Identify four causes of the increase in poverty and vagrancy in the Tudor period.

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History Coursework

a) Identify four causes of the increase in poverty and vagrancy in the Tudor period.

Due to factors such as good weather and a good harvest prior to Tudor times the population had grown dramatically.

From the 1350’s the farming methods had changed, the manor system of farming was no longer available to fall back on.

There was a price rise.  Due to such factors as the population rise, gold bullion being brought across the Atlantic flooding the market and local attempts to de base the coinage.

The collapse of the English wool trade in 1553 to 1554 affected local employment.

b) Explain briefly why poverty and vagrancy aroused so much concern.

Poverty and Vagrancy aroused so much concern mainly through the fears that contemporaries had about the poor and vagrants.  The fear of personal attack, the fear of uprisings, the fear of the spread of disease and the fear that conditions would spread to them were the main factors contemporaries had for concern

The main concern was arisen by the fear of personal attack.  Dismissed armada servicemen and men dismissed from personal armies after Henry VII’s ban on retaining under the statute of livery and maintenance in 1504 causes grave concern for contemporaries.  Such servicemen had been dismissed from service after the threat from the Spanish armada had passed, they swelled the numbers of vagrants and poor as there were not enough jobs to go round.  Such servicemen by themselves were not such a large threat.  However, they became a threat as many of them had been allowed to keep their weapons in lieu of pay.  This was of concern as there were bands of poor and hungry ex-servicemen throughout the country who would more than likely rob you than ask for charity.  

Poverty and vagrancy also aroused concern, especially in towns and cities during the plague years of the 1590’s as the fear of disease was associated with the poor and vagrants.  Contemporaries would have tried to avoid them due to the perceived threat of plague they harboured.

The visible presence of poverty and vagrancy also aroused concern amongst businessmen and shopkeepers.  Vagrants and the poor were considered bad for trade and the city image.  Whilst cities and towns took a lead in local legislation to ease the problem provincial villages and hamlets had little law enforcement and ineffective legislation making the poor and vagrants a cause of concern.  It has been written that local JP’s were intimidated into letting convicted vagrants go free and local law enforcement officers were afraid of large groups of vagrants as they were “too strong”.  These factors would also have added to the concern caused to contemporaries by poverty and vagrancy.

The volume of poor, beggars and vagrants was also a cause for concern as they presented the fear of uprisings.  The concern was that the numbers of sturdy beggars could swell the ranks of existing rebels to a point where the authorities could not cope.  It was feared that beggars, vagrants and the poor would have nothing better to do and would therefore join the rebellion.  In actual fact this was not the case but the possible threat it posed was huge.  During the period 1549 and 1553 there were many uprisings due to the economic crisis of Edward VI, none of which came to anything, but the threat and concern was huge.

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There was also of course the fear that the economic and social conditions of the poor and vagrants would spread to the contemporaries surveying them.  It was a question of out of sight out of mind as during the 1550’s vagrants were often whipped and sent home.  Constantly moving the problem on allayed concerns but did nothing about the problem.

c) To what extent was the Elizabethan response sympathetic to the problem of poverty and vagrancy?   

Up until the 1560’s legislation regarding poverty and vagrancy had largely been very ...

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