Of existing legislation a statute of the beginning of the 17th century (43 Eliz. c. 2, 1601) is the earliest, under which, by parochial taxation, parish officers are directed to provide a stock of materials for “setting the poor on work” (that is to say, persons “married or unmarried having no means to maintain them [and that] use no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their living by ”), and further for setting to work their children; “and also competent sums of money for and towards the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind, and such others among them being poor and not able to work.” The same statute enacts “that the father and grandfather and the mother and grandmother and the children of every poor old, blind, lame, and impotent person, or other poor person not able to work, being of a sufficient ability, shall at their own charges relieve and maintain every such poor person.”

Although the statute of Elizabeth is spoken of as the principal foundation of existing legislation relating to the poor, it is an error to say that the relief of the poor originated at that period. The common law of England has been already cited, and traces of poor laws, however far removed from a system, are found in all civilized states. An approximation to the principle may be discerned in the legislation of England at a very early period; and before the Norman Conquest laws of Athelstane, establishing a responsibility over households and landowners, although intended for good order and calculated to prevent the growth of vagabondage and violence, had also the effect of establishing reciprocal relations between the landless man and the landowner, between property and poverty, between the householder and the houseless,—casting upon one the duty of supervising the conduct and providing for the wants of the other, in some respects similar to the poor law of the present day. “The results of this legislation were likewise, it may be presumed, not very dissimilar, for the improvident and the indolent would endeavour, with the smallest amount of labour, to obtain the largest amount of assistance from the householder who was liable for their support and responsible for their conduct, whilst the householder would as certainly endeavour to obtain the largest amount of labour in return for the cost and responsibility to which he was subject.” Again, so long as serfdom and villenage prevailed, whether to be traced to the Norman Conquest or not, there could be no call for any special provision for the destitute. “The persons who might, if free agents and in a destitute state, have been properly relieved out of a common stock, would as serfs or villeins have a claim on their masters, to whom they belonged, and who were bound to provide for them” (Nicholls). As those old ties became more relaxed the change to freedom was accompanied by some evils, and led to a great increase of vagrancy; and from a period commencing before the close of the 14th century there was a stream of legislation on the subject. An Act of 12 Richard II., after providing for labour to persons able to work (see Labour and Labour Laws, vol. xiv. p. 167), enacts “that beggars impotent to serve shall abide in the cities and towns where they may be dwelling at the time of the proclamation of this statute, and, if the people of the cities and towns will not, or may not, suffice to find them, that these, the said beggars, shall draw them to other towns within the hundred, rape, or wapentake, or to the towns where they were born, within forty days after the proclamation made, and there shall continually abide during their lives.” This is the first enactment in which the impotent poor are directly named as a separate class, and on that account it has been mistakenly regarded as the origin of the English poor laws; but it makes no provision for their relief, and the chief characteristic of the statute is the fact of its having openly recognized the distinction between “beggars able to labour” and “beggars impotent to serve.” Passing over intermediate legislation, by an Act passed in 1530, “directing how aged, poor, and impotent persons compelled to live by alms, shall be ordered, and how vagabonds and beggars shall be punished,” justices of the peace were required to give licences under their seals to such poor, aged, and impotent persons to beg within a certain precinct as they should think to have most need; “and if any do beg out of his precinct he shall be set in the stocks two days and nights; and if any beg without such licence he shall be whipped, or else be set in the stocks three days and three nights, with bread and water only. And persons being whole and mighty in body, and able to labour, who shall beg, or be vagrants and not able to account how they get their living, shall be whipped, and sworn to return to the place where they were born, or last dwelt by the space of three years, and there put themselves to labour” (22 Hen. VIII. c. 12).

Six years later an important and very interesting Act was passed reciting that, although it had been ordained that aged, poor, and impotent people should repair to the hundred where they were born or had dwelt for three years before, no provision had been made how they should be ordered at their coming thither, nor how the hundred should be charged for their relief. It was therefore enacted that the mayors, sheriffs, constables, householders, and all other head officers of every city, shire, town, and parish, at the repair and coming thither of such poor creature should most charitably receive them, and all the governors and ministers of every such place should succour, find, and keep them by way of voluntary and charitable alms, as should be thought meet in their discretion, in such wise as none of the poor persons of very necessity should be compelled to go openly in begging, on pain of every parish making default forfeiting 20s. a month. The head officers and churchwardens, or two others of every parish in the realm, were required to gather and procure such voluntary and charitable alms of the good Christian people, by means of boxes every Sunday, holiday, and other festival, in such good and discreet ways as the poor, impotent, lame, feeble, sick, and diseased people, being not able to work, may be provided, holpen, and relieved, so that in no wise none of them be suffered to go openly in begging, and such as be lusty may be kept in continual labour. Every preacher, parson, vicar, and curate, as well in their sermons, collections, bidding of the beads, as in time of confessions, and at the making of the wills or testaments of any* persons, at all times of the year shall exhort, move, stir, and provoke people to be liberal. Certain of the poor people were themselves appointed to collect and gather broken meats and fragments and the refuse drink of every householder in the parish, to be distributed equally among the poor at discretion. The overplus of collections in rich and wealthy parishes was distributable towards the sustentation of other poor parishes. The Act provided that, where the voluntary and unconstrained alms and charity, together with any moneys added or given from any monasteries or persons or bodies, proved insufficient, the officers and inhabitants should not incur the penalty nor be constrained to any contribution other than at their free will, provided that what was collected was justly distributed. Provision was made for duly accounting and for the punishment of embezzlement. Constables, churchwardens, and collectors of alms had, however, allowance for their loss of time and their travelling expenses (27 Hen. VIII. c. 25).

