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. (2) Monasteries.
(3) Hospitals.
4. Attempts at reorganisation on the Continent.
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.
[Sidenote: 1. Increase of vagrants.]
[Sidenote: (1) Harman's description of the bands of vagrants in England.]
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
VIII. Thomas Harman, a gentleman of Kent, in about 1566, wrote an
elaborate description of twenty-three varieties whom he had found
to be in existence[27]. One of his anecdotes shows that they were
already numerous soon after the execution of the Duke of Buckingham in
1521[28]. 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[29]."
[27] Thomas Harman, _Caueat or Warening for Common Cursetors_. The
second edition bears date 1567.
[28] Vagrants were already numerous when Sir Thomas More wrote
_Utopia_, c. 1516.
[29] W. Harrison's _Description of England_, edition of 1587, edited by
F. J. Furnivall, vol. I. p. 218.
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 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 skorne[30]."
[30] Harman's _Caueat_ (E. E. T. S., Extra Series, No. ix.).
[Sidenote: (2) Vagrants on the Continent.]
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 early
as 1514[31]; 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 book[32]. In Germany, 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[33].
[31] _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_, II. p. 342.
[32] Preface to Harman's _Caueat_, E. E. T. S., p. 1.
[33] 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."
[Sidenote: 2. Causes for the existence of these bands of beggars.]
[Sidenote: (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 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 produce[34]." 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[35], 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.
[34] _Tales of a Grandfather_, last chapter, Sir W. Scott.
[35] _Utopia_, p. 30, "They that be thus destitute of service, either
starve for honger or manfullye playe the thieves."
[Sidenote: (2) Manufactures on a large scale less stable than old
occupations.]
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
centres came into existence and their produce began to be exported to
other lands, the inhabitants of whole districts would have little or no
work through no fault of their own. The great English manufacture of
the time was cloth, and crises in this trade occurred both when Wolsey
wanted to make war on the Netherlands and when the merchants wished to
prevent the exactions of Charles I. We shall see that the misery of the
inhabitants in the English cloth-making districts had much to do with
stimulating the growth of an administrative system for poor relief.
[Sidenote: (3) Rise of prices affecting food earlier than wages.]
Later on in the sixteenth century, another cause tended to increase
the hardships of the poor, and so necessitated new methods of poor
relief. The influx of silver from the New World caused a general rise
of prices. Food and clothing and rents rose more quickly than wages, so
that the poor could obtain fewer of the necessaries of life[36]. The
debasements of the English coinage, by Henry VIII. in 1527, 1543, 1545
and 1546, and by Edward VI. in 1551, still further increased this evil
in England, and during the transition the poorer classes must have been
the chief sufferers.
[36] Between 1511 and 1550 provisions seem to have risen about 60 p.c.
in price, and there is a further rise in the next ten years of another
fifty p.c.
Wheat the
quarter. Barley. Oxen. Hens. Herrings.
_s._ _d._ _s._ _d._ _s._ _d._ _d._ _s._ _d._
1511-1520 6 8¾ 4 0¼ 23 2 2 6 0¾
1521-1530 7 6 4 9 30 10¼ 3½ 6 7¼
1531-1540 7 8½ 4 11¾ 28 7½ 3¼ 6 8
1541-1550 10 8 6 2¼ 42 3¼ 5¾ 10 3
1551-1560 15 3¾ 10 0¼ 78 7½ 4¾ 11 0½
The rise in wages was barely 15 p.c. before 1550, though during the
next ten years there is a rise of 30 p.c., so that the rise in wages is
less than half that in the price of provisions.
Carpenter, Mason's Sawyers, Unskilled
average. Mason. labourer. pair. Tiler. Thatcher. Man. Plumber. labour.
_d._ _d._ _d._ _s._ _d._ _d._ _d._ _d._ _d._ _d._
1511-1520 6¼ 6 4 1 0 6 5¼ 4 6 3¾
1521-1530 6 6¼ 4¼ 1 0½ 6 6 4 6½ 4⅛
1531-1540 7 6¾ 4¼ 1 0½ 6½ 7 4½ 7 4
1541-1550 7 6¾ 4¾ 1 1½ 7½ 6½ 4½ 7½ 4⅝
1551-1560 10¾ 10 6¾ 1 5 9¼ -- 6¼ 8½ 6
_Hist. of Agric. and Prices_, vol. IV. pp. 292, 355, 545, and 524.
The effects following the break-up of the feudal system, the increase
of manufactures, and the rise of prices owing to the influx of silver
were in no way peculiar to England: they account quite as much for the
bands of vagrants on the Continent as for those of this country.
