Excerpt from A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy and Beggars and Begging IN the course of collecting materials for a history of vagrancy and begging I have become conscious of the magnitude of the subject I have undertaken, and that to describe fully from the earliest period the condition of the outcasts of society involves an account of the social and political struggles of the lower classes to emancipate themselves. To trace out, in fact, the vicissitudes of the servile classes from the time they are servile by inheritance or by destiny, until they become free members of society, and leave only a remnant who are servile or abject from choice, and whose history becomes a record of hypocrisy, humbug, and habitual idleness. I have endeavoured, during a long period of research, to gather together all the most noteworthy particulars regarding the home less wanderer, and the beggar and vagabond, derivable from the laws, from historical records, andfrom the most trustworthy con temporaries or commentators of the periods I have attempted to illustrate. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... 3rd. The full liberty of buying and selling like other men, in all markets and fairs. 4th. A general pardon for all past offences. The second of these demands shows that the villeins aspired to become leaseholders. Overawed by the imposing array of the rebels, the King consented to all their demands, and granted them charters of emancipation. But immediately on the dispersion of the peasants after the death of their leader, Wat Tiler, the King and the nobles attacked them at the head of armed bands, and spread death and destruction amongst them, both by the sword and by the pitiless execution of large numbers of them. But although the villeins had failed in their immediate object, they had demonstrated their power in combination, and the landlords, recognising that this power must increase as time rolled on, gradually let their lands on lease, and accepted money payments as a substitute for labour. Moreover, by this means they obtained an income which enabled them to provide for their expenses in attending the Court and for other purposes of luxury or recreation. The labourer may therefore now be considered to be passing from the condition of swelling the outcast rank of vagrancy to the settled rank of resident independence. Vagabondism was not, however, in any way repressed, as in the year 1383 it was found necessary to pass the following Act (7 Rich. II., c. 5) for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the 13th Edward I. and the 5th Edward III., cap. 14, and also for supplementing them by conferring unlimited power on the judges for dealing with offenders. "It is ordained and asserted, That the Statutes made in the Time of King Edward, Grandfather to our Sovereign Lord the King that now is, of Roberdsmen and Drawlatches be firmly...

Throughout history, those arrested for vagrancy have generally been poor men and women, often young, able-bodied, unemployed, and homeless. Most histories of vagrancy have focused on the European and American experiences. Cast Out: Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective is the first book to consider the shared global heritage of vagrancy laws, homelessness, and the historical processes they accompanied. In this ambitious collection, vagrancy and homelessness are used to examine a vast array of phenomena, from the migration of labor to social and governmental responses to poverty through charity, welfare, and prosecution. The essays in Cast Out represent the best scholarship on these subjects and include discussions of the lives of the underclass, strategies for surviving and escaping poverty, the criminalization of poverty by the state, the rise of welfare and development programs, the relationship between imperial powers and colonized peoples, and the struggle to achieve independence after colonial rule. By juxtaposing these histories, the authors explore vagrancy as a common response to poverty, labor dislocation, and changing social norms, as well as how this strategy changed over time and adapted to regional peculiarities. Part of a growing literature on world history, Cast Out offers fresh perspectives and new research in fields that have yet to fully investigate vagrancy and homelessness. This book by leading scholars in the field is for policy makers, as well as for courses on poverty, homelessness, and world history. Contributors: Richard B. Allen David Arnold A. L. Beier Andrew Burton Vincent DiGirolamo Andrew A. Gentes Robert Gordon Frank Tobias Higbie Thomas H. Holloway Abby Margolis Paul Ocobock Aminda M. Smith Linda Woodbridge

"Peter Linebaugh's groundbreaking history has become an inescapable part of any understanding of the rise of capitalism. In eighteenth-century London the spectacle of a hanging was not simply a form of punishing transgressors. Rather it evidently served the more sinister purpose -- for a privileged ruling class -- of forcing the poor population of London to accept the criminalization of customary rights and new forms of private property. Necessity drove the city's poor into inevitable conflict with the changing property laws such that all the working-class men and women of London had good reason to fear the example of Tyburn's triple tree.In this new edition Peter Linebaugh reinforces his original arguments with responses to his critics based on an impressive array of historical sources. As the trend of capital punishment intensifies with the spread of global capitalism, The London Hanged also gains in contemporary relevance." -- Publisher.