early modern crime

• Vagabonds


  People seen as a threat by Tudors
• Groups of poor people identified by Tudors

  • Impotent/deserving poor
  • Able bodied/idle/undeserving poor
• Tudors thought that vagrants increased crime rate
• Vagabonds and Beggars Act 1494


  People without jobs should be put in stocks
• The Vagrancy Act 1547- Punishments were worse if unemployed for 3 days, vagabonds were branded with a V on their forehead and sold as a slave for 2 years
• The Gunpowder Plot was a Catholic group led by Robert Catesby that began to plot on 20th May 1604
• Plot date

  5 November
• An anonymous letter was sent about the plot
• Guy Fawkes was found and tortured until he confessed
• Familiars


  Demon spirits in the shape of animals
• Puritan areas were very concerned about witchcraft
• Witchcraft Act 1542 - Witchcraft made a capital crime
• Many people accused their neighbours of witchcraft
• The English Civil War 1642-47 increased fear of witches
• Matthew Hopkins


  Witchfinder General
• 112 people were hanged because of Matthew Hopkins
• Hopkins was paid £1 for every witch he found
• Hopkins tortured the accused and used a fake needle to prove they were witches (so he could get more money)
• Last 2 people hanged for witchcraft


  1716
• Mainly women were accused of witchcraft