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Crime and punishment in Britain > Crime and punishment in early modern England c1500-c1700 > Flashcards

Crime and punishment in early modern England c1500-c1700 Flashcards

1
Q

What factors affected change in crime and punishment?

A
  • Population growth
  • Economic changes
  • Printing
  • Religious turmoil
  • Political change
  • Landowners’ attitude
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2
Q

Why did population growth change crime and punishment?

A
  • made it harder to find work
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3
Q

Why did economic changes change crime and punishment?

A
  • Vulnerable to high rises in prices of food caused by bad harvests
  • Fall-off in trade could lead to unemployment and hardship
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4
Q

Why did printing cause changes in crime and punishment?

A
  • Easier to spread messages about crime and punishment
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5
Q

Why did religious turmoil cause changes in crime and punishment?

A
  • Increased public belief in evil and supernatural explanations
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6
Q

Why did political change cause changes in crime and punishment?

A

-

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7
Q

What was criminal activity like in the early modern period?

A

Rural:
- Enclosure of land
- Hunting and poaching
Other:
- rise in smuggling
- vagabondage
- heresy and treason
- witchcraft

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8
Q

What was the Game act 1671?

A

Made it illegal to poach on enclosed land

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9
Q

What was smuggling like in the early modern period?

A
  • Rose as government introduced import duties on a range of goods
  • Smugglers chose secluded parts of the coastline so it was hard to patrol
  • Difficult to police as many people benefited from it and did not view it as serious
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10
Q

What was vagabondage like in the early modern period?

A
  • increased as population grew and wages fell (
    + increasing food prices)
  • homeless unemployed beggars searching for work that turned to crime
  • all vagabonds seen as violent, lazy and a threat
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11
Q

What were the 4 Vagabond laws?

A
  • Vagrancy act 1547
  • Vagabonds act 1572
  • Poor relief act 1576
  • Poor laws 1601
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12
Q

What was the vagrancy act 1547?

A

Violent and harsh
- Able bodies vagrants out of work for more than 3 days:
-branded with the letter V
-sold as a slave for 3 years

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13
Q

What was the vagabonds act 1572?

A

Harsh punishments that acted as deterrents
- vagrants whipped
- holes drilled through each ear
- imprisoned on second arrest
- death penalty on third arrest

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14
Q

What was the poor relief act 1576?

A

Improved attitudes
- Able bodied poor out of work sent to house of corrections (funded by poor rates)

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15
Q

What was the poor laws 1601?

A

Fair treatment of vagabonds
- Compulsory nationwide poor rates
- Begging was banned
- Anyone caught begging was whipped and sent back to place of birth

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16
Q

Overall, how did treatment of vagabonds change?

A
  • initially unfair
  • became increasingly violent
  • then became more reasonable
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17
Q

What was heresy and treason like in early modern england?

A
  • Heresy seen as a crime against the church and offence to god
  • heretics seen as a danger as they could persuade others to follow
  • Heresy punished by being burnt at stake
  • Treason seen as a challenge to authority
18
Q

What was recusancy ?

A
  • Refusing to attend church of england services
  • became a crime in 1570
19
Q

What was the popish recusants act 1605?

A
  • Forced catholics to swear loyalty to king james
  • heavy fines for not attending church
20
Q

What were the key changes from medieval england to early modern England?

A
  • increasing wealth led to new oppurtunities for old crime
  • economic changes caused huge increase in vagrants
  • Game law 1671 made it illegal for poor people to hunt
  • Duties on goods increased smuggling
21
Q

What was the nature of law enforcement like in the early modern period?

A

-crime increased due to increasing population
- local people expected to deal with crimes themselves
- constables and watchmen
-more courts to deal with crimes

22
Q

What were the main methods of policing in the early modern period?

A
  • Local people got arrest warrents from magistrate, tracked down criminals themselves and delivered them to the constable
  • All male householders as “Night watchmen” between 10pm and daylight
  • Parish constable unpaid role to ensure miantenance of the law usually by local tradesmen or farmers - could also carry out punishments e.g whipping vagabonds
  • Constables and watchmen not effective at hunting down criminals so victims turned to theif takers
  • Justices of the peace, unpaid role to judge manor court cases
  • Hue and cry
    -sergeants enforced market regulations
    -army used to put down protests
23
Q

What were the key continuity in law enforcement from medieval england to early modern england?