A number of statutes were passed after the dissolution of the monasteries for further providing for the poor and impotent, who had increased in great numbers. Many of these statutes were specially directed against vagrancy, and have been referred to in the article already mentioned, as closely connected with compulsory labour.

At the commencement of the reign of Edward VI. (1547) a statute also affecting labourers and vagrants and dealing very harshly with them (see vol. xiv. p. 168), reciting that there are many maimed and otherwise lamed, sore, aged, and impotent persons which, resorting together and making a number, do fill the streets or highways of divers cities, towns, markets, and fairs, who, if they were separated, might easily be nourished in the towns and places wherein they were born, or have been most abiding for the space of three years, enacted that the mayor, constable, or other head officer of any city, town, or hundred shall see all such idle, impotent, and aged persons, who otherwise cannot be taken for vagabonds, which were born within the said city, town, or hundred, or have been most conversant there by the space of three years and now decayed, bestowed and provided for of tenantries, cottages, or other convenient houses to be lodged in, at the costs of the place, there to be relieved and cured by the devotion of good people, and suffer no others to remain and beg there, but shall convey them on horseback, cart, chariot, or otherwise to the next constable, and so from constable to constable, till they be brought to the place where they were born, or most conversant as aforesaid; provided that, if they were not so lame or impotent but that they might do some manner of work, work was to be provided either in common, or place them with such persons as would find them work for meat and drink. For the furtherance of the relief of such as were in “unfeigned misery,” the curate of every parish was required on every Sunday and holiday, after reading the gospel of the day, to make (according to such talent as God hath given him) a godly and brief exhortation to his parishioners, moving and exciting them to remember the poor people, and the duty of. Christian charity in relieving of them which be their brethren in Christ, born in the same parish, and needing their help. There was a proviso that all leprous and poor bedridden creatures were at liberty to remain in houses appointed for such persons, and for their better relief such persons were allowed to apj oint one or two persons for any one such house to gather the alms of all inhabitants within the compass of four miles (1 Edw. VI. c. 3). This statute, however, was of brief duration.

Subsequently, in the same reign, further legislation took place, having for its main object the restraint of vagrancy, providing that every vagabond and beggar being born in any other nation or country should be conveyed from place to place, or to the place or borders next adjoining to his native country or to the nearest port if there was a sea between, there to be kept of the inhabitants until they could be conveyed over, and then at the cost of the inhabitants of the port, if the vagrants had not themselves wherewith to defray the cost. The same statute made provision for children, reciting that many men and women going begging, impotent and lame, and some able enough to labour, carried children about with them, which, being once brought up in idleness, would hardly be brought afterwards to any good kind of labour or service, and authorizing any person to take such child between the ages of five and fourteen to be brought up in any honest labour and occupation till such child, if a woman, attained the age of fifteen or was married, and if a man child until eighteen, if the master so long lived (3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 16).

Two years later the mayor or head officer of every city, borough, and town corporate, and in every other parish of the country the parson and churchwardens, having in a book as well the names of inhabitants and householders as of needy persons, were required yearly “one holiday in Whitsunweek openly in the church and quickly after divine service to call the householders and inhabitants together and select two or more able persons to gather charitable alms for the relief of the poor, and directing such gatherers the week after their election, when the people are at the church, and have heard God’s holy word, to gently ask and demand of every man and woman what they of their charity would be content to give weekly towards the relief of the poor, and write the result in the book, to gather and distribute the alms weekly to the poor and impotent persons without fraud or covin, favour or affection, in such manner as the most impotent had the most help, and such as could get part of their living to have the less, and by the discretion of the collectors to be put in such labour as they were fit and able to do, but none to go or sit openly a-begging.” It is noteworthy that, except a penalty of 20s. imposed on a person refusing the office of gatherer, duties were enforced by ecclesiastical censure. The gatherers were required to account for the money; and if they refused the bishop of the diocese or ordinary was to compel them by censures of the church to account before such persons as he appointed. Further, if any person, being able to further the charitable work, “do obstinately and frowardly refuse to give towards the help of the poor or do wilfully discourage others from so charitable a deed,” the parson, vicar, or curate, and churchwardens should “gently exhort him, and if he will not be so persuaded” then on certificate the bishop should send for him “to induce and persuade him by charitable ways and means, and so according to his discretion to take order for the reformation thereof ”(5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 2).

