Causes of Poverty

Question 1

What were the main causes of poverty?

Answer 1

Retainers and ex-servicemen
Population rise
The cloth industry
Enclosure
Inflation
Plague
Harvest failures
Dissolution of the monasteries

Question 2

What were the pre-Tudor causes of poverty?

Answer 2

Wars of the Roses + Black Death

Produced a class of itinerant vagrants whose children were raised in that lifestyle and knew no other way of living

By the beginning of C16 almost the entire country had professional beggars

Question 3

Why were ex-retainers and ex-servicemen more dangerous than other vagrants?

Answer 3

Most vagrants were mere nuisances, but these posed a greater threat as they had been trained in arms

Question 4

How did ex-retainers become vagrants?

Answer 4

Many had been made redundant following the Wars of the Roses, Henry VII’s laws against livery and maintenance, and increased expenditure around retaining.

Were accustomed to warfare and a higher standard of life so civilian life was a step down (prospect of an unstable job or no job at all)

The bolder amongst them would turn to vagrancy - easier way of making a living

Question 5

How did ex-servicemen become vagrants?

Answer 5

Increasing warfare and subsequent lack of warfare led to increased numbers of demobilised soldiers and sailors discharged at port towns.

More dangerous than retainers - numbered ~300-400 per shire and enforcers of law and order were afraid to oppose them

Big issue in the years following the Armada - In summer 1549 following on expedition to Portugal, ~500 returning soldiers drifted up to London from the south coast and threatened to loot Bartholomew Fair

Question 6

How did the government deal with the threat of vagrancy posed by ex-servicemen?

Answer 6

Returning soldiers allowed to keep their arms and uniforms so they could sell them.

Provost-marshals appointed to apprehend and punish troublemakers

Eventually all returning soldiers were given a sum of money for the journey home and a licenc e permitting them to travel unmolested

1503 Act provided financial aid to those in need on the way home BUT any soldier caught begging would have their pension revoked

Problem: many other vagabonds pretended to be soldiers to obtain these benefits

Question 7

When was the problem of Ex-servicemen most serious?

Answer 7

At the ending of wars when large numbers of soldiers were discharged

Usually could be contained with not much difficulty, but was a problem when it coincided with economic depression

Question 8

Was population rise a consistent issue?

Answer 8

General rise in population through the century, but not constant

Population sometimes reduced due to influenza epidemic (1557-8), plague (e.g. Norwich 1579-80), and harvest failure + famine in 1590s

Question 9

Why did population rise increase vagrancy?

Answer 9

Rise in population not matched by corresponding rise in employment opportunities - too many people pursuing too few jobs

It not enough jobs in a locality, many had no alternative but to look for work elsewhere

Increased demand for agricultural produce from towns
- Encouraged landowners to undertake more intensive, efficient farming to maximise profits. Increased efficiency = surplus labour being disposed of
- Strain on agriculture industry which could not expand enough to raise its labour force or increase its productivity proportionally to the rise in numbers. Both of these were causes of poverty: unemployment + food shortages

Question 10

Why was the cloth trade important?

Answer 10

Increasing demand for cloth from abroad provided work for thousands of men

The cloth industry employed far more people than any other single occupation (except agriculture), especially in the cloth-producing districts in East Anglia, Yorkshire, and the West Country

In some places (eg. Wiltshire) families were wholly dependent on the cloth trade

Question 11

Why did the cloth industry cause poverty?

Answer 11

Was at the mercy of external events which reduced demand e.g. plague, war, blockaded rivers, and bad harvests reducing people’s purchasing power

Alternate booms and slumps commonplace in early C16, and no guarantee that a man would regain his original job once the slump was over

Urban wage-earners were harder hit than rural - outside towns redundant textiles workers had a chance of finding work on the land

Question 12

Why did enclosure become more popular in C16?

Answer 12

The success of the cloth industry made people realise there was more money to be made through sheep farming than arable farming - led to conversion of arable land to pasture

In a period of nationwide price increase, copyholders were able to make increasing profits from surplus produce, whilst landlords’ income remained static
- Two ways to avoid bankruptcy: rack-renting + enclosure

Question 13

How did enclosure cause poverty and vagrancy?

Answer 13

Rich farmers took up more and more land but offered less employment than ever before

Landlords often destroyed the livelihoods of their tenants, forcing them into vagrancy, and sometimes depopulated entire villages

Rural depopulation meant overcrowding of urban areas

Question 14

To what extent was enclosure not a significant cause of poverty and vagrancy?

Answer 14

Worst was already over by the ascention of Henry VII

No more than 1200 sq. miles of agricultural land was enclosed in 1455-1637, and resulted in the dispossession and potential unemployment of no more than 35,000 families (the greatest number of these cases happened before the Tudor period)

Many only became vagabonds as a temporary measure and didn’t permanently adopt this way of life

Even in the Midland counties which were worst affected by enclosure, only 3% of the total area was enclosed

Tenants only forced off the land when their leases expired - means enclosure didn’t result in a sudden increase in vagrancy as not everyone was evicted at the same time (tenancies fell in different periods)

vagrancy was not always an immediate threat for the evicted - many had reserve funds to draw on

Question 15

To what extent was enclosure a significant cause of poverty and vagrancy?

