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Property Crime and Hard Times in England, 1559-1624

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

Peter Lawson
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Whatever their other disagreements, most students of early modern judicial records agree that by the end of the sixteenth century England's criminal courts were busier than ever before. Studies by Joel Samaha, J.S. Cockburn, Keith Wrightson and J.A. Sharpe all point to an increase in the level of criminal prosecutions, and in particular to an increase in prosecutions for property crime. These changes in turn suggest a change in actual behaviour: apparently more people were stealing more often. Such a conclusion becomes more convincing when one recalls the state of the Elizabethan economy. By at least the 1580's the economic expansion of the sixteenth century was beginning to give way to crisis. England's society and economy suffered the combined effects of war, harvest failure, plague and industrial stagnation. Mortality and food prices rose, wages and employment opportunities shrank, and poverty became more pronounced.

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Articles
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Law and History Review , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 1986 , pp. 95 - 127
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 1986

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References

1. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 1985 conference of the American Society for Legal History, and at a meeting of the Toronto Sunday Seminar. I am grateful for the comments I received on both occasions. I am also grateful to Douglas Hay, Keith Wrightson, J.M. Beattie, Paul Slack, J.S. Cockburn and Barbara Hanawalt for their suggestions. The research on which this paper is based was financed in part by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I wish to thank the Council for its assistance.

2. Samaha, Joel, Law and Order in Historical Perspective: The Case of Elizabethan Essex (London, 1974) 19Google Scholar; Cockburn, J.S., ‘The Nature and Incidence of Crime in England 1559-1625: A Preliminary Survey’, in Cockburn, J.S., ed., Crime in England 1550-1800 (London, 1977) 53Google Scholar; Cockburn, J.S., A History of English Assizes 1558-1714 (Cambridge, 1972) 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cockburn, J.S., Calendar of Assize Records: Home Circuit Indictments, Elizabeth I and James I. Introduction (London, 1985) 24, 63, 131, 182–97Google Scholar; Wrightson, Keith, English Society 1580-1680 (London, 1982) 162Google Scholar; Sharpe, J.A., Crime in Seventeenth-Century England: A County Study (Cambridge, 1982) 214Google Scholar. This increase in the level of criminal prosecutions may have been a European-wide phenomenon: Weisser, M.R., Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe (Hassocks, 1979) 77Google Scholar.

3. The various aspects of this crisis are summarized in Keith Wrightson, English Society, supra note 2 at 142ff. See also Hoskins, W.G., ‘Harvest Fluctuations and English Economic History, 1480-1619’, Agricultural History Review xii (1964) 28–46Google Scholar; Appleby, A.B., Famine in Tudor and Stuart England (Liverpool, 1978)Google Scholar; Slack, Paul, ‘Mortality Crises and Epidemic Disease in England 1485-1610’ in Webster, C., ed., Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979) 9–59Google Scholar; Spufford, Margaret, Contrasting Communities. English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Skipp, Victor, Crisis and Development. An Ecological Study of the Forest of Arden, 1570-1674 (London, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wrightson, Keith and Levine, David, Poverty and Piety in an English Village: Terling, 1525-1700 (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Supple, B.E., Commercial Crisis and Change in England, 1600-1642 (Cambridge, 1959)Google Scholar; Wrigley, E.A. and Schofield, R.S., The Population History of England, 1541-1871: A Reconstruction (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Bowden, Peter, ‘Agricultural Prices, Farm Profits, and Rents’ in Thirsk, Joan, ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, IV, 1500-1640 (Cambridge, 1967) 593–695Google Scholar; Pound, John, Poverty and Vagrancy in Tudor England (London, 1971)Google Scholar. Sharp, Buchanan, In Contempt of All Authority: Rural Artisans and Riot in the West of England, 1586-1660 (Berkeley, 1980)Google Scholar. Cf. Palliser, D.M., ‘Tawney's Century: Brave New World or Malthusian Trap?’, Economic History Review 2nd ser., xxxv (1982) 339–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. For contemporary assertions that crime levels were rising see the epigraph. For comments linking crime to economic conditions see the following: Thirsk, Joan and Cooper, J.P., eds., Seventeenth-Century Economic Documents (hereafter Seventeenth Century Economic Documents) (Oxford, 1972) 758, 26Google Scholar; Powell, Robert, Depopulation Arraigned, Convicted and Condemned (London, 1636) 38–9Google Scholar.

