Tudor Vagabonds: Fascinating and Infuriating.

In this series:

Counterfeit Passport & Genuine Sturdy Beggar

• Commanded by Thieves, Parson Haben's Delivers a Sermon.
• 
  
• Tudor Vagabonds: Fascinating and Infuriating.

Perhaps it should not come as a surprise to see behavior we have come to think of as “modern” in full display in the distant past. For all that details might be quite different, human nature can stay stubbornly the same.

Thomas Harman dedicated his A Caveat or Warening for Comen Cursetors Vulgarly called Vagabonds (1567) to Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury. The dedicatory letter makes a point to describe her as having a tender and loving disposition:

well, by good experience, understanding and considering your most tender, pitiful, gentle, and noble nature, not only having a vigilant and merciful eye to your poor, indigent, and feeble parishioners; yea, not only in the parish where your honour most happily doth dwell, but also in others environing or nigh adjoining to the same; As also abundantly pouring out daily your ardent and bountiful charity upon all such as commeth for relief unto your lucky gates,¹

But the author's compliments are not so complimentary as they might seem. The Vagabond statute 5&6 Edward VI c. 2 (1552) forbade beggars from plying their trade in any parish outside of their own where they were to be registered (“licensed”) as genuinely “feeble” and/or indigent by the justice of the peace. Discovered begging elsewhere, they were supposed to be turned out or arrested. Those who provided private alms from their gates, inside of their parish or out, were also in violation of the statutes.

Parliament ordered, in Edward's statute, that each parish take regular collections for the succor of the licensed poor. This was intended to fund the mandate that would keep them from wandering at large and distinguish those who were truly indigent and/or disabled from those who were “sturdy beggars” or vagabonds.

No provision was made, however, to punish parishioners who refused to pay their share of the collection. Such being the case, parishes were generally unable to raise sufficient funds to meet their responsibilities. Consequently, 3 Elizabeth, c. 3 (1562) established penalties for failure to pay reasonable amounts into the collection.

Mr. Harman chose a topic for his little book that was particularly popular. Vagabonds roamed through most towns and villages. He provides us, then, with first hand description of the common types and behaviors of vagabonds. Many other period accounts — most in passing — confirm one or more of the behaviors he reports as a common part of life in those humbler settlements.

For all Harman is fascinated with the life of the vagabond, he calls for the authorities to see the poor laws enforced “settinge asyde all feare, slouth, and pytie”. It is a failure to do so, he avers, that causes he and other burgers such as himself, from donating to the parish collections. If they would only do so:

Then will no more this rascal rablement range about the country. Then greater relief may be shewed to the poverty of each parish.²

For all he will enjoy telling stories of the ne'er-do-wells, he needs first to make them to blame for his not contributing to the parish poor funds. He needs also to discourage the likes of the Countess of Shrewsbury from giving them reason to come into his neighborhood.

Those matters duly dispatched, we are treated to a catalogue of the behavior of the vagabonds and the householders through whose neighborhoods they roamed. If only the laws are enforced to the fullest:

Then shall we keep our Horses in our pastures unstolen. Then our linen clothes shall and may lie safely on our hedges untouched. Then shall we not have our clothes and linen hooked out at our windows as well by day as by night. Then shall we not have our houses broken up in the night, as of late one of my neighbors had and two great buck [baskets] of clothes stolen out, and most of the same fine Linen.³

Hedges are often spoken of as a common lurking-place of escaped servants, and school boys playing hooky, especially when laden with berries upon which to snack. These two categories often replenished the ranks of the vagabonds, who, we learn here and elsewhere, were in the habit of stealing clothes that might be draped over them to dry.

Elsewhere, vagabonds practiced a more modern craft.

Then shall our Shops and booths be unpicked and spoiled.

Shoplifting was a common hazard of the retail trades. This was a regular hazard in the large cities, as well.

Mr. Harman's book also caught the eye of William Harrison whose “Descriptions of Britain and England” graced Raphael Holinshed's famous Chronicles (1577). After listing the titles of the various vagabonds as given by his predecessor, Harrison expands to give his own.

Among rogues and idle persons finally, we find to be comprised all proctors that go up and down with counterfeit licenses, cosiners, and such as gad about the country, using unlawful games, practisers of physiognomy, and palmistry, tellers of fortunes, fencers, players, minstrels, jugglers, peddlers, tinkers, scholars, shipmen, prisoners gathering for fees, and others, so oft as they be taken without sufficient license.

Not all of these were always unlawful. Only those who hadn't acquired a license from the appropriate entity. And, of course, there was an active business in counterfeiting those licenses. Any one of these might well do a little side business — especially during the slow season — plucking damp clothing off hedges.

Harrison even indulges in a bit of tabloid journalism while on the subject. He warns anxious mothers of a new danger he hears reported.

From among which company our bearwards are not excepted, and just cause: for I have read that they have either voluntarily, or for want of power to master their savage beasts, been occasion of the death and devoration of many children in sundry countries by which they have passed, whose parents never knew what was become of them. And for that cause there is and have been many sharp laws made for bearwards in Germany, whereof you may read in other.

Better not to find out the hard way. Best put them on the list. At least get a license fee.

1Harman, Thomas. A Caveat or Warening for Comen Cursetors Vulgarly called Vagabonds (1567). As reprinted in Furnivall and Viles. The Rogues And Vagabonds Of Shakespeare's Youth (1907). 19.

2Ibid. 21.

3Ibid.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

Robert & Elizabeth: the Royal Soap Opera. October 27, 2022. “They charge me with a good many things in my own country and elsewhere, and, amongst others, that I show more favour to Robert than is fitting...”

Livin’ Real at Windsor Castle with Queen Elizabeth. June 4, 2022. “Being fans of the Queen and the times, we watch television miniseries and movies draped with intrigue, lust and tapestries.”

Queen Elizabeth Orders Nightgowns for Herself and Leicester. November 7, 2021. “Some people may perhaps feel inclined to draw large conclusions from it. For ourselves, we do not think it warrants anything of the kind.”

To Where Did Queen Elizabeth I Disappear in August 1564? July 18, 2021. “Leicestershire was in the opposite direction from London. Nichols could discover no more.”

Queen Elizabeth I’s Heart and the French Ambassador.  April 3, 2019.  “…the Queen of England, with the permission of her physicians, has been able to come out of her private chamber, she has permitted me… to see her…”

Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

Check out the English Renaissance Letter Index for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.