Vagrancy in Early Modern England
Masterless Men
Para1Vagrants, often referred to as travelers, wanderers, or vagabonds, are defined by
being
rootless and roofless,a phrase coined by modern scholar Robert Humphreys in his 1999 book, No Fixed Abode.
Para2In early modern England, as today, people lived in a context defined by their social
and economic status. The wandering poor, often called masterless men, caused significant worry in the period. These were commoners who had no allegiance
or ties to the ruling classes and thus had both less supervision and less social support.
One surprising fact is that actors were considered vagrants unless they had the patronage
of a master over the rank of baron, hence the sponsorship of acting companies by noblemen
and by monarchs.
Para3Strict laws against vagrancy were enforced only sporadically. Able-bodied men over
age fourteen who had no visible means of support, often dispossessed farm laborers,
were punished with public whipping and a hole burned through their right ear on a
first offence; they could be hanged for a second offense. Unemployed people were shunted
from parish to parish until they could find someone willing to give them work.
Who Were Vagrants?
Para4These masterless men (and women) were seen as a serious threat to the stability of society, largely because
they were perceived as potential criminals. Who were the largest groups of people
most likely to be vagrants or beggars?
Veterans: Many soldiers returned from fighting overseas injured, possibly lacking
a hand, arm or leg, and thus unable to work.
Genuine beggars—the people with permanent disabilities who could not work for a living—were
able to get a license to beg and did receive some support from local almshouses and
Justices of the Peace.
The rural poor: These were mainly widowed women with no trade or means of support,
but a significant number were common farm laborers who were often without work during
the winter.
Local eccentrics: These were unusual people, many of whom we could now characterize
as intellectually disabled or mentally ill. They were tolerated in some communities
and driven out of others. Occasionally, the local Church of England parish supported
them or helped their families support or guide them.
The urban poor: In growing cities, and especially in London, the poor were a significant
public welfare problem. As the Elizabethan economy destabilized in the 1590s, they
became even more of a problem. City authorities tried to prevent both begging and
the subdivision of houses into small one or two room tenements that landlords rented
to the poor. Then, as now, overcrowding in poorer neighborhoods was a problem.
Para5The laws of early modern England were expressed in terms of the employment of men,
but there were as many women and children who suffered from poverty due to economic
disadvantages. Similar to the present day, many women turned to prostitution to support
themselves or their children when they had no other option for work.
Vagrancy and the Players of Early Modern England
Para6The type of lifestyle correlated with vagrancy mimics that of players in and around
the 16th century. Players often travelled vast distances looking for work or touring
with theatrical shows, meaning they were often the strangers coming into towns and
cities around the realm. As scholars Katie Sambrook and John Wilby observe:
The inclusion of unpatronised players within officially proscribed vagrant groups was not only to prevent professional beggars from disguising themselves as actors, but also reflected unease at the politically and socially subversive potential of unlicensed performance itself. In the febrile atmosphere of the Tudor period, with its religious upheavals and political instability, the state sought to control criticism and dissent in public performance with a steadily hardening approach to players and companies.
Para7Only their connection to a playing company, such as The Lord Admiral’s Men or The
Lord Chamberlain’s Men, kept actors from being arrested for vagrancy by suspicious
officials in country towns. A 1572 law, the Acte for the Punishment of Vagabonds and
the Relief of the Poor and Impotent declared actors
vagabonds and masterless men and hence were subject to arrest and imprisonment.A 1597 law, An Acte for Punishment of Rogues, Vagabonds and Sturdie Beggers continued to exempt members of licensed playing companies from any sanction, although it did not exempt them from suspicion.
Potentially Vagrant Characters in Shakespeare’s Writing
Para8Shakespeare wrote often about vagrancy with both disapproval and curiosity. Some of
the most notable examples of characters with vagrant characteristics in Shakespeare’s
works range in importance and social status, which reflects the very nature of vagrancy
and its multifaceted presence in society during Shakespeare’s times.
Para9Falstaff in King Henry IV: One of Prince Hal’s (the future King Henry V) oldest friends is a knight in rank
but a vagrant in actions who pulls Hal into his wandering and often criminal ways.
Falstaff is unburdened by the societal pressures that plague Prince Hal, but ultimately,
he is rejected for his failure to conform.
Para10Fool in King Lear: Lear’s Fool has a traditional aspect of vagrancy in his arsenal: mobility. The Fool
moves between social groups throughout the play, adjusting his sociability for each
person and maintaining a high amount of involvement among several different layers
of the classes depicted. He ultimately suffers alongside Lear during his madness in
the storm but disappears from the play after that point.
Para11Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale: Autolycus is a jack-of-all-trades character who has traveled the world with a monkey,
teaches clowns their tricks, and often relieves them of the gold in their pockets.
This rogue shows the charms and downsides of his itinerant life.
Key Print Sources
Beier, A. L., and Paul Robert Ocobock. Cast Out: Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective. Ohio University Press, 2008.
Dunne, Derek.
“Rogues” License: Counterfeiting Authority in Early Modern Literature.Shakespeare Studies vol. 45, Jan. 2017, pp. 137–143.
Humphreys, Robert. No Fixed Abode: A History of the Responses to the Roofless and Rootless in Britain. Palgrave McMillan, 1999.
Nesvet, Rebecca.
Vagabonds, Players and Shakespeare.Literature Compass vol. 1, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1–12.
Key Online Sources
1572 Vagabonds Act.UK Parliament. https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/coll-9-health1/health-06/. Accessed 30 Jun. 2025.
Best, Michael.
Beggars as Criminals.Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/history/crime%20and%20the%20law/beggars.html.
Best, Michael.
Begging and Vagrancy.Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/city%20life/begging.html.
Kim, Mi-Su.
Men on the Road: Beggars and Vagrants in Early Modern Drama (William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Richard Brome).Texas A&M University. Doctoral Dissertation, 2006. The OAKTrust Digital Repository. https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/items/f3a752d9-46e3-4575-b5a4-9345d9af3e64. WSB bbm1077.
Sambrook, Katie, and John Wilby.
Act of Parliament Against Vagrancy.“The Very Age and Body of the Time”: Shakespeare’s World. Exhibition at King’s College London. 16 Jun.–24 Sep. 2016. https://kingscollections.org/exhibitions/specialcollections/the-very-age-and-body-of-the-time-shakespeares-world/%E2%80%98to-try-their-fortune-there-from-the-town-to-the-city/act-of-parliament-against-vagrancy..
Prosopography
Kate McPherson
Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley
University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity
in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities
Institute,
Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom,at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.
Leah Hamby
Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed
several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from
Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her
other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.
Madisen Crandall
Madisen Crandall was a student at Utah Valley University.
Michael Best
Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the
Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the
ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery,
a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on
Electronic Shakespeares,and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.
Navarra Houldin
Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual
remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major
in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary
research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They
are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice
Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.
Orgography
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
University of Victoria (UVIC1)
https://www.uvic.ca/Metadata
| Authority title | Vagrancy in Early Modern England |
| Type of text | Critical |
| Publisher | University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
| Series | Early Modern England Encyclopedia |
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By Madisen Crandall and Kate McPherson, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
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| Editorial declaration | This document uses Canadian English spelling |
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Early Modern England EncyclopediaAnthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
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