5. For discussions of the relationship between theft and economic conditions, some sceptical, others less so, see: Curtis, T.C., ‘Some Aspects of the History of Crime in Seventeenth Century England, with Special Reference to Cheshire and Middlesex’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester, 1977) 31 ff.Google Scholar; Buchanan Sharp, In Contempt of all Authority, supra note 3 at 35; J.A. Sharpe, Crime in Seventeenth-Century England, supra note 2 at 198ff.; J.S. Cockburn, ‘Nature and Incidence of Crime’, supra note 2 at 67ff.; Joel Samaha, Law and Order, supra note 2 at 36-37, 168-69; Clark, Peter, English Provincial Society from the Reformation to the Revolution: Religion, Politics and Society in Kent, 1500-1640 (London, 1977) 350Google Scholar.

6. See in particular the brief but valuable discussion in Walter, John and Wrightson, Keith, ‘Dearth and the Social Order in Early Modern England’, in Slack, Paul, ed., Rebellion, Popular Protest and the Social Order in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1984) 110–11Google Scholar. The main points of this discussion are repeated in Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Piety, supra note 3 at 120-22; Keith Wrightson, English Society, supra note 2 at 162-65.

7. See in particular T.C. Curtis, ‘Quarter Sessions Appearances and Their Background: A Seventeenth-Century Regional Study’, in J.S. Cockburn, ed., Crime in England, supra note 2 at 135-34; Sharpe, J.A., ‘Enforcing the Law in the Seventeenth-Century English Village’, in Gattrell, V.A.C. et al. , eds., Crime and the Law: The Social History of Crime in Western Europe since 1500 (London, 1980) 97–119Google Scholar. For a general synopsis of this view see Bruce Lenman and Geoffrey Parker, ‘The State, the Community and the Criminal Law in Early Modern Europe’, ibid. at 11-48.

8. It will be clear from the above and from what follows that this paper owes a great deal to recent studies by Douglas Hay and J.M. Beattie. See in particular: Hay, Douglas, ‘War, Dearth and Theft in the Eighteenth Century: The Record of the English Courts’, Past and Present 95 (1982) 117–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beattie, J.M., ‘The Pattern of Crime in England 1660-1800’, Past and Present 62 (1974) 47–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beattie, J.M., ‘The Criminality of Women in Eighteenth-Century England’, Journal of Social History viii (1975) 80–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Barbara Hanawalt's discussion of the ‘external influences on the pattern of crime’ in the early fourteenth century is also of relevance here: Crime and Conflict in English Communities, 1300-1348 (Cambridge, Mass., 1979) 222–60Google Scholar.

9. See Douglas Hay's, ‘War, Dearth and Theft’, supra note 8 at 130-35.

10. Brown, E.H. Phelps and Hopkins, Sheila, ‘Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consummables Compared with Builders' Wage-rates’, Economica n.s., xxiii (1956) 296–314CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peter Bowden, ‘Statistical Appendix’, in Joan Thirsk, ed., Agrarian History, supra note 3 at 814-70.

11. On the importance of the labour of wives and children see David Levine, ‘Industrialization and the Proletarian Family in England’, forthcoming in Past and Present. I wish to thank Professor Levine for allowing me to see a copy of this paper before its publication. See also Woodward, D., ‘Wage Rates and Living Standards in Pre-Industrial England’, Past and Present 91 (1981) 28–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Woodward suggests that the real wage index is not even a very good guide to the living standards of building workers.

12. W.G. Hoskins, ‘Harvest Fluctuations, 1480-1619’, supra note 3 at 29; Hoskins, W.G., The Age of Plunder: The England of Henry VIII 1500-1547 (London, 1976) 116–17Google Scholar. See also Chalkin, C.W., Seventeenth-Century Kent (London, 1965) 253–54Google Scholar; Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Piety, supra note 3 at 40. Cf. Shammas, Carole ‘Food Expenditure and Economic Weil-Being in Early Modern England’, Journal of Economic History xliii (1983) 89–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Shammas questions whether wageearners spent as large a proportion of their income on food as historians have supposed.

