Social Thought in England, 1480-1730 by A.L. Beier

Author:A.L. Beier [Beier, A.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Modern, General, Europe, Great Britain, Social History
ISBN: 9781317352310
Google: hGGFCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-02-05T01:26:34+00:00

C. The Immoral, the Idle, the Poor

One of the chief results that “Pole” saw accruing from the strengthening of government was a top-down attack upon idleness and immorality among the third estate. The new Royal council was to ensure that lower authorities—“inferior lords, knights and gentlemen” were cited—“to beware and diligent to do their duty,” which would cure the “gout” that the feet and hands were suffering. The reason, he asserted, why “the ground lies so untilled and crafts {be} so ill occupied” was “the negligence of the people {or vain occupation} …”. Echoing late medieval labor laws, the remedy was for officials to take them to court and, it seems, to force them to work or at least threaten them with punishment: “by certain pain forfeited prescribing the same you should have both crafts better occupied and also the ground more diligently tilled,” especially if the anti-enclosure statutes were also enforced. He concluded that if “people may be compelled to diligent exercise of their office and duty, thereto follows forth withal abundance of things {necessary} …”.70

Before that was possible, however, there had to be a campaign to clean up people’s morals through another “ordinance” that would punish drunkenness and related crimes that should be enforced by the under-officers. “Pole” pinpointed craftsmen, “which are drunkards given to the belly {and pleasure thereof}, carders and dicers, and all other {given to} idle games,” which he considered as serious as robbery and adultery, because overconsumption led to the latter offenses. Regulating drinking and punishing offenders would remove the causes of these related misdeeds and reduce a related disease, that is “{penury}, for even like as one disease comes of another in this politic body, so the cure of one also follows another …”.71

Much of the rationale of Starkey’s proposals for economic reforms ultimately came back to the problem of the poor. As shown above, he called for the restriction of exports to things England did not require and generally limiting imports to essentials. The country should not export tin and lead and then import the manufactured versions of the minerals. Nor should merchants be permitted to import wine, velvets, and silks, and to discourage the practice, the sumptuary laws should be enforced and the taverns closed. Like Armstrong, Starkey called for the termination of the export of raw wool through the Staple, which he called “a great hurt to the people of England …”. He claimed the practice caused the domestic cloth industry to be in “{utter} decay” and went further than Armstrong to propose the development of England’s cloth industry with Royal patronage. Although it might take some years to get the industry up to speed compared with foreign production, it was worth the effort because “it should be the greatest benefit to increase the riches of England that might be devised” and because “whereby should be occupied infinite people which now live in idleness, wretched and poor …”.72

As regards external trade, the “Dialogue” thought that a reduction in customs rates would

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