Needless to say the lesser gentry aped the manners of those above them - the “nobilitas major”. Crime reports in late seventeenth century London contain numerous references to ‘gentlemen’ who were ready to commit acts of violence, often in defence of what they perceived to be their ‘honour’. A pamphlet of 1684, describing the death of a poor waterman who was murdered after allegedly bumping accidentally into a ‘gentleman’ in a dark alleyway, commented how such men would kill in response to the slightest affront even if it was a simple mistake. This is a clear illustration of this idea of aristocratic crime as mere arrogant delinquency. The involvement of the gentry as a whole in acts of violence and in such debauchery as drunkenness and womanising suggests that the propertied classes ‘respectability’ and distance from ‘criminality’ was a more complex issue than previously thought. However the violence does seem to have become less widespread as the period unfolds – less gangs of thugs employed or encouraged by ‘gentleman’ and due to the introduction of the duel much of the violence was confined to a certain class of people, even though there are a host of exceptions where a gentleman (such as described in the pamphlet) killed an innocent for no apparent reason. Gentry involvement in other forms of crime was more limited. They frequently indulged in poaching, and some were involved, at least to some degree in organised crime such as smuggling gangs and wrecking. There is an obvious distinction between these sort of crimes caused by short tempers and arrogant attitudes and the crimes of necessity such as stealing to survive which was the millstone of the poor.
Arguably one of the most interesting developments over the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a greater sensitivity to petty crime and the emergence of a notion of the criminal which in many ways was very close to the idea of the ‘criminal class’ of the Victorian social debate. In the same vein, another crucial development in crime during the period was the criminalisation of the poor, or at least a reconceptualization of ‘crime’ in such a way that it came to mainly consist of forms of behaviour in which the poor were most likely to indulge. Indeed whilst occasional members of the nobility turned criminal (apart from those acts already discussed), the vast majority of offenders in petty crimes such as pick-pocketing and stealing were drawn from the lower classes and predominately the poor who “moved in and out of crime as need and opportunity dictated”. By the end of the eighteenth century this ‘Victorian’ attitude to crime had permeated through all levels of society and crime was, for the most part, regarded primarily as an activity of the poor.
The increase throughout our period in vagrancy, begging and petty crime such as stealing is indicative of the socio-economic climate of the time and changes throughout the period. There is no doubt that these crime were economically motivated and were for the large part a necessity to survival. Population increase was arguably the most important factor in this petty crime increase. There were more people around, and a high proportion of them were poor. Even in what passed for good times in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there would never be enough work all year round. The fluctuations and rhythm of the pre-industrial economy meant that around harvest time there was a high level of employment for a month or so, but in the slacker periods of the agricultural year there would simply not be enough work to warrant extensive employment. In bad times, those who enjoyed at best a marginal economic existence would be thrown into acute poverty. Harvest failure could send the price of essentials such as bread, the stable food, above the level at which the poor could afford to buy it – resulting in the poor resorting to crimes of necessity such as stealing for food and petty crime. A contemporary observer Sir Thomas Chaloner observed that economic depression “brings more to the gallows in England in one year than a great part of Europe consumeth in many”.
The problems of petty crime and vagrancy therefore can be seen as the products of two interlocking phenomena: the gradual population increase which perhaps doubled the inhabitants in England between 1500 and 1630 and thus created severe long term pressures on resources and produced a large body of the chronically poor; and the tendency in this period for this steady pressure on resources to be punctuated by periods of short, sharp and acute disaster such as when the harvest failed. The willingness of the poor to resort to crime to tide themselves over during periods of crisis is examined by Gaskill. His study of the mentalities of the ‘criminals’ of the period (as previously stated) comes to the conclusion that this willingness was due in part to necessity and in part to a cultural notion that it was acceptable. Indeed one must consider the culture of the time and be careful not to judge the period using current morals and ideas of social acceptability. Many of the poor held different opinions about at least some areas of the law from their rulers, the legality of illegality of certain forms of conduct is a subject on which the poor had very different views to those who made the laws. Thus what could be considered ‘criminal activity’ such as poaching, stealing livestock for subsistence and ‘gleaning’, was not considered criminal by the poor perpetrators, but merely a necessary means of ‘getting by’. However given that the ones being stolen from and gleaned off were the ones to make the laws and prosecute, such actions appear criminal. In many areas gathering firewood from privately owned forests (which like ‘gleaning’ was an ‘old custom’ which the poor considered their right) was redefined as crime.
Criminal activity therefore must be examined more closely as a concept before conclusions can be drawn as to how closely it is liked to economic circumstance. Whilst there is little doubt that crimes such as stealing were ‘criminal’ this grey area of ‘social crime’ (which includes actions such as ‘gleaning’ and the gathering of firewood) is a complex issue. The taking of ‘perks’ was endemic in many trades, and some workmen, notably miners and shipyard workers, became notorious for the amount of material they took from their workplace. However given that this was an ‘old custom’ and not considered criminal by the workmen, can we as historians consider such actions stealing? Poaching for example can be defended by the argument that ‘no private property in wild animals can legitimately exist’. However around this whole issue it is clear that social crime, petty crime and such dubious activities like the taking of ‘perks’ revolved primarily around one social group – the poor. The ‘old customs’ were fundamentally semi-legitimized forms of stealing which allowed the poor a buffer against being plunged into acute poverty in the event of a periodic economic disaster like a harvest failure. For the purposes of this essay therefore it is possible to classify these actions as ‘criminal activity’ in the loosest sense, because they are all linked to the economic circumstances of the perpetrators.
