76 FARMING FOR PROFIT 



in particular instances, is as a general description of rural conditions 

 too highly coloured. Dispossessed agriculturists undoubtedly con- 

 tributed some proportion of the class which the Government grouped 

 under the heading of idle rogues. Contemporary writers imply 

 that the proportion was large : modern research, based on con- 

 temporary enquiries and returns, suggests that it was relatively 

 small. The evidence seems insufficient for a decision. In coping 

 with a real evil, the Government attempted no classification. The 

 innocent suffered with the guilty, and men and women, whether 

 many or few, who had lost their means of hvelihood and were 

 willing to work, were the victims of severe punishment designed 

 for the class of professional vagabonds. 



Something is knowTi of the degrees, practices, and jargon of the 

 EHzabethan fraternity of vagabonds. Awdelay and Harman ^ 

 describe the " Abraham man," or " poor Tom," bare-legged and 

 bare-armed, pretending madness; the "Upright man" with his staff, 

 and the " Ruffler " with his weapon ; the " Fraters," Pedlars, and 

 Tinkards ; the " priggars of Prauncers," or horse-stealers, in their 

 leather jerkins ; the " Counterfet Cranke," feigning the falling sick- 

 ness, with a piece of white soap in his mouth which made him foam 

 hke a boar : the " Palhards," with their patched cloaks, and self- 

 inflicted sores or wounds ; and many others of the twenty-three 

 varieties, male and female, of the professional beggar. But even 

 Harman seldom enquired into their previous life. Some, like the 

 " Ruffler," had either " serued in the warres or bene a seruinge 

 man " ; others, like the " Uprights," have been " serueing men, 

 artificers, and laborjmg men traded up to husbandry." The 

 " wild Roge " was a " begger by enheritance — his Grandfather was 

 a begger, his father was one, and he must nedes be one by good 

 reason." Few allusions can be gleaned from Shakespeare's writings 

 to the agricultural changes which were taking place around him. 

 But when we pass from the movement itself to some of the results 

 which it helped to produce, his references are many and clear. The 

 mass of " vagrom men " was a real social danger which exercised 

 the wits of wiser men than Dogberry .^ 



1 The Fraternity of Vacabondes, by John Awdeley (1561) and A Caveat or 

 Warening for Commen Curseters, by Thomas Harman (1567-8). 



^ Many of the types of beggars appear in Shakespeare's pages. There is 

 Harman"s " Ruffler," " the worthiest of this unruly rablement " : 

 " . . . fit to bandy with thy lawless sons 

 To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome." 



(Tit. Andr. Act i. So. 1, 11. 312-3.) 



