Experiences of Poverty in Late Medieval and Early Modern England and France
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EXPIC ER EN ES OF POVERTY IN LATE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN ENGLAND AND FRANCE P late 1 Widener 1, Fol. 15v. The poor receive alms from Charity, while Murder attacks in the background Source: Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. Experiences of Poverty in Late Medieval and Early Modern England and France Edited by ANNE M. SCOTT The University of Western Australia First published 2012 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2012 Anne M. Scott Anne M. Scott has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Scott, Anne M. Experiences of poverty in late medieval and early modern England and France. 1. Poor--England--History--To 1500. 2. Poor--England--History--16th century. 3. Poor--France--History--To 1500. 4. Poor--France--History--16th century. 5. Poor--Services for--England--History--To 1500. 6. Poor--Services for--England--History--16th century. 7. Poor--Services for--France--History--To 1500. 8. Poor--Services for--France--History--16th century. I. Title 305.5'69'0942'09024-dc23 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scott, Anne M. Experiences of poverty in late medieval and early modern England and France / edited by Anne M. Scott. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4094-4108-3 (hbk.) 1. Poverty--England--History. 2. Poverty--France--History. 3. Poor--England--History. 4. Poor--England--History. 5. England--Social conditions 6. France-- Social conditions. I. Title. HC254.4.S36 2012 339.4'6094209024--dc23 2012026017 ISBN 9781409441083 (hbk) ISBN 9781315581491 (ebk) Contents List of Figures and Plates ix List of Tables xi Notes on Contributors xiii Preface xvii 1 Experiences of Poverty 1 Anne M. Scott PART I: SURVIVAL STRATEGIES 2 The Experience of Being Poor in Late Medieval England 19 Christopher Dyer 3 ‘Oppressed by Utter Poverty’: Survival Strategies for Single Mothers and Their Children in Late Medieval England 41 Philippa C. Maddern 4 Pauper Apprenticeship in South Derbyshire: A Positive Experience? 63 Ann Minister 5 The Experience of Single Women in Early Modern Norwich: ‘Rank Beggars, Gresse Maydes and Harlots’ 85 Lesley Silvester PART II: FORMS OF POOR RELIEF 6 ‘The Names of All the Poore People’: Corporate and Parish Relief in Exeter, 1560s–1570s 107 Nicholas D. Brodie vi Experiences of Poverty in Late Medieval and Early Modern England and France 7 The oliticsP of Charitable Men: Governing Poverty in Sixteenth-Century Paris 133 Susan Broomhall 8 Charitable ‘Intent’ in Late Sixteenth-Century France: The Nevers Foundation and Single Poor Catholic Girls 159 Lisa Keane Elliott 9 Reckliss Endangerment?: Feeding the Poor Prisoners of London in the Early Eighteenth Century 183 Margaret Dorey 10 Inoculation of the Poor against Smallpox in Eighteenth-Century England 199 Michael Bennett PART III: TEXTUAL AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS 11 Poverty as a Mobile Signifier: Waldensians, Lollards, Dives and Pauper 227 Mark Amsler 12 Le Chastel de Labour, La Voie de Povreté ou de Richesse and a Luxury Book, Widener 1, Free Library of Philadelphia 253 Anne M. Scott 13 The Gifts of the Poor: Worth and Value, Poverty and Justice in Robert Daborne’s The Poor Man’s Comfort 279 Mike Nolan Contents vii 14 ‘The Sounds of Population Fail’: Changing Perceptions of Rural Poverty and Plebeian Noise in Eighteenth-Century Britain 295 Peter Denney Select Bibliography 313 Index 327 This page has been left blank intentionally List of Figures and Plates Figures 6.1 Exeter average weekly collection and distribution (pence), 1564–72 130 9.1 Transcription of bill of fare for the workhouse at St Giles in the Fields 196 Plates 1 Widener 1, Fol. 15v. The poor receive alms from Charity, while Murder attacks in the background 2 Widener 1, Fol. 1r. Want, Necessity, Suffering, and Hunger visit Newlywed 3 Widener 1, Fol. 28r. Reason shows Newlywed the path to the House of Poverty 4 Widener 1, Fol. 61v. The Castle of Labour This page has been left blank intentionally List of Tables 3.1 Marital, religious and social status of fathers and mothers of illegitimate children in England, 1350–1500 47 3.2 Known circumstances of illegitimate children and their mothers: 1350–1500 50 4.1 Trades of pauper and private apprentices 68 4.2 Ages of parish apprentices 1750–1837 77 4.3 Age on leaving home 77 4.4 Distance from settlement of parish apprentice placements 79 6.1 Exeter alms recipients 115 6.2 Exeter average and modal corporate alms payments 117 6.3 Parochial retention of Exeter Poor 1563–67 122 6.4 Exeter pauper inter-parochial movement and adjusted corporate gross