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father of a family. As for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he |
spent or lost in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen days, for |
he was back begging on the twentieth. Then he was given a lodge to keep, |
exactly as he had feared upon the island; and he still lives, a great |
favourite, though something of a butt, with the country boys, and a |
notable singer in church on Sundays and saints’ days. |
Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one |
leg has at last gone clean out of my life; but I dare say he met his old |
Negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint. |
It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another |
world are very small. |
The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where |
Flint buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and |
wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and |
the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about |
its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint |
still ringing in my ears: “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!” |
Five Hundred Years of English Poor Laws, 1349-1834: Regulating the Working and Nonworking Poor |
by |
William P. Quigley* |
I. Introduction |
Like other and more famous English institutions, the making and administration of the English Poor Law was a growth, not a creation.1 |
Certain it is, that, on the welfare of its labouring Poor, the prosperity of a country essentially depends . . . . |
Sir Frederic Eden, The State of the Poor (1797)2 |
The English poor laws, beginning with the Statute of Laborers of 1349-1350 and proceeding to the reforms of 1834, regulated both the working and nonworking poor.3 From feudalism through 500 years of regulation by the poor laws work and poverty journeyed hand in hand. The legislation, and its resulting legacy of principles regulating poor people, working and nonworking, is the focus of this article. |
English poor laws have been a major influence on subsequent social legislation and regulation of the working poor in the United States.4 These statutes therefore deserve careful review and consideration, for there are many echoes of the themes of the English poor laws in contemporary discussions about social legislation. While a review of each and every one of the scores of acts of parliament that addressed the situation of the working and nonworking poor over this 500-year period is beyond the scope of this or any other article, the statutes that highlight major legal themes will be reviewed. |
Though frequently thought of as only regulating the nonworking poor, the English Poor Laws also directly regulated poor workers.5 A review of these laws reinforces the substantial societal, economic and legal linkage of the poor who are employed with the poor who are unemployed.6 |
This article will review how the working and the nonworking poor were regulated by 500 years of English poor laws. It will conclude with ideas about the principles which have since evolved to regulate the working and nonworking poor. |
II. Influences on the Beginning of the English Poor Laws |
Feudalism and church institutions significantly influenced the development of the English poor laws and need to be briefly examined in order to understand the context out of which the poor laws grew. |
A. Feudalism's Impact |
In feudal times, work and poverty went hand in hand. Feudalism was based on a system of tillage, where landlords of large properties subdivided their land into small parcels which were then farmed by serfs or tenants. As de Schweinitz notes: |
Under feudalism there could, at least in theory, be no uncared-for-distress. The people who would today be in the most economic danger were, in the Middle Ages, presumably protected by their masters from the most acute suffering. They were serfs or villeins, who by virtue of their slavery or of what F.W. Maitland calls their "unfreedom," had coverage against disaster. Insurance against unemployment, sickness, old age was theirs in the protection of the liege lords.7 |
This system began in England with the Saxons and required every peasant who did not have a home to reside with someone who would care for them. The peasants lived in a virtual state of slavery; they worked for the lord and in return received support from the lord, but in effect they were the property of the lord, who could dispose of them by sale or gift.8 Prior to the Norman Conquest, as many as two-thirds of the population existed in a state of slavery, though even within the slave population there were class distinctions based on the value of service to the manor.9 The Normans continued this practice for centuries, with evidence of the sale of servants even into the 14th Century.10 One authority observed, after the Norman Conquest: |
If we except the baronial proprietors of land, and their vassals, the free tenants and foremen, the rest of the nation, for a long time after this era, seems to have been involved in a state of servitude, which, though qualified as to its effects, was uniform in its principle, that none who had unhappily been born in, or fallen into, bondage, could acquire an absolute right to any species of property.11 |
These aforementioned forms of slavery resulted from many causes. One primary cause was racism. Hence, as the races began to mix these forms of slavery also diminished.12 |
As slavery phased out, each serf developed an economic relationship with the landlord.13 The serf, in return for being able to farm the land gave the landlord a share of the crop harvested or the animals raised.14 Or the serf would perform |
services for the landlord.15 Common law recognized two classes of manorial tenants: freemen and villein, "with the villein having no ordinary recourse to the common law for protection against his lord."16 |