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the authorities became increasingly convinced of the need to ‘control the poor’. In some senses this was a reaction to the increases in petty crime already discussed but in another sense it was yet another step in the criminalisation of the poor which was to lead to the Victorian concept of a ‘criminal class’. Recent research has shown that the poor were becoming vastly more numerous throughout the period and contemporary opinion was that they were becoming more troublesome. The familiar product of these opinions was the vagrant stereotype created in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. A shift is also discernable in the function of the courts and the law. At a village level, for example Terling in Essex, the courts were being used not to settle disputes as before but primarily to control and regulate the behaviour of the local poor. Sharpe argues that this situation was “merely a local microcosm of a much wider national criminalisation of the poor”. An examination therefore of ‘criminal activity’ in the period and its relation to economic circumstances must take into account this phenomenon. One must when examining the evidence bear this in mind and take into account that the large amount of reported offences by the poor, were a combination of disagreements over what was ‘criminal’ (the ‘old customs’ etc.) and also due to a national criminalization of the poor at the time.
Whilst there was obviously contemporary bias against the poor at the time, one cannot ignore the vast amount of crimes committed by that group. The poor had not only become more numerous, they were also becoming, and were perceived as being, more disorderly. Crime seems to have been committed by the poor as a whole. The poor of course should not be regarded as an undifferentiated mass, as there were distinctions – for example the common thief and whore compared to the farm labourer who committed crimes only when forced to do so. Once misfortune sent such people on a downward spiral it was very difficult for them to maintain respectability. For many of them begging, working and stealing were equally attractive aids for survival, each of them suited to certain occasions and periods. Sharpe argues that such people were not necessarily considered ‘criminal’ at the time, but merely formed a constant irritant. The need for such people to survive outside of harvest time or employment in general contributed greatly to England’s theft and petty crime rates.
Vagrancy was also a problem in the period which was undeniably linked to economic circumstance and also undeniably contributed greatly to English ‘criminal activity’. Vagrants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included the pathetic, the unlucky and the bizarre but also included the professional criminals. However most of the crime committed by vagrants were small-scale, opportunistic thefts. Typical of the ‘vagrant criminal’ are two northerners arrested at Warwick in 1580 who confessed to having stolen ducks, geese and pigs on their travels in order to survive. This is strong evidence to support the idea of ‘subsistence crime’ practiced by the terminally poor in times of need. There was of course a ‘hard core’ of professionally criminal vagrants whose activities are also recorded. Many professional pick-pockets – a relatively skilful group of criminals which grew in our period, made a substantial income and were very different to the small-scale opportunism practiced by the majority of the poor – seem to have been vagrants. Sharpe argues that there was some truth behind the contemporary propaganda of the pamphleteers who argued that there was a ‘vagrant problem’ and that vagrants were involved in organised crime. However the vast majority of vagrants, vagabonds and the poor seem to have been more similar to the two northerners arrested at Warwick in 1580 – small time, opportunistic, subsistence criminals. ‘Criminal activity’ then of this vein was indisputably closely linked to economic circumstances.
In conclusion therefore one can see ‘criminal activity’ in early modern England as being on the whole very closely linked to economic circumstances. Arguably there are three general types of crime: the ‘arrogant delinquency’ practiced by the gentry, the organised and professional crime and finally the ‘subsistence crime’ carried out by those whose economic circumstances necessitated criminal activity. Whilst the first of these is not motivated by economic circumstances it is, as previously argued, linked due the security of the gentry both socially and economically. The latter two however are due to purely economic concerns. One must conclude therefore, that ‘criminal activity’ was very closely linked to economic circumstances in early modern England.
J.A. Sharpe – “Crime and Delinquency in an Essex Parish 1600-1640”, [in. Crime in England 1550-1800, ed. J. S. Cockburn (1977)] p.96
Malcolm Gaskill – “Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England” (2000) p.15
J.A. Sharpe – “Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750” (2nd ed. 1999) p.143
D. Hay – “Property, Authority and the Criminal Law” in. Albion’s Fatal Tree: Law and Society in Eighteenth Century England - ed. Douglas Hay and others (1975) pp.33-4
Whilst Barbara Hanawalt’s idea was directed more at the fourteenth century, the metaphor can be equally be applied to our period.
J.A. Sharpe – “Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750” (2nd ed. 1999) p.139
“A True Account of a Bloody and Barbarous Murder, committed on the body of John Sparks, Waterman, by John Hitchins, in Fleet Street, near Serjeants-Inn, London” , (London, 1684) p.1 [in. J.A. Sharpe – “Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750” (2nd ed. 1999) p.139
J.A. Sharpe – “Early Modern England – A Social History, 1550-1760” (2nd ed. 1997) p.117
Barbara Hanawalt – “Crime and Conflict in English Communities 1300-1348” (1979) p.114
D.C. Coleman – “Labour in the English Economy of the Seventeenth Century” – in. Economic History Review 2nd series, 8, 1956, pp.288-95
J.A. Sharpe – “Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750” (2nd ed. 1999) p.142
J.S. Cockburn – “The Nature and Incidence of Crime in England 1559-1625: A Preliminary Survey” , [in. Crime in England 1550-1800, ed. J. S. Cockburn (1977)] p.49
J.A. Sharpe – “Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750” (2nd ed. 1999) p.179
Eric Hobsbawm – “Distinctions between socio-political and other forms of crime” p.6 - [in. J.A. Sharpe – “Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750” (2nd ed. 1999) p.179]
this example is cited by Sharpe in his book “Early Modern England – A Social History, 1550-1760” (2nd ed. 1997) p.117
J.A. Sharpe – “Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750” (2nd ed. 1999) p.146
described by Sharpe in “Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750” (2nd ed. 1999) p.144
