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Poverty, Protest and Rebellion in Wales and England c.1485-1603

Change and continuity in the treatment of poverty

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 3

Overview

Recall questions on what replaced monastic charity, how far attitudes to the poor hardened or softened, the shift from voluntary alms to a rate, and the parish as the unit of relief.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What remained the same throughout the period?

Key term

How did the reasons given for poverty change over the period?

Numbers

What role did dearth and crisis play in driving legislation?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is the single greatest change in the treatment of poverty between 1485 and 1601?

    Model answer

    The shift from relief as voluntary Christian charity, regulated only by licensing beggars, to a compulsory tax levied by parish officers and enforced by the state.

  2. 2

    What remained the same throughout the period?

    Model answer

    The distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor, the parish as the unit of responsibility, the belief that relief belonged where a person was settled, and the punishment of the wandering able-bodied.

  3. 3

    Describe the pace of change across the century.

    Model answer

    It was slow and uneven before 1550, gathered speed under Elizabeth as compulsion replaced exhortation in stages between 1563 and 1572, and was consolidated at the very end in 1598 and 1601.

  4. 4

    Was the movement towards compulsory rates driven by London and Westminster or by the towns?

    Model answer

    By the towns: London, Norwich, York and Ipswich were rating their inhabitants and organising work for the poor before Parliament required it, and national law generalised what local practice had proved.

  5. 5

    How did the reasons given for poverty change over the period?

    Model answer

    Early legislation assumed idleness and vice; by the later part of the century, after the dearths and the collapse of the cloth trade, statutes and town surveys acknowledged unemployment, sickness, old age and large families as real causes.

  6. 6

    Did the punishment of vagrants become harsher or milder?

    Model answer

    It grew harsher to a peak in the slavery act of 1547 and the ear-boring of 1572, then eased at the end of the century to whipping and return home, as provision of work became the preferred remedy.

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