SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



by-law made at a court-leet. Vagrancy, however, was not a serious question, 

 since few vagrants came through that part of the country. Writing in July 

 the justices said that they had delayed apprenticing poor children, so that 

 they might work at harvest time for their parents, but in October thirty 

 children had been placed with masters, all living in the parish. 



The reports from the hundreds of Cottesloe and Aylesbury show that 

 the administration was carried on in the same manner ; in the latter it was 

 again the custom to serve the poor with corn at the corn-master's house, and the 

 justices had insisted on a true weight of bread being sold in the market, 

 punishing bakers who sold false weight and appointing surveyors of weights 

 and measures in each town. 



Whether the action of the justices, under the books of order issued by 

 the council, was successful is difficult to ascertain. The interference of the 

 council and the supervision of the judges of assize 1 " certainly produced great 

 activity amongst the justices themselves, but of the action of the overseers in 

 the parishes it is more difficult to form an estimate. The actual relief of the 

 impotent poor was entirely in their hands, as well as the provision of work 

 for the able-bodied. The town stock seems to have been kept up in the 

 various hundreds, but how the work was arranged does not appear. Probably 

 the labourers worked largely at their own homes, for at Wing there is no 

 mention of a workhouse. At Aylesbury, however, after the Civil War there 

 was a workhouse, where children were taught trades and the poor worked on 

 the town stock. No mention is made of its erection in the accounts, so that 

 presumably it was built in the first half of the century or still earlier. The 

 impotent were largely provided for in almshouses, many of which were built 

 in Buckinghamshire at this time. 1 ** 



The interference with the markets was attended with complete success, 

 though it was very unpopular at such a place as Wycombe, a large corn 

 market for the surrounding counties. A protest 1W was sent to the council by 

 the mayor, showing that the justices had perhaps defeated their own ends, 

 since both corn-dealers and farmers lost so heavily by the artificial low prices 

 that they would no longer set aside sacks for the poor as they had formerly 

 done. The justices, therefore, had themselves bought corn to sell to the poor 

 at less than the market prices. 



This protest shows, however, that the prices were lowered by their 

 action, and that the interference was thought beneficial even by men who 

 were landowners themselves ; for John Hampden, Sir Fleetwood Dormer, 

 and Sir Robert Lovett were amongst the many landowners who were on the 

 commission of the peace at the time, and their action in the markets must 

 have been directly opposed to their own interests. No protests came from 

 the other towns, which were not likely to be affected so much as Wycombe. 



After the Civil War the overseers' accounts 1 ' 8 for Aylesbury are preserved, 

 and show very fully the system of poor relief. Collections in the parish made 

 fortnightly amounted to from 3 to 4 in 1657. In the previous year 

 thirty-five persons were receiving relief in money, the amounts varying from 

 \od. to 6s. a fortnight, while the relief for the hamlet of Walton was entered 



M Rcturni of the justices of the peace were at times addressed to the judges of assize. 



"* e.g. the almshouse at Newport Pagnel was refounded by Anne of Denmark. 



'" S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 177, No. 50. The accounts begin in 1656. 



77 



