Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 November 22

= November 22 =

Why was Vagrancy treated so harshly in medieval / early modern England?
According to multiple laws passed over the centuries in England, vagrants (that is, people without homes and employment) were subject to punishments ranging from whipping, imprisonment, mutilation, and for repeat offenders death. This seems extreme and horrific by modern standards, and also appears to be extreme by contemporary international standards (although that may be an artefact of the Vagrancy article giving more detail about England than any other country). Why was vagrancy seen as such a serious crime that it should be punished so harshly? And why (assuming this is actually was the case) was England so much harsher than other countries? Iapetus (talk) 14:46, 22 November 2021 (UTC)




 * There was a belief that vagrancy was caused by voluntary idleness; which is to say that if someone was unemployed, they did so purely by choice. You can see in things like the various Vagabond Acts (such as Vagabonds Act 1547, a vagabond being a synonym for a vagrant) that people who were unemployed and unhoused could be placed into forced labor.  Many of these acts contained exceptions for the infirm, elderly, and otherwise incapable of working; the Vagabonds Act 1530 provided that such people could apply for a license to beg, for example.  -- Jayron 32 19:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I was aware of that much. What I'm interested in is the reasoning / social causes / justification for the idea that if someone is voluntarily idle, they should be jailed, mutilated, tortured, enslaved, or - if that still doesn't make them work - killed. Iapetus (talk) 11:02, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Were you able to access the article by Chambliss on JSTOR? It does address your questions. fiveby(zero) 12:38, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Wardog -- it wasn't itinerant laborers or people with obvious physical disabilities that were perceived to be the problem, but so-called "sturdy beggars". Sometimes people were quite terrified of "sturdy beggars", who were considered to be gangs of thugs who went from village to village, shaking down the inhabitants with threats and bullying -- and the laws were made harsh proportional to the fear.  We have an article Sturdy beggar... AnonMoos (talk) 01:24, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
 * By the way, beginning in Elizabethan times, there was a "poor law" in England whose provisions were not too generous, but which often kept people from starving to death. To receive benefits under the law, you had to stay in your home parish, while sturdy beggars were likely to roam from parish to parish... AnonMoos (talk) 01:30, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, parishes didn't want to be paying for another parish's paupers. Another factor was the fear that wandering paupers would band together and get up to no good. Another factor was that landowners didn't want disgruntled labourers wandering-off in the hope of finding a better employer. It was all about holding the fabric of society together. Alansplodge (talk) 11:47, 23 November 2021 (UTC)