As long as there were plenty of laborers, there was little need to regulate laborers or the poor. They remained the responsibility of their lord who had authority over them. As Professor Christopher Hill noted, helping out his servants made good sense for the lord: "It was good for his prestige; it was a form of social insurance; and, since he had no doubt whatever that his surplus came from the labours of his tenants, it was also sound economic sense to keep them alive in times of distress."17 |
Asking others to help the poor was seen as a way to relieve one lord of his duties to those whom he was charged with keeping.18 |
This system changed for many reasons including the phasing out of slavery-serfdom, the Black Plague, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of factories, and the growth of the wool industry. Factories were able to manufacture woolen products and drew large numbers of the poor into the cities.19 As the demand for wool increased, the landlords saw the villeinage as no longer necessary for their economic survival, they could make more by turning out many of their numerous small tenant farmers and combining the small farms into large pastures to raise sheep.20 |
Therefore, as feudalism waned, wage labor rose. There was increased freedom for the workers as they shrugged off the chains of serfdom. Yet, feudalism had offered a paternalistic system of economic security, and as feudalism disappeared that security also disappeared.21 In sum, the beginning of the breakdown of feudalism was an important trigger in the creation of the earliest poor laws. |
B. The Church's Impact |
"In Anglo-Saxon times, the administration of poor relief was almost entirely under the control of the church."22 Religion and the institutions of the organized church played a major role in early assistance to the poor. Some consider the early ecclesiastical system of poor relief as a primary source for the later Elizabethan poor laws and even more of a model for modern poor relief in the United States.23 These influences can be roughly divided into two areas: biblical-religious influences on the perception and treatment of poor people by individuals; and the manner in which the church institutions ministered to the poor and how that ministry later influenced public assistance to the poor. |
Certainly the Bible influenced how the English people treated the poor, and to a lesser extent, how the poor laws developed.24 The Bible contributed many themes to English poor law, themes that continue to resonate even |
now in the American experience. Biblical texts of Old and New testament support special attention to the needs of the poor,25 a duty to give alms,26 and a directive that those able to work do so.27 |
Saint Thomas Aquinas, a noted religious scholar, also wrote extensively on the obligation of almsgiving to the poor.28 His writings reflect the church's teachings that the desperately needy were to be helped.29 There is a clear duty in charity to give alms to the needy, as there is to feed the hungry and to harbor the harborless.30 The mandate to give alms to the poor is clear when the poor are in extreme need or facing death. However, when the necessity for alms is not a life and death matter, almsgiving is a matter of judgment.31 As Aquinas notes in his teachings one must go beyond giving from their surplus in times of hardship because, "All things are common property in a case of extreme necessity."32 But for Aquinas almsgiving also has its limitations for satisfying the needs of individual poor people. He opined that it is not good to relieve a poor man's need more than necessary and it would be better to give to several that are in need.33 |
Poverty was not thought of as a moral failing or an indication of moral turpitude. It hardly ever occurred to the canonists that the law should seek to "deter" men from falling into poverty. They believed want was its own deterrent. It never occurred to them that poverty was a vice which could be stamped out by punitive measures. Canonists "no more thought of punishing a man for being afflicted with poverty than we would think of punishing a man for being afflicted with tuberculosis."34 |
Thus, giving relief to the poor was a clear religious duty for individuals. On an institutional level, the practices of charity and almsgiving by church institutions preceded and shaped later approaches to poor relief. As Sir Frederic Eden said, "The clergy, most assuredly, from the nature of their ecclesiastical establishment, and eleemosynary principles upon which every donation to religious bodies was conferred, were considered as the peculiar and official guardians of the Poor."35 |
There was general agreement that the Church had a special duty to protect widows, orphans, and all of the poor and oppressed.36 In the sixth century, for example, monasteries emerged as centers for the relief of the poor, particularly in rural areas. Some religious communities were formed for the primary purpose of helping care for the poor. Later, hospitals, which cared for not only the sick but the orphans and the aged, grew out of the monastery experiences and were built alongside or attached to many monasteries. Church authorities directed that each local parish, and each geographical collection of parishes called dioceses, take responsibility for assisting the poor in their area. This continued until 1536 when, after the Protestant Reformation, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries forcing out the religious inhabitants and the poor who lived in their institutions.37 |
The theories of ecclesiastical poor relief were many: poor people should not be allowed to starve;38 there was a duty to tithe or give something to the institutional church so that the church may, after deducting for its own expenses, give a percentage of that to the poor;39 the poor were to be given charity, but no structural or economic changes in society were considered;40 there was a general obligation to work;41 and assistance to the poor could be categorized and prioritized.42 |