13. W.G. Hoskins, ‘Harvest Fluctuations, 1480-1619’, supra note 3 at 29.

14. Appleby, A.B., ‘Diet in Sixteenth-Century England: Sources, Problems, Possibilities’, in Webster, C., ed., Health, Medicine and Mortality, (Cambridge, 1979) 107ffGoogle Scholar; Appleby, A. B., ‘Grain Prices and Subsistence Crises in England and France, 1590-1740’, Journal of Economic History xxxix (1979) 868, 877Google Scholar. See also Alan Everitt, ‘Farm Labourers’, in Joan Thirsk, ed., Agrarian History, supra note 3 at 450-53; Calendar of State Papers Domestic, (hereafter C.S.P.D.) 1619-1623, 455, 540; Seventeenth Century Economic Documents, 4, 814; Harrison, William, The Description of England, ed. Edlen, Georges (Ithaca, 1968) 133Google Scholar.

15. W.G. Hoskins, ‘Harvest Fluctuations, 1480-1619’, supra note 3 at 40. Harrison, C.J. makes a similar criticism: ‘Grain Price Analysis and Harvest Qualities, 1465-1634’, Agricultural History Review xix (1971) 135–55Google Scholar. Nonetheless, I do not believe that the coefficients noted in Table 1 are so low as to undermine Appleby's contention that there was an essential ‘symmetry’ to the structure of grain prices. See A.B. Appleby, ‘Grain Prices and Subsistence Crises’, supra note 14 at 865-87.

16. In the following discussion all analyses of grain prices are based on Bowden's ‘average of all grain prices’ index: ‘Statistical Appendix’, supra note 10 at 815ff.

17. Cockburn, J.S., ‘Early-Modern Assize Records as Historical Evidence’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, v (1975) 223–24Google Scholar. See also Cockburn, J.S., ‘Trial by the Book? Fact and Theory in the Criminal Process, 1558-1625’ in Baker, J.H., ed., Legal Records and the Historian (London, 1978) 60–79Google Scholar. For a more positive evaluation of indictments as historical evidence see Beattie, J.M., ‘Judicial Records and the Measurement of Crime in Eighteenth-Century England’ in Knafla, L.A., ed., Crime and Criminal Justice in Europe and Canada (Waterloo, 1981) 127–45Google Scholar.

18. Douglas Hay, ‘War, Dearth and Theft’, supra note 8 at 146.

19. J. A. Sharpe, ‘Enforcing the Law’, supra note 7 at 97-99.

20. For example see: 33 Henry VIII c.6; 5&6 Edward VI c.25; 18 Elizabeth c.3; 21 James I c.20. For an introduction to the complex subject of criminal jurisdiction see J.H. Baker, ‘Criminal Courts and Procedure at Common Law, 1550-1800’, in J.S. Cockburn, ed., Crime in England, supra note 2 at 15-48.

21. Knafla, L.A., ‘“Sin of all Sorts Swarmeth”: Criminal Litigation in an English County in the Early Seventeenth Century’, in Ives, E.W. and Manchester, A.H., eds., Law, Litigants and the Legal Profession (London, 1983) 50–67Google Scholar.

22. Lambard, William, Eirenarcha, or, of the Office of the Justices of the Peace (London, 1581) 452, 454Google Scholar. See also Dalton, Michael, The Countrey Justice (London, 1618) 59–60Google Scholar.

23. J.S. Cockburn, History of Assizes, supra note 2 at 91; Williams, Penry, The Tudor Regime (Oxford, 1979) 230Google Scholar; Barnes, T.G., Somerset, 1625-1640: A County's Government during the ‘Personal Rule’ (Cambridge, Mass., 1961) 51–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. For the sources used in this analysis see note 25 infra. See also L.A. Knafla, ‘“Sin of all Sorts Swarmeth”’, supra note 21 at 50-76.

