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Abstract
Profound changes occurred in the definitions of poverty and the government's interaction with the poor throughout the Tudor and Jacobean period, 1485–1625. When discussing the poor during this time, historians often utilize a dichotomy between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor; however, authors during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century did not use these categories. Instead they used the idea of the “vagabond” and the “impotent” poor and a variety of other terms depending on specific contexts.
In order to understand how Tudor and early Stuart elites understood and interacted with the poor I have examined various legal, religious, and lay writings. I present a discussion of the persistent and changing ideas of elite Englishmen concerning the poor. I discuss the interaction between the Crown and the poor through an investigation of the poor laws and the judicial system, with particular reference to the Court of Requests. Finally, I discuss how the poor depicted themselves through an analysis of the in forma pauperis bills of complaint from the Jacobean Court of Requests.
The definitions, categories and stereotypes of the poor represent a merging of religious and secular concerns and provided the basis of interaction between the Crown and the poor. The Crown established that the laboring poor should be provided with jobs, the impotent poor should be housed and relieved and vagabonds should be punished and put to work. The Crown also provided judicial relief for the poor through in forma pauperis procedures. Furthermore, the pleadings of the poor in the Jacobean Court of Requests demonstrate that paupers, with the advice of counsel, used the dominant culture's understanding of poverty to shape the narratives of their petitions.
