Vagrants and Vagrancy in England, 1598-1664.

The article assesses the social status of vagrants and vagabonds in England from 1598-1664. Vagabonds became the scapegoats for all social problems. They were carriers of rumor, sedition, and disease, and they infected others with their "licentious liberty." The threat posed by their needless idleness and reckless mobility seemed immediate and overwhelming. In spite of the continuing interest in poverty and the growing amount of work on migration in this period, however, historians have seldom been able to penetrate the haze of rhetorical abuse to see the vagabond as he was, to define his status, or assess the significance of his mobility. A recent survey of migrants in one English county has suggested that mobility among the lower strata of society was both long-distance and frequent, and the literary reactions to vagrancy would support this hypothesis. Information would be most valuable for large urban communities where vagrants were common. Here vagrants' passports were sometimes entered haphazardly in order books or council minutes along with other business.