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Government, Rebellion and Society in Wales and England c.1485-1603

Poverty, vagrancy and the poor laws

  • 3 things to know
  • AS Unit 1

Overview

Recall questions on why poverty grew across the century, the line drawn between those who could work and those who could not, the shift from alms to a compulsory rate, and how the parish came to run relief.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

Who administered relief in the parish, what charity existed alongside it, and why did the Tudor state organise poverty rather than leave it to alms?

Key term

Give three causes of increasing poverty in the sixteenth century.

Key term

Distinguish the impotent poor from the able-bodied poor.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Give three causes of increasing poverty in the sixteenth century.

    Model answer

    Population growth outstripping food supply, inflation eroding real wages, and the loss of monastic charity after the dissolution.

  2. 2

    Distinguish the impotent poor from the able-bodied poor.

    Model answer

    The impotent poor could not work through age, infirmity or infancy; the able-bodied could work and were expected to.

  3. 3

    Who were the sturdy beggars?

    Model answer

    Able-bodied people who were assumed to be refusing work, and who were treated as vagrants rather than as deserving of relief.

  4. 4

    Why did vagrancy frighten Tudor governments?

    Model answer

    Masterless men outside the discipline of household, parish and lord were seen as a source of crime, disorder and possible rebellion.

  5. 5

    What punishment did the 1547 Vagrancy Act prescribe, and what happened to it?

    Model answer

    It allowed a persistent vagrant to be branded and enslaved for two years, and it proved so harsh that it was repealed in 1550.

  6. 6

    What did the 1572 Act introduce that was genuinely new?

    Model answer

    A compulsory local poor rate, so relief was funded by a tax on parishioners rather than by voluntary alms.

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