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Recent Research on Poverty in Tudor-Stuart England: Review and Commentary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

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Recent research on poverty in Tudor-Stuart England has produced no surprises, no controversies. The scene has been one of quiet industriousness. Yet surely a stock-taking from time to time serves a useful purpose in any area of historical investigation. It clarifies. It offers an understanding of the current state of the question. It asks, what questions are now being posed? What interpretations are being advanced? What appears to be the most promising of the current areas of inquiry? This essay is a selective review of the fruits of recent research on the three questions which have particularly interested students of poverty in Tudor-Stuart England. Those questions are: 1) how were the poor defined?, 2) what was public policy toward them?, and 3) how did Englishmen themselves understand the problem of poverty?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1979

References

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67 Attitudes toward work are scattered throughout the writings of Petty, Mun, Child, Hale, Firmin, and lesser lights. Furniss, E. S., The Position of the Laborer in a System of Nationalism: A Study in the Labor Theories of the Later English Mercantilists (Boston, 1920)Google Scholar, remains the standard introduction. See also Coats, “The Relief of Poverty”, loc. cit.