‘ ROOME FOR COMPANIE ’ Defini fining ng the Poor r and d their ir Place e in the Ea Early y Moder dern n En England nd Commun unity ty by Jessica ca Spark rks
WHAT TO EXPECT • Historiography • My Argument • Laws Poor Laws • Alehouse Legislation • • About the Poor Laws Inspiration • Overview • • How the poor were categorized • Literature Rogue Literature • Ballads • Early Modern Plays, The Winters Tale • • Institutions of Community • Opening up the idea of self-worth
HISTORIOGRAPHY Patri ricia cia Fumerton erton Mark rk Hailwood wood Unsettled: The Culture of Alehouses and Good Fellowship Mobility and the Working Poor in Early Modern England in Early Modern England (2014) (2010) - Idea of the ‘unsettled’ poor - Main premise of the book is and workers charting the history of the - Focus on men back from alehouse and how it played a sea vs. those who wander defining role in English social and cultural life.
MY ARGUMENT • In sixteenth and seventeenth century England, the many laws and literat rature re exposed a motivation to clearly define members of society and place them within certain institutions of the community such as the parish and the alehouse. Laws ws Lite teratu rature re - The Poor Laws - Rogue Literature - Alehouse Legislation - Broadside Ballads - Early Modern Plays
LAWS • The ‘Old Poor Laws’ • Alehouse Legislation laws ranging from 14 th – end of the 17 th • Aimed to enact limitations on the century consumption of ale and the allowed ‘functions’ the alehouse served, but • Show a distinction between two reveal the connection between the categories of the poor, the undeserving alehouse and the rogues, vagabonds, and deserving poor, and where they the underserving poor of society. should be placed within the community.
THE ‘OLD POOR LAWS’ & THE EARLY MODERN COMMUNITY • What inspired the Poor Laws? • Significant Population growth in the 16th Century 1521, population at 2.3m • 1591, nearly doubled to 3.89m • • At the same time, London was rapidly rising in importance amongst Europe’s commercial centres. • Growing tide of migration • Those seeking work and food: moving from village to town, crowding • London population surge: estimated 50,000 in 1530 – about 225,000 in 1605.
OVERVIEW OF THE POOR LAWS • 1338 38 Statut atute e of f Cambri mbridge: dge: Distinguished between beggars considered ‘sturdy’ and capable of work and those who were ‘impotent’ infirm old and unemployable for work. • 1572 72 : : between 1572 and 1601 mandatory assessment for the relief of the poor was finally and fully established as a principle of English law. • 1576: 76: Larger towns set-up workshops for the purpose of creating and funding more work for the poor. Emphasis on poor relief being a community or local issue. • 1598 98-1601: 1601: JPs (Justices of the Peace) were charged with responsibility for administration locally of the law. • Parish Overseers were appointed to oversee the administration of Poor Relief in each Parish.
HOW THE POOR WERE CATEGORIZED There was then good orders devised for the poor’s relief, & poor people were distinguished by three several degrees, in manner following: Thre ree degre grees s of poor. 1. The poor by impotency. 2. Poor by casualty. 3. Thristlesse poor. 1. The poor by impotency, were also divided into 3 kinds 1. The fatherless pore mans child. 2. The aged, blind, and lame. Deserving 3. The diseased person, by leprosy dropsies, &c. Poor 2. The poor by casualty, were also of three kinds. 1. The wounded Soldier. 2. The decayed Householder. 3. The visited with grievous disease. 3. The thriftlesse poor were likewise of 3. kinds. Undeserving 1. The Rioter, that cons meth all. Poor 2. The Vagabond, that will abide in no place . 3. The idle person, as Strumpets and others. *Anthony Munday, A briefe chronicle, of the successe of times, (1611).
POPULAR PERCEPTIONS OF THE POOR • Rogue Literature This genre stemmed from the categorization of the poor during the period. Writers like John Awdeley and • Thomas Harman wrote manuals and guides to defining the poor: “The Fraternity of Vagabonds” (1561) – Awdeley • “A Carveat for Common Curistors, Vulgarly Called Vagabonds” (1566) – Harman • • Broadside Ballads Cheap and accessible to almost everyone, ballads were widely popular in the early modern period. Many • ballads featured Beggar tunes and themes of the poor. Most featured drinking and were seen to encourage ‘good fellowship’ in alehouses. “Mock -Beggers Hall, with his scituation in the spacious Country, called, Any where” (1635?) • “ Roome for Companie, heere comes Good Fellowes” (1617) • • Early Modern Plays featuring barbs William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1602) – The character of Autolycus • Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedy (1614) – The character of Nightingale •
ROGUE LITERATURE JOHN AWDELEY AND THOMAS HARMAN • “The Fraternity of Vagabonds” – John Awdeley • Wild Rogue: “he that hath no abidin ing place ce but by his color of going ing abroad oad to beg is commonly to seek k some kinsman nsman of his, and all that be of his corporation be properly called Rogues ues .” • “A Carveat for Common Curistors, Vulgarly Called Vagabonds” – Thomas Harman • Wild Rogue: “ he that is born n a rogu gue. His is more subtle and more given by nature to all kind of knavery than the other, as beastly begotten in barn or bushes and from his infancy traded up in treachery.” Harman later writes that while the Wild Rogue did go abroad he was still an idle character who claimed to be a “ beggar ar by inher eritance ance: his grandfather was a beggar, his father was one, and he must needs be one by good reason”
BROADSIDE BALLADS Roome for Companie, heere comes Good Fellowes -- “ Roome for company, here comes good fellowes, etc. Alcumistes and Pedler lers, Whoor ores es, , Bawdes es, & Beggers: Roome for company, in Bartholmew Faire: Auncients and Banners, Concluders, with Scanners, Roome for company, in Bartholmew Faire .”
THE PLAY’S THE THING Autolycus in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale - Commercial character - Typical barb, selling ballads - A roguish character, humorous to the early modern audience, but represents the fear of instability in the community and a justified distrust of those considered ‘undeserving’. “Ha , ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman !” IV,4,2556
INSTITUTIONS OF COMMUNITY • The Parish • The Alehouse • The parish was seen as the moral center • A space for recreation drinking, but also of the community and a space where the one for business and good fellowship. deserving poor were expected to find • Seen as a threat to the stability of local relief. communities. A place where the • According to a majority of the Poor Laws, undeserving poor were expected to be. it was in the jurisdiction of the parish to • The alehouse had a reputation as being oversee the relief of the deserving poor; the breeding ground for sinful attitudes those under its care were seen as and the wrong doers in society: beggars, belonging to the parish robbers, and thieves. Rogues were defined as those who dwell The late 16 th century was a period of vast • • and beg in an area which was not their changes in the alehouse proclamations. place; not their parish.
THINKING ABOUT THE EARLY MODERN POOR AND THEIR SELF-WORTH Alexandra Shepard’s Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status, and the Social Order in Early Modern England (2015) Move to examine who defined themselves as poor. Uses the data of several thousand court witnesses' responses • to questions asking them what they were worth, in goods, to know how people viewed their worth. No surprise, worth was centered on the circumstances of one's • wealth and “distinctions grew between those who had means and those who were required to get or produce them.” While the people chosen as witnesses were those of some • means, the "poor" or "vagrant" classes were ignored, a fair number of the community had identified themselves as poor. Mostly it was the “absence of any established residence” which served as a “mark of indigence that raised the spectra of vagrancy.”
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