[Sidenote: (4) In England sheep were more profitable than corn.]
But one cause of distress affected England more than the other
countries of Europe. It had become more profitable to breed sheep than
to plough the land, and England was the great wool-producing country of
the world. Men, who had cultivated the soil, were evicted in order that
sheep-runs might be formed, and thus agricultural labourers and small
yeomen helped to swell the crowds of the unemployed.
[Sidenote: 3. Old methods of charity:]
The existence therefore of the crowd of vagrants can be accounted for
by the social and economic changes of the time, but it was none the
less dangerous on that account. The public authorities of state and
town began, early in the century, to make more frequent orders for
their repression, but it was soon clear that these orders could not be
effectual unless the relief of the poor were better organised.
[Sidenote: (1) Private individuals.]
For the most part charity was administered still either by private
individuals or ecclesiastical officials. We can form some idea of the
methods of private donors from Harman's description of Elizabeth,
Countess of Shrewsbury, to whom he dedicates his book. In his address
to her he says, he knows well her "tender, pytyfull, gentle and noble
nature; not onelye havinge a vygelant and mercifull eye to your poore,
indygente and feable parishnores; yea, not onely in the parishe where
your honour moste happely doth dwell, but also in others invyroninge
or nighe adioyning to the same; as also aboundantly powringe out
dayely your ardent and bountifull charytie upon all such as commeth
for reliefe unto your luckly gates." No wonder the writer thought it
was his "good necessary" and "bounden duty" to acquaint her with the
"abhominable wycked and detestable behavor" of some of those rogues who
"wyly wander, to the utter deludinge of the good gevers, decevinge and
impoverishinge of all such poore householders, both sicke and sore, as
neither can or maye walke abroad for reliefe and comfort, where, in
dede, most mercy is to be shewed[37]."
[37] Epistle to the _Caveat for Commen Cursetors_, pp. 19, 20.
Stow tells us, that he had himself seen two hundred people fed at
Cromwell's gate, twice every day, with bread, meat, and drink, "for
he observed that ancient and charitable custom, as all prelates,
noblemen or men of honour and worship, his predecessors had done
before him[38]." This open-handed hospitality thus seems to have been
the custom of the time, and if exercised, without discrimination and
supervision, would tend to foster the increase of idle beggars and do
little to lessen the hardships of the industrious poor.
[38] Stow's _Survey_, ed. Thoms, p. 34. Quoted in W. J. Ashley's
_Economic Hist._ II. p. 329.
[Sidenote: (2) Monasteries.]
The methods of distributing charity employed in the monasteries were
little better. It is true that the services rendered by the monks
and nuns to education were considerable, and that a number of old
people and children were maintained in some of the religious houses.
Lodging also was given to wayfarers, and thus a very useful function
was fulfilled in countries where there were few inns and no casual
wards. But much of the relief given to the poor by the monks seems to
have been distributed in a similar manner to that of the Countess of
Shrewsbury. Alms were given to the poor at the gates: many testators
had left money to be distributed in small doles at certain stated
periods. Moreover the relief given at different monasteries was not
coordinated in any way. The members of each institution gave their
alms in their own way without any reference to the gifts of their
neighbours. Besides, monks were not primarily intended to be relieving
officers, and were not placed where they would be most useful for that
purpose; there might be many in one neighbourhood and few or none
in another. The charity distributed by the monks therefore was to a
great extent unorganised and indiscriminate and did nearly as much to
increase beggars as to relieve them[39].
[39] The monks were also probably poorer at the beginning of the
sixteenth century than they had been in times past, and were so less
able to give relief. Father Gasquet quotes several cases in which the
revenues of the monasteries had been diminished by the demands made
upon them by those in power. He quotes a letter from the son of the
Duke of Buckingham, showing that in some cases they seem to have been
expected to provide free board and lodging for the poor relations of
wealthy families. "And because," the writer says, "he hath no dwelling
place meet for him to inhabit (he was) fain to live poorly at board in
an Abbey this four years day with his wife and seven children." _Henry
VIII. and the English Monasteries_, Gasquet, I. p. 34 n. See also p.
29. The revenues of the monastic bodies also largely consisted of
payments of fixed amounts, and would be unfavourably affected by the
rise in prices, which was especially great after the alteration of the
coinage in 1527.
[Sidenote: (3) Hospitals.]
