16th and 17th Centuries

Why was vagrancy such a problem at this time?Population was growing

Increasing wealth & poverty

Increase in taxation Attitudes of the Landowners

Invention of the printing press

Who were the vagabonds?

Beggars, tramps and vagrants who wandered country without a settled job

Some were ex-soldiers or criminals Most were unemployed people searching

for work NB communities were small and people

feared strangers!

Problem of vagabondsHow were the poor

helped? Attitudes towards idleness

Seen as a cause of crime Rising costs

How serious was the problem?“Idle beggars make corrosives and apply them to the fleshy parts of their bodies … to raise pitiful sores and move the hearts of passers-by… They are all thieves and extortioners. They lick the sweat from the true labourer’s brow and take from the godly poor what is due to them … they are now supposed to mount to above 10,000 persons…” [1577]

“I may justly say that the infinite numbers of idle, wandering people and robbers of the land are the chief cause of the problem because they labour not …The most dangerous are the wandering soldiers and other stout rogues. Of these wandering people there are three or four hundred in a shire…” [1596]

How was vagrancy dealt with?

1537 Beggars & vagrants whipped & sent back to birthplace

1540 1st offence= 2 years slavery 2nd offence=slavery for life or death

1550 Act of 1540 repealed as too severe – return to 1537 Act

1572 1st offence =whipping & burning of ear. 2nd offence = execution

1576 Houses of Correction to be built to punish & employ persistent beggars

1593 1572 Act repealed as too harsh. Return to 1531 Act

1598 Vagrants beaten & sent home. Could be sent to House of Correction by JPs, banished or executed

Witches and witch hunting 1542 Law passed classing

witchcraft as a crime 1590 Future James I wrote

a book on witchcraft 1645 Matthew Hopkins –

the ‘Witch Finder General’ 1717 Last trial for

witchcraft 1743 Law saying

witchcraft was a crime repealed

Why were witches hunted?

A time ofgreat politicaland religious

upheaval-the Civil

War & the Reformation

King James Iwrote a book

about witches.He was a well

read and educated man

Facts about witch huntingBetween 1500 and 1700 up to 1000 people were executed for witchcraft but many more were accused

Those accused of witchcraft were mainly lonely old women

Matthew Hopkins is the most famous witch finder but his story is not typical

Hopkins used torture to extract confessions from the accusedWitches were often ‘swum’ to prove their guilt or innocence

Accusations began to tail off as the country settled down