25. In the following discussion, analyses of prosecutions in Hertfordshire are based on the indictments and gaol calendars returned to Hertfordshire's courts of quarter sessions and assizes during the 31 years between 1559 and 1624 for which documentation is complete: Public Record Office (hereafter P.R.O.) ASSI 35/32/3-35/66/2; Hertfordshire Record Office (hereafter H.R.O.) HAT SR1-32, QSB/1-2A. Analyses dealing only with prosecutions at Hertfordshire assizes are based on indictments and gaol calendars returned during the 36 years for which complete documentation exists: P.R.O., ASSI 35/18/5-35/66/2; H.R.O., HAT SRI/65, 98; 2/36; 6/171; 7/115; 9/92; 10/139. Analyses of prosecutions at Sussex assizes are based on the following: Calendar of Assize Records. Sussex Indictments, Elizabeth I, ed. Cockburn, J.S. (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Calendar of Assize Records. Sussex Indictments, James I, ed. Cockburn, J.S. (London, 1975)Google Scholar. Analyses of prosecutions at Kent assizes are based on the following: Calendar of Assize Records. Kent Indictments, Elizabeth I, ed. Cockburn, J.S. (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Calendar of Assize Records. Kent Indictments, James I, ed. Cockburn, J.S. (London, 1980)Google Scholar. Analyses of prosecutions at Surrey assizes are based on the following: Calendar of Assize Records. Surrey Indictments, Elizabeth I, ed. Cockburn, J.S. (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Calendar of Assize Records. Surrey Indictments, James I, ed. Cockburn, J.S. (London, 1982)Google Scholar. For Sussex coverage is complete for 29 years between 1559 and 1624; for Kent coverage is complete for 39 years; for Surrey coverage is complete for 51 years.

26. For a discussion of the ‘trend’ and its place in time-series analysis see Floud, Roderick, An Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Historians (London, 1973) 95 ffGoogle Scholar. The trend in each of the assize prosecution series was calculated using the regression routines in SPSS-6000.

27. Although I use the terms ‘common sense’ and ‘critical’, the more technical terms ‘positivist’ and ‘interactionist’, as used in the criminological and sociological literature, could easily be substituted. See Taylor, Ian, Walton, Paul and Young, Jock, The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance (London, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. Here and elsewhere in the discussion, ‘high’ and ‘low’ are categories defined by the trend. Thus years of ‘high’ prices are years in which the level of prices rose above the trend. It should also be noted that to allow a more direct comparison between ‘court years’ and ‘harvest years’, the latter have been dated according to the calendar year in which they end. By contrast Bowden dates harvest years according to the calendar year in which they begin: Peter Bowden, ‘Statistical Appendix’, supra note 10 at 869. Bowden's price series have therefore been lagged by one year before being used in the following analyses.

29. The period 1550-1850 was characterized by lower temperatures and damp summers: Lamb, H.H., Climate: Present, Past and Future: Climatic History and the Future, 2 vols. (London, 1977) ii, 463Google Scholar; Lamb, H.H., The Changing Climate: Selected Papers (London, 1966) 10-11, 65-66, 186–87Google Scholar. Pfister notes that the later sixteenth century was characterized by especially cold springs and cold and wet summers: Pfister, Christian, ‘The Little Ice Age: Thermal and Wetness Indices for Central Europe’, in Rotberg, R. and Rabb, T., eds., Climate and History: Studies in Interdisciplinary History (Princeton, 1981) 85–116Google Scholar. See also Le Roy Ladurie, E., Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A History of Climate Since the Year 1000, trans. Bray, B. (Garden City, 1971)Google Scholar.

30. Peter Bowden, ‘Agricultural Prices’, supra note 3 at 625-26. Spufford notes that because of repeated harvest failures during the later sixteenth century many Cambridgeshire smallholders were forced to give up their holdings: Margaret Spufford, Contrasting Communities, supra note 3 at 77ff., 100ff. See also Peter Clark, Provincial Society, supra note 5 at 229. Razi notes a similar pattern during years of harvest failure in the early fourteenth century: Razi, Zvi, Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish: Economy, Society and Demography in Halesowen, 1270-1400 (Cambridge, 1980) 37, 94ffGoogle Scholar.

31. Although the degree of market dependence probably varied, Everitt concludes from his survey of probate inventories that ‘only a small proportion of the poor grew their own corn; the majority purchased their small weekly requirements either in the open market or from badgers and corn factors’: Alan Everitt, ‘The Marketing of Agricultural Produce’, in Joan Thirsk, ed., Agrarian History, supra note 3 at 576. See also Alan Everitt, ‘Farm Labourers’, supra note 14 at 450-51.

