To determine just who cared for the poor in Scotland during the 16th century, we must begin by identifying and defining the difference between the two distinct types of poverty and the resultant poor: the able-bodied and the impotent. The discussion will look briefly at the differing attitudes towards these different classes of poor before moving on to address the forms of care the impotent poor could expect before, during and after the Reformation.
It has been said that the people of 16th-century Scotland believed they had a God-given obligation to sustain the poor: ‘The poor were Christ’s poor and their common house was God’s house’ (Durkan 1962: 116). This obligation, however, did not extend to all of the poor – 16th-century society was not so egalitarian that it would offer the hand of charity to just anyone. Consequently, society and its institutions did differentiate between the ‘strang and ydle beggaris’ and ‘impotent folk’ (Dickinson and Donaldson 1961b: 375).
The able-bodied poor were thought of as being nothing more than layabouts. Their condition was their own responsibility and they could improve it by their own labours.It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that society did not feel obligated to these people other than to express disapproval and to occasionally punish them.
The impotent poor, those suffering from some form of disability that prevented them from maintaining themselves and thus relied on the Christian charity of those in a better position than themselves were the ones to whom society felt obligated. During the 15th and early-16th centuries, this obligation was largely discharged via a series of hospitals that were founded throughout the country. Unlike modern hospitals, these were initially established as ecclesiastical institutions for the relief of ‘…travelling beggars … lepers … the blind, dumb and lame, wounded war veterans, down and outs, widows and the old’ (Durkan 1962: 117). The fact they were established as ecclesiastical institutions is entirely consistent with the contemporary belief that the care of the deserving poor is a Christian obligation. Despite this, however, it is clear that during the early decades of the 16th century, the church began to renege on this particular duty.
A direct result of the decline in the quality of ecclesiastical support for hospitals was the increasing incidence of hospitals being provided and maintained by the burghs. This pattern, which was already discernible during the latter part of the 15th century, accelerated during the first half of the 16th. Many of the hospitals were falling into decay due to the appropriation of their revenues, either by the corporate body or by corrupt officials.
Such institutions, however, were neither the sole nor the main instruments of care for the poor during the 16th century. It has been estimated that in Scotland before 1559 there were approximately 112 such foundations with a typical capacity of between seven and 24 paupers (Durkan 1962: 116, 122 and 126). If this was indeed the situation, then the institutions could only provide relief for a very small number of people. Relief for the majority of the deserving poor was to be obtained, quite simply, by begging. The community was spared the task of determining the deserving from the able-bodied poor by the terms of statutes that were passed in 1424 and 1457, which licensed beggars. Such poor really did rely on society taking their obligations seriously, and there is evidence to suggest that the community did its best to ensure they survived, even if only at subsistence level.
In 1535, an act was passed that instructed:
that na beggaris be tholit to beg in the parochine that ar born in ane uther and that the heidsmen if ilk parochine mak taikynnis and geve to the beggaris theirof and that thai be sustentit within the boundis of that parochine
(Dickinson and Donaldson 1961b: 376)
As well as restricting the poor to begging in the parish of their settlement,[1] this act effectively prevented vagrancy. This restriction was to become a major feature of poor relief for centuries to come.
By the middle of the 16th century, the church had gone a long way to disregarding its obligations to the poor. To many, the diversion into clerical coffers of revenues originally destined for the poor, and the increasing tendency for foundations to accommodate ‘poor clerics rather than old women and men of intelligence leading an austere and studious life, rather than … quarrelsome bedesmen’ (Durkan 1962: 127), was symptomatic of the increasing secularisation of a church whose ranks were largely populated by recipients of patronage and who were more interested in their own self-enrichment than with the spiritual well-being of their charges.
It is almost certain that all of these factors were responsible for unleashing the forces of the Reformation in 1560, the opening shots of which were fired with the posting of the Beggars’ Summons on the doors of friaries in January 1559. This document, written on behalf of the poor, demanded ‘restitution of wranges bypast, and reformation in tyme cuming’ (Dickinson and Donaldson 1962a: 168), and the surrender of property to the poor ‘to whom it rightfully belongs’ (Smout 1969: 84).
The leader of the Scottish Reformation, John Knox, made it very clear in his First Book of Discipline, which was published in 1560, that the Reformers expected the church – the laity and the clergy – to take its obligations to the poor seriously if it were to be acceptable in the new order. Knox’s reformed society was to accept much existing legislation for the relief of the poor. For example, the Reformers believed that the strong beggar should be forced to work, and they accepted the principle of restricting beggars to their parish of settlement. Additionally, the reformed church would appropriate the patrimony of the old church, and use the tithes so raised to relieve the poor as a replacement for the existing system whereby the poor relief was largely funded from voluntary church plate collections.
