WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Poverty and the poor in Elizabethan England
Elizabethan England had a poverty crisis. A rapidly growing population, rising food prices, land enclosure, and the dissolution of the monasteries (which had provided charity for centuries) combined to produce large numbers of homeless, wandering poor. The authorities were alarmed: vagabonds seemed threatening, potentially criminal, and possibly seditious. The Elizabethan response evolved from brutal punishment — whipping, branding, even execution for persistent vagrants — towards a more sophisticated system of parish-based poor relief that distinguished between those who could not work and those who would not. This system formed the basis of English poor relief for two centuries.
Why poverty was growing
Several forces pushed more people into poverty during the sixteenth century:
Population growth: England's population grew from around 2.5 million in 1500 to around 4 million by 1600. More people meant more competition for land, food, and work — and rising food prices that hurt the poor disproportionately.
Enclosure: Landowners converted common agricultural land into enclosed sheep pastures. This was economically rational (wool prices were high) but displaced the agricultural labourers and tenant farmers who had depended on access to common land. Enclosure produced a significant number of "masterless men" — people without a clear place in the social order.
Dissolution of the monasteries (1530s–1540s): Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries under Thomas Cromwell had removed the institutions that had provided the primary safety net for the poor: monastic almoners had distributed food and shelter at the monastery gate. This system was gone before Elizabethan poor relief developed to replace it.
Inflation: The "Price Revolution" of the sixteenth century — partly caused by silver from Spanish America flooding European markets — raised prices faster than wages. Real wages fell for most working people.
Key distinction
Deserving vs undeserving poor
Elizabethan thinking about poverty made a crucial distinction: the "deserving poor" (those unable to work — the elderly, the sick, widows, children) deserved charity and relief; the "undeserving poor" (able-bodied people who could work but did not) deserved punishment. This distinction, which seems harsh by modern standards, was central to the Elizabethan Poor Law system. It also reflected a genuine social anxiety: contemporaries observed vagrants and beggars and feared crime and disorder. Whether most vagrants were genuinely workshy or genuinely unable to find work was a question contemporaries debated — and historians continue to debate.
The vagabond problem
The most visible and feared symptom of poverty was the vagrant — the homeless person wandering from place to place, begging, doing seasonal work, or turning to crime.
Contemporary writers estimated the number of vagrants in tens of thousands (though these figures were almost certainly exaggerated for dramatic effect). The 1569 Northern Rebellion and various enclosure riots showed that poor, displaced people could be potentially dangerous. The authorities associated vagrancy with crime, disorder, disease, and the spread of seditious ideas.
Legislation against vagrants was harsh:
- The 1572 Vagabonds Act: vagrants to be whipped and burned through the ear on first conviction; death for persistent offenders
- Magistrates were given powers to have vagrants branded, enrolled in forced labour, or — in extreme cases — hanged
This punitive approach sat alongside developing systems of charitable relief.
The Elizabethan Poor Laws
The most significant Elizabethan response to poverty was legislative. The Poor Law of 1597 and the more comprehensive Poor Law of 1601 established a national system of poor relief administered at parish level.
Key features:
- Overseers of the poor were appointed in each parish to assess need and administer relief
- Parish rates — a local tax — funded the system
- The deserving poor (elderly, disabled, sick) received "outdoor relief" — money, food, or fuel to support them at home
- Workhouses were established for the able-bodied poor — in theory, a place to work in exchange for support
- Children of paupers could be apprenticed to tradespeople
The 1601 Act remained the legal basis of English poor relief until the New Poor Law of 1834. Its significance was the acknowledgment that poverty was a public responsibility — not just a matter of private charity — and that the state (through the parish) had an obligation to provide for those who genuinely could not provide for themselves.
Charitable institutions
Bridewell and early workhouses
**Bridewell** — a former royal palace in London — was converted into a "house of correction" in 1553, during Edward VI's reign, and became the model for dealing with the able-bodied poor. Vagrants were sent to Bridewell, required to work (beating hemp, making cloth, cleaning the city), and punished if they refused. The Bridewell model was widely imitated: "bridewells" or "houses of correction" appeared in many English towns under Elizabeth. They represent a hybrid between punishment and welfare — recognising that some people needed support while insisting they work for it. The ambivalence is characteristic of Elizabethan attitudes to poverty.
What this tells us about Elizabethan society
The poverty crisis of the Elizabethan period reveals important things about the age:
Social change was rapid and disruptive. The forces that created poverty — population growth, enclosure, inflation, the dissolution of the monasteries — were structural, not accidental. They reflected fundamental economic change.
Attitudes were complex. Elizabethans were not simply cruel to the poor — the Poor Law of 1601 was a genuine attempt to address poverty systematically. But they also feared the poor as a source of disorder, and their responses mixed charity with punishment.
The limits of the Golden Age. The coexistence of the cultural achievements celebrated in the "Golden Age" with a growing poverty crisis is important for a balanced assessment of Elizabethan England.
Why this matters for the exam
Elizabethan poor relief: change and significance
AQA questions on poverty often focus on causes and responses. For causes: population growth, enclosure, inflation, dissolution of monasteries. For responses: note the evolution from brutal punishment (1572 Act) towards a structured relief system (1601 Act) — this is a genuine change. The 1601 Poor Law is significant because it created a national, tax-funded, parish-administered system that lasted until 1834. The key concept of "deserving vs undeserving poor" also matters: it structured how people thought about poverty for centuries. A strong answer distinguishes between the short-term punitive response and the longer-term structural response.
Revision checklist
Before moving on, make sure you can answer:
- Name four causes of growing poverty in Elizabethan England.
- What was "enclosure"? How did it contribute to poverty?
- What had monasteries provided that was lost when they were dissolved?
- What was the distinction between "deserving" and "undeserving" poor?
- How did the 1572 Vagabonds Act treat vagrants?
- What did the Poor Laws of 1597 and 1601 establish?
- What was Bridewell? What was it used for?
- How does the poverty crisis qualify the image of Elizabethan England as a "Golden Age"?