The overthrow of the established church institutions like the monasteries "was felt in every nook and corner of the land; but by none perhaps so immediately, or so much, as by those persons who had been accustomed to rely upon alms for support."43 As de Schweinitz notes: |
The church by mandate, in principle, and often in fact was outstanding as a means for the relief of economic distress. It occupied the field, both in its operation and in the place assigned to it in people's minds. It was a reason why for years government could take a wholly punitive and repressive attitude toward the problem of poverty. |
In 1536 and 1539 Henry VIII expropriated the monasteries and turned their properties over to his followers. This action, like the Black Death in the fourteenth century, gave dramatic point to an already bad situation. A social resource, inadequate at its best, was now substantially diminished.44 |
Key also to subsequent English poor law development was the local church institution of the parish.45 From around the fourteenth century, the English church parish essentially assumed many of the characteristics of a local governing body: a clear leader (the rector or vicar); officers (two or three householders of the parish); and responsibilities for raising funds for the upkeep and administration of the parish.46 So important was the parish that from the sixteenth century on the parish legally assumed civil functions such as provision for local troops, suppression of vagrancy, and agricultural works.47 There was no clear division between secular and ecclesiastical authority, each had parallel and overlapping jurisdictions, officers and even courts.48 |
The parishes were of no standard size. Between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries there were an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 separate parishes in England.49 Thousands of parishes ultimately became the basic governmental unit of poor relief: raising taxes to pay for the services or assistance provided; determining who was worthy of assistance; caring for the poor; and creating and maintaining institutions like poorhouses, workhouses, and labor yards. |
III. Statutes of Laborers 1349-1350 |
The Statutes of Laborers of 1349-1350 were the beginning of the English government's response to economic distress and are commonly designated the beginning of the poor laws.50 |
The Statutes came about in response to several forces which were creating social upheaval in England in the 1300s. The main forces for upheaval were: First, the demise of feudalism which was being replaced by capitalism; second, the Black Plague and famine, which coupled together claimed almost a third of the population and created an acute labor shortage.51 These forces were breaking down the feudal system and created economic dislocation as more people left the feudal manors and roamed the land looking for better work and begging. There was no guarantee of labor for the lord anymore, and some of the now liberated serfs were roaming the country as vagrants, migratory workers.52 |
The Black Plague, sometimes called the Black Death or the Bubonic Plague of 1348-1349, caused massive carnage, killing almost a third of England's population.53 The poor died at a much higher rate than others which caused a severe shortage of labor.54 |
Before the Black Death, England had plenty of workers. Workers with skills were valued but if they did not work out they could be replaced. While the plague killed skilled and unskilled workers and drastically reduced those available, the lord's manor still needed upkeep in much the same fashion as before. When nobles died, their inheritances still needed upkeep. This shortage of labor coupled with the same demand for workers, gave workers a stronger bargaining position.55 |
The effect of the Black Plague was to immediately create a scarcity of workers and an upward push on wages administering a shock "unparalleled in severity" to the feudal system.56 The already ailing feudal system would never recover. |
The first Statute of Laborers was enacted in 1349 (The 23rd Edward the 3rd) and quickly enlarged by a second act in 1350 (The 25th Edward the 3rd).57 |
The Statute of Labourers is well known for its laws about begging and almsgiving to the nonworking poor. However, the sole purpose was not restricted to regulating the nonworking poor. The law described an interconnection between the nonworking poor who were described as vagrants and beggars, and the shortage of labor which allowed workers to demand higher wages. It attempted to regulate all of this. The law, in its regulation of workers, prohibited idleness, the payment of high wages, and even quitting work. The statute also made a mild attempt to keep prices for food and shelter reasonable. As one commentator noted: |
The Statutes of Labourers bear witness to far-reaching economic and social changes. These changes might perhaps have proceeded more silently and have left fewer marks upon the Statute Book had it not been for the Black Death (1349), which |
swept off nearly half the population. The commutation of the labour services for the villein for money rents, and the new practice of cultivating the demesne farm by hired labour, received a sudden check. Landlords could get neither tenants nor labour, and masters could not get artificers. Labourers of all kinds found themselves in a position to exact what wages they pleased. At the same time the rise of this class of free labourers presented for the first time its modern shape the problem of the pauper-the man who cannot or will not maintain himself by his work. The Statutes of Labourers were passed to deal with this new situation.58 |
The 1349 Statute's preamble explains its historical and economic context: |