This statute was recognized in part after the accession of Mary, by altering the time of choosing collectors to Christmas and doubling the penalty for refusing to fill the office of collector, and moving wealthy parishes in cities and towns to contribute towards the relief of the poor in the less wealthy parishes. At the same time a material modification of the spirit of earlier legislation was effected by enabling justices to license the poor of parishes having more poor than they could relieve, to go begging into specified parishes, wearing a badge’ “both on the breast and back of their outermost garment” (2 & 3 P. & Μ. c. 5).

Early in Elizabeth’s reign the spiritual persuasion towards obstinate and froward persons withholding contributions was strengthened by the aid of the civil power, by directing the bishop or ordinary to bind all obstinate persons by recognizance to appear at the next sessions; and then, the charitable and gentle persuasions of the justices failing, the latter could tax the obstinate person in a weekly sum according to good discretion, and in default commit him to jail until payment. A corresponding power was given to deal with collectors refusing to account (5 Eliz. c. 3). A few years later (1572) legislation took a more vigorous turn “for the punishment of vagabonds and for relief of the poor and impotent.” The Act 14 Eliz. c. 5, reciting that “all the parts of this realm of England and Wales be presently with rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars exceedingly pestered, by means whereof daily happeneth in the same realm horrible murders, thefts, and other great outrages, to the high displeasure of Almighty God,, and to the great annoy of the common weal, and for avoiding confusion by reason of numbers of laws concerning the premises standing in force together,” repealed the before-mentioned statutes of 22 Hen. VIIL, 3 & 4 Edw. VI., and 5 Eliz. c. 3, and made provision for various matters, “as well for the utter suppressing of the said outrageous enemies to the common weal as for the charitable relieving of the aged and impotent poor people.” Persons above fourteen and being rogues, vagabonds, or sturdy beggars, and “taken begging in every part of this realm, or taken vagrant, wandering and misordering themselves,” were upon their apprehension to be committed to prison to the next sessions or jail delivery without bail, and on conviction “shall be adjudged to be grievously whipped, and burnt through the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about, manifesting his or her roguish kind of life and his or her punishment received for the same.” This judgment was not to be executed if after imprisonment “some honest person, valued at the last subsidy next before that time to five pounds in goods or twenty shillings in lands, or else some such honest householder as by the justices of the peace of the same county, or two of them, shall be allowed, will of his charity take such offender before the same justices into his service for one whole year,” under recognizance to keep this poor person for that period and to bring him, if still living, before the justices at the year’s end; on the other hand the pauper departing within the year against the will of his master was to be whipped and burnt as above provided. The offender was absolved from a second punishment for a short time, but if after threescore days, and being of the age of eighteen or more, he “do eftsoons fall again to any kind of roguish or vagabond’s trade of life,” then the said rogue, vagabond, or sturdy beggar, from thenceforth was “to be taken, adjudged, and deemed in all respects as a felon,” and should suffer as a felon,—subject, however, to like redemption as on the first charge, conditioned for two years’ service; but offending a third time he was to “be adjudged a felon” and suffer pains of death and loss of lands and goods as a felon, without allowance or benefit of clergy or sanctuary. Offenders under fourteen were punishable by whipping or stocking as provided by the repealed statutes.

A clause defining persons subject to the above punishment throws a light on the manners of the age, and is, as well as its exceptive provisions, of considerable interest; but, as relating to vagrancy, and only indirectly to the relief of the really poor, it is not given here. It is to be observed, however, that the statute provided that it should be still lawful to masters and governors of hospitals to lodge or harbour impotent or aged persons by way of charity according to their foundation, and to give money in alms as provided by the terms of their foundation. Harsh as was the treatment of rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, it was not so cruel as the short-lived legislation of the reign of Edward VI. imposing slavery in its worst form on wandering serving men (see vol xiv. p. 168).

Exceptional provision was made for persons provided with passes and safe conducts, as in former Acts. The statute goes on to say that, “forasmuch as charity would that poor, aged, and impotent persons should as necessarily be provided for as the said rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars repressed,” and that the former should have “convenient habitations and abiding places throughout this realm to settle themselves Upon, to the end that they nor any of them should hereafter beg or wander about,” and enacts that...