1. 16 th and 17 th Centuries

2. Why was vagrancy such a problem at this time? Population was growing Increasing wealth & poverty Increase in taxationAttitudes of the Landowners Invention of the printing press

3. Who were the vagabonds?  Beggars, tramps and vagrants who wandered country without a settled job  Some were ex-soldiers or criminals  Most were unemployed people searching for work  NB communities were small and people feared strangers!

4. Problem of vagabonds How were the poor helped? Attitudes towards idleness Seen as a cause of crime Rising costs

5. How serious was the problem? “Idle beggars make corrosives and apply them to the fleshy parts of their bodies … to raise pitiful sores and move the hearts of passers-by… They are all thieves and extortioners. They lick the sweat from the true labourer’s brow and take from the godly poor what is due to them … they are now supposed to mount to above 10,000 persons…” [1577] “I may justly say that the infinite numbers of idle, wandering people and robbers of the land are the chief cause of the problem because they labour not …The most dangerous are the wandering soldiers and other stout rogues. Of these wandering people there are three or four hundred in a shire…” [1596]

6. How was vagrancy dealt with? 1537 Beggars & vagrants whipped & sent back to birthplace 1540 1 st offence= 2 years slavery 2 nd offence=slavery for life or death 1550 Act of 1540 repealed as too severe – return to 1537 Act 1572 1 st offence =whipping & burning of ear. 2 nd offence = execution 1576 Houses of Correction to be built to punish & employ persistent beggars 1593 1572 Act repealed as too harsh. Return to 1531 Act 1598 Vagrants beaten & sent home. Could be sent to House of Correction by JPs, banished or executed

7. Witches and witch hunting  1542 Law passed classing witchcraft as a crime  1590 Future James I wrote a book on witchcraft  1645 Matthew Hopkins – the ‘Witch Finder General’  1717 Last trial for witchcraft  1743 Law saying witchcraft was a crime repealed

8. Why were witches hunted? A time of great political and religious upheaval -the Civil War & the Reformation King James I wrote a book about witches. He was a well read and educated man

9. Facts about witch hunting Between 1500 and 1700 up to 1000 people were executed for witchcraft but many more were accused Those accused of witchcraft were mainly lonely old women Matthew Hopkins is the most famous witch finder but his story is not typical Hopkins used torture to extract confessions from the accused Witches were often ‘swum’ to prove their guilt or innocence Accusations began to tail off as the country settled down