Vagabondage

• Unemployed, homeless people became known as vagabonds or vagrants.
• After 1500, the growing population, falling wages and rising food prices (‘inflation’) meant that the numbers of vagabonds rose.
• Attitudes were harsh towards vagabonds, and people tended to assume they were not in genuine need. Slang to describe them included ‘priggers of prancers’ (horse thieves) and ‘drunken tinkers’ (thieves using trade as a cover story).
• The Vagrancy Act of 1547 said that able-bodied vagabonds who were without work for more than three days were to be branded with the letter V and sold as a slave for two years. It was so severe that it was withdrawn after three years.
• The 1549 Act for the Relief of the Poor included harsh punishments for vagrants including whipping and burning the ear using a hot iron.
• The 1601 Poor Laws said that all local parishes were supposed to provide poor relief for the ‘deserving poor’. The ‘undeserving poor’ could be branded or whipped, or sent to a house of correction.