Answer 15

In Leicestershire 1 in 3 villages was affected

The most vulnerable were wage earners, younger sons with no property to inherit, and villagers who relied on the common land to maintain their animals - people in this category were most likely to become vagrants

Many moved to unenclosed villages to become squatters, building cottages on waste land - nuisance to locals

Others moved to towns - if they were few in number they wouldn’t pose much of a problem, but v they were numerous they did
- Turned whole quarters into slums
- Spread disease through overcrowding
- Disorganised the labour market by crowding out local artisans

Question 16

What caused inflation?

Answer 16

Population growth - increasing pressure on limited resources

Debasement - silver content in the coinage reduced by more than 2/3 between 1543 and 1551

Question 17

How did inflation cause poverty?

Answer 17

Five-fold increase in grain prices

In C16 all wages fell drastically in terms of purchasing power. Nominal wages only started to increase in 1545 and continued to lag behind prices

Problem exacerbated by 4 consecutive harvest failures

Question 18

How did plague cause/exacerbate poverty?

Answer 18

Poor were the main sufferers - crowded together in small tenements with little chance to flee

When the man of the family died, so did the principal wage earner - women+ children would continue to work but rarely earnt enough to make up for the loss

The rich were much better placed as they could flee at the earliest opportunity BUT this had bad implications for the poor: absence of employer = absence of job, and the normal contributors to the poor rate were no longer present

Lack of contact between town and country- normally surplus produce would be sold in a neighbouring town, but few farmers were willing to risk contagion through this so supplies were cut off. Hence, plague and famine usually came as a pair.

Farmers themselves had no problem with food but lacked their usual additional income from the urban population

Question 19

What implications did plague have for local authorities?

Answer 19

Could be beneficial - if the poor were wiped out that meant less vagrants to deal with and less poor relief to give out

BUT, this advantage was offset by those who had become unemployed as a result of the outbreaks

Question 20

How did harvest failures cause poverty?

Answer 20

Led to rise in price of foodstuffs

Problem was worst when there were 2 or 3 consecutive bad harvests as there were in the middle of C16, which led to mass starvation

Question 21

Why were harvest failures a significant cause of poverty?

Answer 21

On average, harvest failure every 4 years

1586-8 saw famine conditions in Cumbria

Food riots were not uncommon

Problem was bad enough that the government kept a constant watch on the corn market to ensure adequate distribution of supplies + harvest failures and famine provided impetus for the Elizabethan Poor Laws

Question 22

Why was the dissolution of the monasteries NOT a significant cause of poverty and vagrancy?

Answer 22

Few monks would have had to resort to begging for a living as the majority were pensioned - the richer their property the greater their annual pension (average annual pension ~£5)

Some monks chose to supplement their pension by seeking work and those whose abbeys were already cathedral churches were often retained as staff in the new establishment
- Some monks sought secular work and prospered e.g. Thomas Pepper

Before the dissolution, the extent of monastic charity varied from place to place and monks, like landlords, had also been inclined to raise rents and renew leases at higher rates in the face of inflation and price rises, meaning monks were not always entirely charitable to all, so the dissolution did not mean such a dramatic drop in conditions

Before the dissolution, monks and nuns had annuitants and corrodians
- Annuitants were paid a fixed annual sum and corradians were provided with permanent food and shelter in or near the abbey
- Both were protected in the Dissolution Act - shows that the positive effects of monastic charity Stretched past the dissolution

Question 23

Which groups were most affected by the dissolution of the monasteries?

Answer 23

Monks who relied solely on their pensions
Nuns with their smaller pensions who remained unmarried
Domestic servants who struggled to find other employment
The poor who relied on the monasteries for charity

Question 24

Why did some monks suffer following the dissolution of the monasteries?

Answer 24

Due to inflation, the purchasing power of pensions (which remained fixed) would gradually diminish

There were delays in payment of the pensions, sometimes of whole years, which caused hardship is this was a monk’s only source of income

Harder for monks who were aged, beyond work, and lacked support of relatives

Question 25

Why did the dissolution of the monasteries particularly badly affect nuns?

Answer 25

Majority had pensions too small to give them financial independance

One of the few ways for nuns to supplement their income was through marriage. This was legal in Edward VIs reign, but all marriages from this time were short lived as Mary insisted on dissolving them and re- forbidding marriage for nuns

The fact that few nuns left wills suggests only a minority died with property worth bequeathing

Question 26

Why did redundant domestic staff suffer from the dissolution of the monasteries?

Answer 26

Unless the new owner chose to live on the estate, their services would not be required and chances of reemployment were not high

Had to compete for job in an already overfull labour market

Led to them joining vagrant bands