But besides the monasteries there were hospitals. The term hospital
was by no means confined to institutions for relieving the sick, but
almshouses, orphanages and training homes were often called by this
name. St Thomas's Hospital may be taken as a typical institution of the
kind[40]. The date of its foundation is uncertain, but, early in the
thirteenth century, it was destroyed by fire, and in 1228 was rebuilt
on much the same site as that occupied by the St Thomas's Hospital of
our own time. In 1323 the brethren were ordered to follow the rule
of St Augustine, that is they were to take the vows of obedience
and chastity, and to renounce individual property. The hospital
consisted of Master, brethren, and sisters, and in the poet Gower's
time there were also nurses, for he left bequests to the Master,
brethren, sisters, and nurses, and asked from each their prayers. But,
although the rule of St Augustine and the prayers for the benefactors
belonged to the old order of things, the relief given to the poor was
essentially the same from the time of Henry III. to that of Queen
Victoria. It was founded for the relief and cure of poor people, and
in 1535 there were forty beds for the poor, and food and firing were
provided for them. Three years later it was surrendered into the hands
of Henry VIII., and under his successor was reconstituted mainly on the
old lines, but on a very much larger scale.
[40] W. Rendle, _St Thomas's Hospital_. The information in this paper
is derived from the Cartulary of S. Thomas, Stow MSS. 942.
There were however several drawbacks to the hospitals as institutions
for the relief of the poor. There was little security that the funds
were well administered or that the appointments were impartially made.
The king himself seems to have tried to exercise undue influence even
in the case of St Thomas's Hospital: in 1528 he pressed Wolsey to give
the Mastership to his chaplain, who, he said, was not learned enough
for the king. There were however worse abuses than this, and even as
early as the time of Henry V. it was necessary to pass a statute to
prevent the maladministration of hospital funds[41]. Moreover at best
the hospitals were only isolated centres of charity; they were not
numerous enough to deal with poverty as a whole, and they were not
connected with each other. The officials of each hospital acted on
their own responsibility and afforded much or little relief to the poor
of their immediate neighbourhood, but were almost as powerless as a
private individual to check the general evil.
[41] 2 Hen. V. Stat. I. c. 1. In the _Complaynt of Roderyck Mors_ the
writer asserts the existence of a similar evil: "I heare that the
masters of your hospytals be so fatt that the poore be kept leane and
bare inough," p. 52. Edition of E. E. T. S.
[Sidenote: 4. Attempts at Reorganisation.]
The charitable endowments of the Continent were as inefficient as
those of England, and both in England and abroad we find that attempts
were made to organise a public system of poor relief in order that
the honest poor might be relieved, and the bands of vagrants justly
punished and repressed. Prof. Ashley has sketched the early history
of poor relief on the Continent. He shows that, as early as 1522, the
German towns of Augsburg and Nuremburg endeavoured to regulate the
administration of charity in order to repress beggars, and that in
1525 the townsmen of Ypres reorganised their charitable institutions
on a general plan and subjected the whole to public management with
the approval of the ecclesiastical authorities. This organisation of
Ypres was submitted to the judgment of the Sorbonne and, with some
limitations, the principles involved were approved[42]. It is thus
clear that the necessity of reforming the administration of charity
was felt even in districts which were hostile to the Reformation, and
in countries where the Reformers were in power the old charitable
endowments were often seized by the public authorities, who by so doing
placed themselves under greater obligations to provide for the poor.
[42] Ashley, _Economic Hist._, vol. II. pp. 346, 347.
In England we find that the course of events is similar. The citizens
of London, before 1518, began to draw up orders with the object of
repressing vagrants and controlling charity, but after the dissolution
of the monasteries they found it necessary to refound and reorganise
the greater part of the existing system of relief. From that time until
the reign of Charles I. constant efforts were made to create and to
administer an efficient system of poor relief under public management.
In the reign of Charles I., and not until then, were the efforts
successful, and the English organisation is then seen to be almost[43]
the only successful survivor of the many schemes of the same kind which
had been tried in Western Europe.
[43] There was a successful system of poor relief in Holland.
[Sidenote: 5. (a) Three factors in the making of English poor relief.]
There were in England three principal factors in the development of
the system; first the orders of the municipal governors, secondly the
regulations of Parliament, and lastly the efforts made by the Privy
Council to induce the justices of the peace to put the law in execution.
[Sidenote: 5. (b) Three periods.]
These three factors help to create the English system of poor relief
from the reign of Henry VIII. to that of Charles I. But they are not of
the same relative importance throughout the whole period. Before 1569
the orders of the municipal governments are important, between 1569 and
1597 the history of legislation is more prominent, while after 1597 the
orders directed by the Privy Council to the justices become the most
powerful force in securing proper administration, and are therefore the
predominant factor in the development of the whole system.
We will consider each of these periods in turn and we shall find that,
while each contributed its share to the making of the English system
of poor relief, it was only during the last that the success of the
organisation was assured.