32. Peter Bowden, ‘Agricultural Prices’, supra note 3 at 626.

33. A.B. Appleby, ‘Grain Prices and Subsistence Crises’, supra note 14 at 869; Clay, C.G.A., Economic Expansion and Social Change: England 1500-1700, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1984) i, 39, 221Google Scholar; Supple, Commercial Crisis and Change, supra note 3 at 14-19. In his recent study of crime in seventeenth-century Essex Sharpe notes the particular vulnerability of rural industrial workers to economic crisis, and he stresses the threat which these workers posed to the maintenance of law and order: Crime in Seventeenth-Century England, supra note 2 at 198ff.

34. Appleby, A.B., ‘Nutrition and Disease: The Case of London, 1550-1750’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History vi (1975) 4–5Google Scholar; A.B. Appleby, ‘Grain Prices and Subsistence Crises’, supra note 14 at 865-87; A.B. Appleby, Famine in Tudor and Stuart England, supra note 3 at 6-7, 112-13; Peter Bowden, ‘Agricultural Prices’, supra note 3 at 626-27; Seventeenth Century Economic Documents, 814.

35. Peter Clark, Provincial Society, supra note 5 at 238-41; Slack, Paul, ‘Poverty and Politics in Salisbury 1597-1666’, in Clark, Peter and Slack, Paul, eds., Crisis and Order in English Towns: Essays in Urban History (London, 1972) 179–80Google Scholar.

36. John Walter and Keith Wrightson, ‘Dearth and the Social Order’, supra note 6 at 108-28; Chartres, J.A., Internal Trade in England 1500-1700 (London, 1977) 58–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Outhwaite, R.B., ‘Dearth and Government Intervention in English Grain Markets, 1590-1700’ Economic History Review 2nd ser., xxxiv (1981) 397ffGoogle Scholar; Alan Everitt, ‘Marketing of Agricultural Produce’, supra note 31 at 585. For slightly different evaluations from a local perspective see: Peter Clark, Provincial Society, supra note 5 at 232-33; Fletcher, Anthony, A County Community in Peace and War: Sussex 1600-1660 (London, 1975) 147–52Google Scholar.

37. Margaret Spufford, Contrasting Communities, supra note 3 at 78-80; Peter Clark, Provincial Society, supra note 5 at 233-34.

38. Razi notes an increase in both prosecutions for gleaning and pleas of debt during the harvest crises of the early fourteenth century: Zvi Razi, Life, Marriage and Death, supra note 30 at 37. See also Peter Clark, Provincial Society, supra note 5 at 234-35; Goubert, Pierre, ‘The French Peasantry of the Seventeenth Century: A Regional Example’, in Aston, T., ed., Crisis in Europe 1560-1660: Essays from Past and Present (London, 1965) 157–58Google Scholar.

39. In this discussion of price fluctuations the ‘norm’ is defined as the average annual price of grain during the ten years prior to the start of the crisis.

40. British Library, Lansdowne MS 48, nos.50-8; Hughes, P. and Larkin, J., eds., Tudor Royal Proclamations (hereafter Tudor Proclamations), 3 vols. (New Haven, 1964-1969) ii, no. 686Google Scholar; ibid. iii, nos. 726, 761, 781, 784, 789, 795; Larkin, J. and Hughes, P., eds., Stuart Royal Proclamations (hereafter Stuart Proclamations), 2 vols. (Oxford, 1973-1983) i, nos. 127, 236, 248Google Scholar; Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1586-1587 (hereafter A.P.C.), 45-6, 278; 1595-1596, 25, 27; 1596-1597, 80-3; Tawney, R. H. and Power, Eileen, eds., Tudor Economic Documents (hereafter Tudor Economic Documents,) 3 vols. (London, 1924) i, 156-61, 165–66Google Scholar; R.B. Outhwaite, ‘Dearth and Government Intervention’, supra note 36 at 389-94; Penry Williams, Tudor Regime, supra note 23 at 185-95; Cheyney, E.P., A History of England from the Defeat of the Spanish Armada to the Death of Elizabeth, 2 vols. (New York, 1948) ii, 3–35Google Scholar.

41. E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, Population History, supra note 3 at 338-39; Paul Slack, ‘Mortality Crises’, supra note 3 at 32-40; Paul Slack, ‘Poverty and Polities’, supra note 35 at 168-71; A.B. Appleby, Famine in Tudor and Stuart England, supra note 3 at 109-32; D.M. Palliser, ‘Dearth and Disease in Staffordshire, 1540-1670’, in Chalkin, C. and Havinden, M., eds., Rural Change and Urban Growth 1500-1800: Essays in Honour of W.G. Hoskins (London, 1974) 54–75Google Scholar.