A
  • Communities still expected to take a leading role
  • law enforcement not nationally organised
  • Most courts remained in use
24
Q

What were the main changes in law enforcement from medieval England to early modern England?

A
  • role of constables and night watchmen expanded
  • thief takers introduced
  • benefit of the clergy could no longer be claimed for serious crimes
  • habeaus corpus improved rights but didnt stop governments making up evidence at rials
25
Q

What were theif takers?

A

A paid reward for catching a criminal and delivering them to the law.

26
Q

What was the Habeaus Corpus Act 1679?

A

Prevented authorities from locking people up without charging them for a crime.

27
Q

What was the nature of punishment like in the early modern period?

A
  • increased use of prisons
  • introduction of the bloody code
  • transportation
  • fines
  • pillory or stocks
  • carting
  • corporal punishments
  • hanging
  • ducking stool
28
Q

What were prisons like at the start of early modern england?

A

16th century
- holding place for petty criminals, vagrants and drunk
- not purpose built
- often secure room in local castle
- prisons at the time very poor
- in mates had to pay prison wardens for food and other basic needs
- women, men and children often housed together
- younger prisoners often bullied and abused

29
Q

What were prisons like later in the early modern period?

A
  • more purposeful - known as house of corrections
  • used to punish poor people who had broken the law e.g vagabonds and homeless children
  • all inmates made to do ‘hard-labour’ to pay keep and encourage habits of hard work
30
Q

What were the key aspects of continuity of the nature of punsihment in early modern England?

A
  • considerable continuity
  • emphasis still on deterrence and retribution
  • prisons remained largerly for those waiting trial or debtors rather than own punishment
31
Q

What were the key aspects of change in nature of punishment in the early modern period?

A
  • by the late 17th century some new punishments emerging e.g transportation
  • house of corrections built to punish vagabonds
32
Q

What was transportation?

A
  • punishment that involved transporting colonies to the new english colonies in North America
  • not as harsh as execution, still a severe punishent
  • transported prisoners taken in chains to east coast of North America
  • had to work for a fixed period doing tough manual labour
33
Q

Why was transportation favoured by the authorities?

A
  • effective deterrent
  • england didnt have effective prison system so prison not an alternative
  • England wanted to establish permenant colonies in north america - convicts could be used to populate colonies
  • new ideas about punishment allowed possibility or rehabilitaion - criminals should have chance to reflect on crimes and change way of life
  • criminals taken far from places that could draw them into crime
  • ## estimated between 50,000-80,000 people transported
34
Q

What were attitudes to witchcraft like?

A
  • people of all backgrounds attracted to supersticious ideas including witches
  • believed to have made a pact with the devil for their magic powers e.g flying, making people sick
  • often had ‘familiars’ - cats or dogs believed to be devil in shape of animal
35
Q

Laws on witchcraft

A
  • middle ages church courts used to punish witches
  • 1542 - henry viii made which craft very serious crime punishable by death
  • 1568 - act against conjurations - tried in common courts, death penalty issued if caused harm to another person,
    minor witch craft punishable by stocks
  • 1604 - James 1 - witchcraft and conjuration act - death penalty given to anyone summoning evil spirits
  • George II witchcraft act - ‘witches seen as confidence tricksters, punished with fines and imprisonment
36
Q

Who was Matthew Hopkins

A
  • witchfinder general, employed to uncover witchery, significant financial wages
37
Q

How did the witchcraft trials take place?

A
  • Interrogation methods to get confessions e.g starvation diet of bread and water, restricted sleep
  • stripped and publicly examined
  • prick skin to prove witches couldnt bleed - blunt or retracted knives
38
Q

Why did catholics want to overthrow king?

A
  • Elizabeth’s act of Uniformity made protestant official religion of england since 1559
  • Pope called on all loyal catholics to dispose Elizabeth
  • Catholics in england actively prevented from practicing their faith
  • James I tightened anti-catholic laws
39
Q

What was the plan for gunpowder plot?

A
  • set off explosion to kill king
  • break up powerful ruling group
  • replace james with daughter Elizabeth
  • Guy fawkes pretended to be servant and packed cellar under house of lords with estimated 36 barrels of gunpowder
40
Q

How were gunpowder plotters caught and punished?

A
  • Lord recieved a letter warning not to attend
  • robert cecil ordered westminster to be searched
  • found guilty of treason
  • hung drawn and quatered
  • Guy fawkes tortured on rack into confession
  • confessed 12 days after arrest

Crime and punishment in Britain (5 decks)

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