The Poor
From early Christian times in England to relieve the poor was
looked upon as a Christian duty, and every church and religious
house took its part in the work as a matter of course. You will
remember that in early days there was not much moving about of
people from one manor to another, so that it was not at first
difficult to know the sick and the needy in each place, whether in
town or country. Many religious houses or hospitals were founded
for the purposes of relief. They were not on a large scale,
but there were a good many of them. In the fourteenth century
pilgrimages were very popular, and many pilgrims were always to be
found on the road.
We must remember that there was another side to a pilgrimage
besides the religious one. A pilgrimage was one way of travelling
and seeing the world. Indeed it was almost the only means by which
a poor man could travel and have change of scene. Permission was
given for that purpose because it was regarded as a religious act.
It is not at all surprising that folk who wanted to see the world
often took advantage of a pilgrimage from no very religious motive.
Pilgrims could always find food and lodging at a religious house
on their way, and there were scores of places in England to which
pilgrimages might be made, to say nothing of a journey to the Holy
Land, or to the shrine of St. James of Compostello, which were two
grand pilgrimages.
In time pilgrimages became somewhat of a nuisance, for many of the
people taking part in them were anything but pious; and, towards
the end of the fourteenth century, strict measures were taken to
prevent beggars and servants from wandering from one hundred to
another on pretence of going on a pilgrimage. Each had to have a
letter, properly signed by an officer of the hundred, giving him
leave.
But beggars and wanderers increased. We find some towns, in Tudor
times, taking steps to put down beggars. In the early part of the
sixteenth century vagabonds found in London were to be "tayled[19]
at a cart's tayle", and collections were made for the poor weekly,
and distributed at the church door. In the year 1536 there were
fifteen hospitals and four lazar-houses in the city of London. At
the dissolution of the religious houses all these were seized, but
the city managed to save St. Mary Spital, St. Thomas's Hospital,
and St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The city found that it could not
get enough money to keep even one of these going, so a tax was
levied for the purpose. Bishop Ridley and others tried to draw up a
scheme for finding work for the poor, teaching them to make caps,
feather-bed ticks, nails, and ironwork.
[19] That is, whipped at a cart's tail.
Other towns tried the same plan, and the king and Parliament issued
many orders about the treatment of the poor and vagabonds. But
it was much easier to issue these orders than to carry them out,
and the beggars increased in numbers and in impudence in spite of
all. In 1547 it was ordained that a sturdy beggar might be made a
slave for two years, and, if he ran away, then he was to remain a
slave for life. The sons of vagabonds were to be apprenticed till
they were twenty-four years old, and their daughters till they
were twenty years of age, and, if they rebelled, they were sent to
slavery. The idea was to train them to work.
In all this the difficulty was, how to find the money to carry out
these schemes. The king had swept away all the goods and gifts
which had been made to monasteries, churches, and hospitals; the
free-will offerings of many generations had gone into the pockets
of the king; the institutions which had been founded to help the
poor had become the private property of the king's favourites. It
was not likely that people would be very keen to offer their money
for the relief of the poor, and though urged to give what they
could, they were very backward in doing so. Later on, in Queen
Elizabeth's reign, the dwellers in each parish were urged to find
work for the labourers in their parish; but the beggars still
wandered and the poor still abounded.
In the year 1572 some very severe laws were made concerning
vagabonds. A man who was convicted a third time of being a vagabond
was to be punished with death. Habitations were to be found for all
the poor belonging to a parish; no strangers were to be allowed to
settle in a parish; and each parish was to be taxed for the relief
of the poor. At the same time, every parish was to find something
to do for all the poor who were able to work. Usually a stock of
wool, hemp, and flax was bought, and the poor were supposed to
be taught to spin. Each county was also to provide a House of
Correction, where those who would not work should be forced to do
so.
To keep down the number of poor people in a parish, order was given
that only one family might live in one house, and no new house
might be built in the country unless it had four acres of ground
attached to it. In the cities of London and Westminster, and for
three miles round them, no houses were to be built except for
persons worth a specified amount. Houses might not be divided into
tenements, nor might lodgers be taken in.
All this was to keep people as much as possible in the places where
they belonged. The churchwardens and overseers had to attend to the
relief of the poor. There are, belonging to a good many parishes
in England, old account-books, showing how these officers raised
and spent money on the relief of the poor. Some of these books go
right back to this time, though most of them begin a good deal
later. These officers had to keep a very sharp look-out. Of course
they did not want the poor-rate to be any higher than they could
help, so strangers coming into the parish were quickly tracked and
hindered from gaining a settlement there. Vagabonds and strolling
players were hurried out of the parish, and in some cases whipped.
The stocks, the whipping-post, and the cage were set up near the
churchyard gate, and they were in pretty constant use.
[Illustration: _Wayfarers, Early Fourteenth Century. From a
manuscript in the British Museum._]
The officers were very anxious, too, to prevent any travellers
from falling ill in their parish. Those who were sick, and could
possibly be moved, they shifted on to the next parish, lest they
should become chargeable to the parish. Some parishes spent a good
deal of money, and the officers much time, in conveying people out
of their bounds. That led, we may imagine, to many disputes between
parishes, and gave the court of Quarter Sessions a lot of work
to do; for amongst the many things which Quarter Sessions had to
attend to was the carrying out of the Poor Laws.
Parishes had to look after and to support their own poor in much
the same way right down to the early part of the nineteenth
century, less than a hundred years ago.
[Illustration: _The Moat House, Ightham, Kent. An example of a
fortified manor house of feudal times. A large portion appears to
be work of the fourteenth century_
(_From an engraving published in 1845_)]