retention 1563–67 123 6.5 Exeter poor relief contributors and contributions 128 9.1 Standing expenses for the welfare of poor debtors in Wood Street Compter 187 This page has been left blank intentionally Notes on Contributors Anne M. Scott, The University of Western Australia, editor and contributor Dr Anne M. Scott was, until recently, Convenor of the Australian Research Council Network for Early European Research 2006–2010 and is currently an honorary research fellow at The University of Western Australia. Her field of research is in fourteenth-century English literature, and she has published a monograph, Piers Plowman and the Poor (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), three volumes of collected essays, and several essays on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English literature. She is Editor ofParergon , the journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, now available as part of the Project MUSE database. Mark Amsler, The University of Auckland Dr Mark Amsler teaches medieval studies, writing studies, and critical discourse at the University of Auckland. His books include Etymology and Grammatical Discourse (John Benjamins, 1989), anthologies on creativity in the humanities and sciences, and most recently, Affective Literacies: Writing and Multilingualism in the Later Middle Ages (Brepols, 2012). Michael Bennett, The University of Tasmania Michael Bennett is Professor of History at the University of Tasmania. The author of four books on late medieval and Tudor England, he has recently undertaken a major project on the history of smallpox prophylaxis and the global spread of vaccination. He is currently writing a book, The War against Smallpox, for Cambridge University Press. Nicholas D. Brodie, The University of Tasmania Dr Nicholas D. Brodie completed a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in history at The Australian National University in 2004. He had majored in history and archaeology. In 2005 Nicholas worked as a researcher at the National Archives of Australia, and also within the software industry. In 2006 he moved to Tasmania to undertake a PhD in history. His thesis ‘Beggary, Vagabondage, and Poor Relief: English Statutes in the Urban Context, 1495–1572’ passed examination and he graduated in 2010. Various aspects of the material presented xiv Experiences of Poverty in Late Medieval and Early Modern England and France in his chapter in this volume were presented at Cambridge University in 2009 and at Perth, Australia, in 2010 as Nicholas has developed this project. Susan Broomhall, The University of Western Australia Susan Broomhall is Winthrop Professor in Early Modern History at The University of Western Australia. Most recently, she has published (with Jacqueline Van Gent) Governing Masculinities in the Early Modern Period: Regulating Selves and Others (Ashgate, 2011) and (with David G. Barrie) A History of Police and Masculinities, 1700 to 2010 (Routledge, 2012). She is currently completing a study of the experience of the poor in sixteenth-century France. Peter Denney, Griffith University Dr Peter Denney completed his PhD in the Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York. He has published on various aspects of the literature and history of eighteenth-century Britain, and is currently writing a monograph on the rural soundscape and the rise of picturesque landscape taste. He worked for a year as Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney, and is now a Lecturer in the School of Humanities at Griffith University. Margaret Dorey, The University of Adelaide Dr Margaret Dorey is a Visiting Research Fellow with the School of History and Politics at the University of Adelaide. She completed her doctoral thesis ‘Unwholesome for Man’s Body?: Concerns about food quality and regulation in London c.1600 – c.1740’ in 2011. Prior to commencing her doctoral research she wrote a dissertation on innovation and diet, examining the arrival and reception of New World food plants into England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Her article ‘Controlling corruption: Regulating meat consumption as a preventative to plague in seventeenth-century London’ was published in Urban History in April 2009. Christopher Dyer, The University of Leicester Christopher Dyer is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Leicester, and recently held a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship. He is the author of various books and numerous articles on economic and social history, landscape history and archaeology of medieval England. He pays particular attention to the west midland region, but has also written about other parts of England, including East Anglia.