Because a great part of the people, and especially workmen and servants, late died of the pestilence, many seeing the necessity of masters, and a great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive excessive wages, (2) and some rather willing to beg in idleness, than by labour to get their living; we, considering the grievous in commodities, which of the lack of ploughmen and such labourers may hereafter come, have upon deliberation and treaty with the prelates and nobles, and learned men assisting us, of their mutual counsel, ordained . . . .59 |
Who were these workers who were becoming scarce? Generally, workers of this time belonged to one of several subgroups: servants, laborers and artificers, or apprentices.60 Servants were anyone who was working exclusively for one master performing duties ranging from farm hand to domestic to chamberlain; servants resided with their master and usually worked for the term of a year.61 Laborers or artificers usually maintained their own homes and worked for a number of different employers doing miscellaneous jobs.62 Apprentices were usually, but not necessarily young people, who were bound by a contract of indenture, to live with and work for a master, usually for seven years or until they turned 24 years old; they were not paid but were entitled to room and board and training.63 |
The statute contained four methods to regulate these workers: compulsory work; reduced compensation and control of wages; imprisonment as penalty for quitting work before the term ended; and stiff enforcement through a special justice system created to hear disputes over the statute. |
The statute began with a method to eliminate able-bodied beggars, provide much-needed laborers, and roll back wages: coercion to work and to accept prior wages. It mandated every man or woman under 60 who is "free or bond, able in body" and who does not have a job or their own home, "shall be bounden to serve him which so shall him require." Everyone able bodied under 60 was required to work.64 That meant anyone not already working could be made to work involuntarily for whoever wanted their work. |
While not exactly a reinstitution of slavery, since the person so conscripted was paid, it was certainly involuntary servitude, or, as recent commentators have termed the relationship "unfree labor."65 |
The law even made it clear that the lords have first pick of the beggars, "the lords be preferred before other;" but the lords were also directed not to be greedy stating that, "the said lords shall retain no more than be necessary for them."66 |
These new workers were to be paid according to the statute, "only the wages, livery, meed, or salary, which were accustomed to be given in the places where he oweth to serve, the xx. year of our reign of England, or five or six common years before." Failure to comply earned prison until the nonworker found someone to claim him.67 This capped wages at the rates of several years back. |
The next section of the Statute covered workers quitting their jobs at an inopportune time for employers. It stated that, "[i]f any . . . workman or servant . . . retained in any man's service, do depart from the said service without reasonable cause or license, before the time agreed, he shall have pain of imprisonment. And that none under the same pain presume to receive or retain any such in his service."68 |
This altered the then-traditional employment relationship by introducing the new penalty of imprisonment for servants and workers changing employers or quitting work prior to their term.69 |
Wage regulation was a central part of the statute. Since labor was in significant short supply, some workers, as noted in the preamble, recognizing the upward pressure on wages "will not serve unless they receive excessive wages." Therefore, the Statute of Laborers regulated wages for all workers. For the employer considering paying higher wages and the worker considering demanding them, there was the following directive and enforcement penalty: |
[N]o man pay, or promise to pay, any servant any more wages, liveries, need, or salary, than was wont, nor that any in other manner demand or receive the same, upon pain of doubling of that, that so shall be paid, promised, required, or received, to him which thereof shall feel himself grieved pursuing for the same.70 |
For the workers, the law rolled back wages to the levels that were common before the plague hit. Workers, according to the law, "shall not take for their labour and workmanship above the same that was wont to be paid to such persons the said twentieth year and other common years next before . . . in the place where they shall happen to work; and if any man take more he shall be committed to the next Goal."71 If laborers took more than they were paid three years before, the town was directed to gather up extra pay and use the funds, less a percentage that went to the King.72 |
Prices of food and shelter were also the target of the legislation but in a much different fashion than the wages of the |
workers or of the nonworking poor. These businesses were directed to stifle competition for mutual economic benefit and to |
sell the same [victual] for a reasonable price, having respect to the price that such victual be sold at the places adjoining, so that the same sellers have moderate gains . . . . And if any sell such victuals in any other manner, and thereof be convicted, he shall pay the double of the same that he so received to the party damnified, or, in default of him, to any other that will pursue in his behalf.73 |
What of the poor who were not workers? Bound up with the issues of workers and wages is the issue of the prevalence of beggars. In earlier times begging had been acceptable; for example, Saint Francis of Assisi taught that beggars were holy. But after 1300, idleness and begging were now being viewed negatively, and as a cause of social disorder.74 |
