefore tried fraud. One of the rogues, with piteous moans, asked for relief, and the parson, being moved by his distress, put his arm out of window to give him twopence. The rascal seized, not the twopence, but the priest's hand, and his companion secured his wrist also, so that their victim could not liberate himself at all. The rogues demanded three pounds and succeeded in obtaining four marks which was all the poor man had in the house. They bound him, therefore, also to drink twelve pence next day at the inn and to thank the good wife for the cheer they had had. The unfortunate parson could only use "contentacion for his remedy," but he kept his promise, and the hostess persuaded him to say no more of it "lest when they shal understand of it in the parish they wyll but laugh you to skorne1." (2) Vagrants tinent. This plague of vagrants was not, however, peculiar to England, but arose about the same time in all the countries of Western Europe. A book that somewhat resembled Harman's appeared in Germany as on the Conearly as 1514; this contained both an account of the different orders of vagabonds and also a "Canting Dictionary." Martin Luther often discussed the subject of beggars, and in 1528, wrote a preface to this very book3. In Germany, Harman's Caueat (E. E. T. S., Extra Series, No. ix.). Liber Vagatorum. Luther thought that begging ought to be prohibited altogether and the poor provided for by the inhabitants or from ecclesiastical revenues. See his manifesto "To the Christian nobility of the German nation," 1520, and the "Regulation of a Common Chest" quoted by Ashley, Economic History, 11. p. 342. Preface to Harman's Caueat, E. E. T. S., p. 1. therefore, the increase in the number of beggars seems to be even earlier than in England. In Scotland and the towns of the Netherlands the statutes and town ordinances show us that the same trouble assailed them about the same time, and France in 1516 was already troubled by large numbers of discharged or wandering soldiers'. 2. Causes for the existence of these bands of beggars. (1) The break-up of the feudal system and consequent lessening of employment in war and service. As these bands of vagrants were found in so many countries at once, the principal causes for their existence cannot be peculiar to England, or to any one country, but must be common to all the countries affected. It was closely connected with lack of employment: the difficulty had been for the masters to find workmen, the problem was now for the men to find work, and this in spite of the fact that at the beginning of the sixteenth century commerce and manufactures were rapidly extending. The age was a time of transition, and old occupations were becoming unnecessary. The feudal society of the Middle Ages was giving place to the modern industrial and commercial community. War, public and private, and service with great nobles had formerly occupied large numbers of the male population. But the fifteenth century had witnessed the growth of central authorities strong enough to preserve order and to control the power of the great lords. In Germany, the towns were growing in importance and had often become independent of feudal superiors; in France, Louis XI. had overcome the last serious opposition of the French barons to the growth of the royal authority, while in England, the Wars of the Roses and the policy of Henry VII. had combined to break the power of the English nobility. Order had given place to disorder, lawsuits had succeeded private wars. The power of the nobles was no longer maintained by force; they had no longer the need of many followers to fight their battles. The oft-quoted saying of the chieftain with reference to the Highlands in the last century might be 1 More's Utopia, p. 36, Pitt Press ed. "Yet Fraunce...is troubled and infected with a much sorer plage. The whole royalme is fylled and besieged with hiered souldiers in peace tyme." applied with little variation to the position of the nobles under Henry VIII. When I was a young man the point upon which every Highland gentleman rested his importance, was the number of men whom his estate could support, the question next rested on the amount of his stock of black cattle, it is now come to respect the number of sheep and I suppose our posterity will inquire how many rats and mice an estate will produce1." Power, in the Highlands then, and in England at the beginning of the sixteenth century, passed from the leaders of men to the holders of wealth. This revolution in the basis of power had a considerable effect upon the labour market. The chief occupation of the Middle Ages had become unnecessary; men whom the nobles had formerly been glad to enlist had now to seek other means of earning a livelihood. Moreover, the employment which had now disappeared was one which especially afforded an outlet for men of restless character, the kind of people who under adverse conditions became the sturdy vagabonds of the sixteenth century. Sir Thomas More expressly states that the English thieves of the time were often discharged retainers, and many of the later idlers would doubtless be men who would have followed this occupation, if it had been open to them before they took to their wandering life. (2) Manu factures on a large scale than old oc- No doubt the growing commerce and manufactures afforded employment in course of time to many more than those now displaced by the decrease of private and public war, but this very increase of manufacturing industry had effects of its own in increasing the numbers of the unemployed. In the first place, the peaceful life of the craftsman was favourable to the growth of population, and in the second place, the new occupations were less stable than the old industries had been. The simple manufactures necessary for the home market varied little; in bad times the craftsman might get a little less work, but he was not thrown utterly out of employment. But after great manufacturing 1 Tales of a Grandfather, last chapter, Sir W. Scott. 2 Utopia, p. 30, "They that be thus destitute of service, either starve for honger or manfullye playe the thieves." L |