The Poor Flashcards
The fourth sort
Labouring poor
Half of all the fams
Illiterate, did not own land, spent 80% of income on food and drink
North west poorest
Population growth
- 43% between 1550 and 1600
- huge pressure on resources (food and jobs)
- wages stayed the same but food prices driven up - inflation
Exploration of the New world
- central and South America
- more silver in circulation throughout Europe
- reduced values of currencies and pushed prices up
Henry VIII coinage
• decreases in value in the 1540s to pay for his ears against France and Scotland
War
- Taxes hit poor hardest
- Large numbers of unemployed soldiers and sailors
- Harmful effect on trade - collapse of Antwerp woollen cloth in 1550s and band on trade with Spanish ruled Netherlands in 1560s-1580s meant exports down
Trade monopolies
- encouraged by liz
* made the rich richer by pushing up prices - made the poor poorer
Agricultural crises
- disastrous harvests caused by dearth conditions before Liz
- more in 1590s with plague
- threat of famine pushed up prices
- rack-renting led to spiralling rents and lots of egditons
- growth of enclosure - open fields combined and enclosed with hedges to allow former stable land to be turned over to more profitable sheep farming - farm labourers lost jobs
- enclosure meant landless poor meant their animals had nowhere to graze- vital means of feeding fam had been taken away
Worst harvests were in
- 1562
- 1565
- 1573
- 1586
- 1594-97
Dissolution of monasteries
- key source of charity- providing good, shelter and medical care
- so poor people flocked to towns, venting poverty to public attention, causing the authorities to respond
Impotent poor
Could not provide for themselves because they were too young, old or ill
Not to blame and government was sympathetic
Idle poor
- Major threat to social order
- Dishonest vagabonds (moves in groups) ‘sturdy beggars’
- Immoral criminals
- Vagrants and beggars hated - attacked on streets
- 1567- Thomas Harman writes book with advice on tricks played by different types of beggars
- disgusted Puritan officials
canting
Coded language of idle beggars
Anglers
Long stick
Used to steal clothes from people’s washing lines at night
Ruffler
Look like an army officer
Robbed people at sword point
Clapperdudgeons
Used arsenic to make their skin bleed so pretending to be badly injured - wrapping their arms and legs in bloody rags
Doxy
Always wearing a needle in her hat
Large pack ferried in her back which held all her stolen gods
Counterfeit cranks
Dressed in old dirty clothes
Pretended to have epileptic fits, using soap to make themselves foam st the mouth
Abraham men
Pretend to be mad
Walked around half naked making strange wailing Jose’s
Major outbreaks of plague in..
- 1563
- 1583
- 1586
- 1590
- 1593
Recoinage
Early in reign
Planned by Mary
Slowing down rate of inflation caused by Henry’s debasement of coinage
Statue of Artificers
- 1563
* places wage limits on skilled workers in an attempt to slow down rate of inflation
Act of Husbandry and Tillage
- 1598
* attempt to slow down trend for enclosure to protect rural jobs
Alms
Collected for the poor on a local level (in Norwich)
Censuses
Carried out to make registers of the poor
Local
Workhouses
Set up to provide work for the poor
Local
Hospitals
- St. Bartholomew’s for the sick
- St. Thomas’ for the elderly
- Christ’s Hospital for orphans
- Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam) for the insane
Local
Legislation regarding the poor passed in
- 1563
- 1572
- 1576
- 1597 - Poor Law
- 1601 - Act for the Relief of the Poor
What was the Poor Law?
- everyone had to pay towards a local poor rate
- refusal to pay could results in fines or imprisonment
- local tax paid towards parish officials, setting up of workhouses, payment relief to impotent poor
- compelled each parish to appoint 4 ‘overseers of the poor’ - ensure that orphans had apprenticeships (paid for by parish)
- almshouses provides for the old and ill to live in - could receive handouts of money, food and clothing - ‘outdoor relief’
1576 Poor Law
3rd type of poor: able bodied but genuinely unable to find work
Act for the Relief of the “&&4
Continued to recognise category 3
Overseers had to provide tolls and stocks of raw materials (hemp, wool, wood, iron? Paid from the poor rate. These where used in a ‘House of Industry’ or work house to provide able-bodied poor with employment. Wages paid out of poor rate until they found alternative employment
Punishments brought into legislation
- Begging forbidden - could be punished through whipping ‘til his back be bloody’ then sent home to place of birth
- Or could be imprisoned and put to work in a ‘House of Correction’
- Some sent to work on galley warships
- Persistent beggars (outlined by earlier legislation) would be hanged
