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Population growth and changing religious views led to changes in the types of crime that the authorities were most concerned about.

Vagrancy

Vagrancy was seen as a threat to the social order. It was not a new crime, but it began to cause more concern. Vagrants, also known as vagabonds, survived by wandering from place to place and begging. The laws restricting people to stay in their manors - the lord's land on which they lived - were no longer enforced by 1500.

The English population increased from 2.4 million in 1500 to 4.1 million by 1600. This led to a rise in food prices and a fall in wages. The economic situation worsened in the years when there was bad weather and the harvest failed. This meant that many people left their villages to look for work, sometimes begging or stealing as they moved around.

Pamphlets

The widespread use of the printing press in this period meant that crimes like vagrancy got more publicity. Pamphlets warned people about dangerous gangs of vagrants, blaming them for crime. Some were portrayed as devious people who were only pretending to be poor to trick people out of food or money. In reality, although some vagrants were criminals, most were just impoverished people looking for work.

Idle beggars make corrosives and apply them to their skin to creates sores, hoping to move the hearts of passers-by so they will bestow large gifts upon them.

Description of England by the priest William Harrison, published in 1577

Beliefs and attitudes

Many Puritans believed that idleness, being lazy, was wrong and that people should work hard. Sometimes, this led them to be suspicious of people asking for help. In addition, although most people were willing to support people from their own area who were poor or sick, they disliked the idea of their poor rates being spent on people from outside their own parish.

Moral crimes

The influence of Puritanism grew from the late 16th century onwards. Puritans were very concerned about behaviour they believed to be sinful. They wanted to protect the Sabbath (Sundays) for religious worship and to get rid of what they saw as pagan practices. In some villages and towns in England, such as Dorchester, Puritans had greater control of the population. They tried to create ‘Godly’ communities by introducing harsher punishments for things like swearing, drinking and having sex outside marriage.

In the 1640s and 1650s, Puritans were in charge of Parliament. They introduced laws to enforce, what they believed to be, an appropriate Christian lifestyle:

• sports and games were banned on Sundays
• the number of alehouses was reduced
• May Day celebrations were banned
• theatres were shut down
• adultery was punishable by death

Witchcraft

In the 16th century, most people believed in magic and the supernatural. People might have turned to magic to discover what sex their unborn child was or to try to cure sickness.

However, witchcraft was thought to involve a special kind of magic that could cause harm to people or property. People believed that the Devil gave witches power through familiars - small animals that supposedly fed off the witch’s blood.

New laws

• In 1542, the first law making witchcraft a crime was passed.
• After 1563, someone found guilty of using witchcraft to kill a person could be hanged.
• Historians are not exactly sure what triggered these new laws.
• The numbers of people being accused of witchcraft started to rise.
• Hundreds of people - mainly women - were executed for witchcraft during this period.

Patterns in witchcraft

Historians have spotted a number of patterns in the figures for witchcraft trials during this period:

• There were sharp increases in witchcraft trials in the 1570s, 1580s and 1590s, when hardship and poverty were most widespread as a result of plague or poor harvests.
• There was a similar pattern during the English Civil War in the 1640s.
• Some historians believe chaotic circumstances such as war and famine created tension within communities and led to people blaming others (normally older, single women) for bad fortune or deaths. Accusations often started with disputes between neighbours.
• There were particularly high numbers of witchcraft accusations in areas where Puritanism was very strong, such as Essex. Some historians have argued that the drive against witches was similar to the push to get rid of moral crimes.
• Some historians see the persecution of witches as an extreme form of the repression of women. However, others have pointed out that many of the people making accusations of witchcraft were also women.