Prior to the enactment of the aforementioned statute there was no general poor relief so begging was one of the only legal ways for the nonworking poor to survive. As earlier noted, this statute provided that able-bodied beggars or vagrants could be seized and put to work, but the Statute of Laborers also provided explicitly what could and could not be given to the beggar "that is able to labour": |
[B]ecause that many valiant beggars, as long as they may live of begging, do refuse to labour, giving themselves to idleness and vice, and sometimes to theft and other abominations; none, upon the said pain of imprisonment shall, under the colour of pity or alms, give any thing to such, which may labour, or presume to favour them towards their desires, so that thereby they may be compelled to labour for their necessary living.75 |
Thus, by law, Parliament sought to overturn, or at a minimum restrict, the principles of religion and the church which directed the giving of alms to the poor.76 |
It is noteworthy that the prohibition of almsgiving was directed only to alms for those able to labor; there is no prohibition of giving alms to those not able to labor. This legislative distinction between those able to work and those unable to work, while ambiguous and inviting abuse and misinterpretation, is the first time such classification entered the law in the regulation of poor people. |
Also significant were the penalties in the Statute. For the idle and working poor who broke the law the penalty was imprisonment, while for the employers and sellers there were fines. The only exception for the employers was the hiring of someone else's servant, which had a penalty of imprisonment. |
A copy of the 1349 Statute of Laborers was sent to each of the country's bishops who were asked both to alert people in their communities to the content but also to ask people to obey.77 |
Within a year Parliament was back with an additional act, the 1350 Statute of Laborers, 25th of Edward the 3rd, to strengthen the limitations on the wages and mobility of workers contained in the Statute of Labourers.78 Its purpose was to supplement and reinforce certain points of the earlier statute which had been left vague.79 |
The preamble noted that the "great men" and "the commonality" were aggrieved by servants who were still quitting and going elsewhere unless they received wages double or triple what they were receiving before the plague: |
The said servants having no regard for said ordinance . . . do withdraw themselves to serve greater men and other, unless they have livery and wages double or treble of what they were wont to take the said twentieth year, and before, to the great damage of the great men and impoverishing of all of the said commonality, whereof the commonality prayeth remedy . . . .80 |
The act abandoned the prior concept of generally trying to roll back wages three years and instead legislatively fixed the maximum amount that could be paid to workers. The wages of workers were specifically set by category, e.g.: mowers of meadows were paid 5d a day; carpenters 2d a day; and so on.81 |
The law also, for the first time, confined servants to the particular locality where they lived the winter before, if there was work in that town. "[N]one of them go out of the town, where he dwelleth in the winter, to serve the summer, if he may serve in the same town . . . ."82 The punishment was a minimum of three days in stocks, or jailed until they agreed.83 |
Many laborers preferred to work by the day or by the job and did not want to be forced to work longer periods for one master; after the Black Death labor by the day was more profitable and gave the worker more autonomy.84 These workers supported themselves by working for various employers and by utilizing portions of the common land of the town to raise their own food.85 The new law was directed to drive these workers into yearly service.86 |
The new law explicitly prohibited laborers from working by the day; they were only allowed to work by the year or other usual terms.87 A case illustrates how this part of the law worked. A master brought an action under the Statute of Laborers because he alleged the defendant, a laborer, was a vagrant and was required to serve him as the master. The laborer defended himself claiming he was working for another employer on a daily basis. The ruling stated that, "if he be detained with one to serve by the day, and is required by another to serve by the Year, there he shall serve the Day, and after the Day ended he shall serve the other by the Year."88 |
There was a specific statutory exception for people who left to work the harvest, i.e. for farmworkers. People of certain |
counties were allowed to leave and work the harvests in another area as long as they promptly returned where they belonged when finished.89 |
Finally, the 1350 act directed justices to hear cases and enforce the statutes of laborers at special sessions held at least four times a year. Those days were "at the feast of the Annunciation of our Lady, Saint Margaret, Saint Michael, and Saint Nicholas."90 |
As a result of these statutes, there was a cap on wages; prohibitions on quitting; and geographical limits on where work could be sought. The alternative for the worker was prison. The regulation of the nonworking poor depended completely on whether the poor person was able to work. If they were able to work, the choice was work at the wages offered or prison. If they could not work, then they were not prohibited from begging. While these laws continued to be modified by later laws, examination of these statutes show comprehensive regulation of the working and the nonworking poor.91 Indeed, the concerns for beggars and laborers were intertwined: "[t]he King and his lords saw begging, movement and vagrancy, and the labor shortage as essentially the same problem, to be dealt with in one law . . . . The beggar, in the concern of the Statute of Laborers, was not a problem in destitution but a seepage from the supply of labor."92 |
Subsets and Splits