Parish paupers, that ‘multitude of poor and needy folks’, hovered near the bottom of early modern England's social hierarchy. Constituting the final rung of respectable society, they were only a mis-step away from the world of the idle and the vagrant. The elderly members of this group, however, held the place of highest honour, and were considered by many to be the quintessential worthy poor. Key to their rank was their position at the conjunction of two themes of contemporary thought: discriminatory poor relief and respect for the elderly. Throughout the period, society was obsessed with separating out the truly poor from the merely lazy and was equally concerned to direct all charitable efforts into the hands of the deserving. The aged poor fulfilled this brief with distinction. No one could blame them for their failing physical abilities, for their loss of labour, or their eventual need of aid: they were poor through no fault of their own. The elderly formed, along with widows and orphans, a trinity of worthy poor. Statutes ordered their relief, and sermons, treatises and pamphlets joined together to form a chorus calling for charitable aid to be given to these ‘aged decayed and ympotent poor people’.