The period of the Reformation was one of severe social dislocation in Scotland, as elsewhere in Europe. The complexity of events and situations during this time called for very careful diplomacy. Consequently, instead of concentrating on setting the old church’s finances in order and appropriating the tithes for poor relief, the leaders of the Reformation had to ensure its success by becoming pawns in the European game. As a result of this necessary diversion, the reformers failed to achieve their stated aim of basing the poor relief on tithes. By the time the Reformers could get around to setting the old church’s finances in order, the traditional poor relief funding methods of voluntary donations had been firmly re-established.
Despite best-laid plans, the newly-reformed kirk did not achieve any of its stated objectives regarding the poor. Not only were the tithes not appropriated for the poor, but the kirk, relying as it did for its support on the middle-classes: ‘rarely brought [the exploiters of the poor] to the Stool of Repentance’ (Smout 1969: 85).
In 1579, a statute was passed that made provision for the levying of a poor rate in each individual parish for the relief of their paupers. This was the first legal document to allow such action. However, assessment for taxation was never popular, and in the event, very few parishes levied a rate and even those that did stopped doing so after a very short while.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the poor were being cared for by the church and monasteries. As the century progressed, the church increasingly absolved itself of any obligation to the poor
In 1597, the duty of supervising relief was legally transferred to the kirk session. The kirk session collected the funds, licenced beggars and distributed relief. The funds were mainly raised by church collections, bequests, fines levied by the kirk session for moral offences and the cash raised by hiring out the parish hearse. However, the restrictions imposed on kirks by the Book of Discipline meant that the money in most poor funds amounted to very little. To ensure that relief was directed to those most in need, the minister was required to carry out a 16th-century means test on potential recipients to ascertain whether their moral and material condition mean they were worthy of assistance. This was the position of the poor at the end of the 16th century.
One can, if it is so desired, deduce some form of chronology of care to illuminate both the hypothetical and the actual carers of the poor during the 16th century.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the poor were being cared for by the church and monasteries. As the century progressed, the church increasingly absolved itself of any obligation to the poor. The burgesses stepped into the breach and took over responsibility. However, the populace believed that care of the poor was a duty of the church and so, after a short while, they overthrew the old uncaring, unreformed church and established a new one that was aware of its responsibilities. This informal arrangement was formalised in 1597 when the law recognised the kirk’s right to care for the poor.
The actual situation facing the poor during the 16th century was probably quite different, however. The sum total of the clergy’s concern for the poor was the provision of approximately 2,000 beds in hospitals, where the residents were typically allowed ‘the daily surplus of the common table’ (Durkan 1962: 125), and the distribution of begging licences. As the clerics began to withdraw from even this modest level of support, the burghs were forced to step in. However, the burgesses also relied on voluntary donations and bequests to maintain the hospitals. The Reformation did not alter very much: indeed, the Reformers accepted virtually all of the law as it then stood in relation to the poor. The post-Reformation poor were maintained by means-tested handouts from the kirk session’s poor fund. The money was still raised by voluntary donations and distributed on sufferance.
In conclusion, it is contended that the poor were not so much cared for as regarded as an undesirable nuisance that would not go away. 16th-century society continually refused to take what it considered to be its obligations seriously: it refused to accept attempts to raise a compulsory poor rate levy, and the voluntary donations were meagre at their most generous. The history of poor relief in the 16th century is one of the institutions passing responsibility from onr to the other – from church to burgh to kirk to state and then back to kirk – like the proverbial hot potato.
References
- Barker, G. (1988), ‘The “kirk by law established” and the origins of the taming of Scotland: St Andrews 1559-1600’, in L. Leneman (ed), Perspectives in Scottish Social History, Aberdeen.
- Cowan, I. B. (1977), ‘Church and society’, in J. M. Brown (ed), Scottish Society in the 15th Century, London.
- Dickinson, W. C. and Donaldson, G. (1961a), A Source Book of Scottish History, vol. II, Edinburgh.
- Dickinson, W. C. and Donaldson, G. (1961b), A Source Book of Scottish History, vol. III, Edinburgh.
- Donaldson, G. (1965), Scotland: James V to James VII, Edinburgh.
- Durkan,, J. (1962), ‘Care of the poor: Pre-Reformation hospitals’, in D. McRoberts (ed), Essays on the Scottish Reformation, Edinburgh.
- Lynch, M. (1967), ‘Scottish towns, 1500-1700’, in M. Lynch (ed), The Early Modern Town in Scotland, London.
- Smout, T. C. (1969), A History of the Scottish People, 1560-1830, London.
Notes
[1] Either the parish of birth or that of longest continuous residence during the previous seven years.
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