42. A.P.C., 1586, 63, 128, 133, 316-17; 1595-1596, 43, 33; 1596-1597, 364-66; 1597, 56, 88, 92, 96-97; 1597-1598, 442; Historical Manuscripts Commission (hereafter H.M.C.), Salisbury MSS, v 249-50; C.S.P.D., 1595-1597, 82, 401; Tudor Economic Documents, ii, 341; Buchanan Sharp, In Contempt of All Authority, supra note 3 at 10-42. Outhwaite, R.B, ‘Food Crises in Early Modern England: Patterns of Response’ in Flinn, M., ed., Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Economic History Congress (Edinburgh, 1978) 369Google Scholar; Clark, Peter, ‘Popular Protest and Disturbance in Kent, 1558-1640’, Economic History Review 2nd ser., xxix (1976) 367ff.Google Scholar; Charlesworth, Andrew, ed., An Atlas of Rural Protest in Britain 1548-1900 (London, 1983) 72–74Google Scholar.

43. Paul Slack, ‘Mortality Crises’, supra note 3 at 34-38. For reports of starvation in the north see Appleby, A.B., ‘Disease or Famine? Mortality in Cumberland and Westmorland 1580-1640’, Economic History Review 2nd ser., xxv (1973) 419–20Google Scholar.

44. This discussion of mortality in Hertfordshire is based on an examination of the registers of thirteen parishes (approximately 10% of the total). See Lawson, P., ‘Crime and the Administration of Criminal Justice in Hertfordshire, 1580-1625’ (Oxford University D. Phil, thesis, 1982) 1–41Google Scholar.

45. C.S.P.D., 1595-1597, 107, 108, 126-27; H.M.C., Salisbury MSS vi, 246-47; Norden, John, Speculi Britaniae Pars, A Description of Hertfordshire (1598, reprint ed., London, 1903) 22Google Scholar; Tregelles, J.A., A History of Hoddesdon in the County of Hertfordshire (Hertford, 1908) 345–46Google Scholar; H.R.O., HAT SR 10/52, 78; P.R.O., ASSI 35/38/3/23, 35/39/3/40, 45.

46. Peter Clark, ‘Popular Protest and Disturbance’, supra note 42 at 367ff.; E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, Population History, supra note 3 at 670-73.

47. Further evidence of a lag between prices and prosecutions can be found in those court records which are too fragmentary to be used in the above analyses. For 1587, a year of severe harvest crisis, the only Kent assize records to survive are those for the Trinity sitting. The total number of persons indicted for theft at this sitting was substantially more than the mean total for previous Trinity sittings. However, the level of prosecutions may have been even higher in 1588, the year after the harvest crisis had reached a peak. The records are complete for that year, and they indicate that the level of prosecutions rose 86% above the trend.

48. Stuart Proclamations i, nos. 127, 133; E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, Population History, supra note 3 at 338-39; Victor Skipp, Crisis and Development, supra note 3 passim.

49. Hertfordshire mortality levels were apparently also high in 1610 and 1611, but this was due to an outbreak of plague: P. Lawson, ‘Crime and Criminal Justice’, supra note 44 at 28-32.

50. E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, Population History, supra note 3 at 338-39; A.P.C., 1621-1623, 217, 224-25; Peter Clark, ‘Popular Protest and Disturbance’, supra note 42 at 369; Buchanan Sharp, In Contempt of all Authority, supra note 3 at 10-42; Andrew Charlesworth, ed., Atlas of Rural Protest, supra note 42 at 76. See also Stuart Proclamations i, nos. 236, 248.

51. Seventeenth Century Economic Documents, 24.

52. A.B. Appleby, Famine in Tudor and Stuart England, supra note 3 at 145-47; E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, Population History, supra note 3 at 675-77.

53. P. Lawson, ‘Crime and Criminal Justice’, supra note 44 at 28-32.

54. It is worth noting here that if the price series is lagged by one year, the coefficients are substantially different: for Hertfordshire R2 =.381; for Sussex R2 =.534; for Surrey R2 =.964.

55. On non-linear relationships see Blalock, H.M., Social Statistics (Tokyo, 1972) 408ffGoogle Scholar.

56. It is also possible that this lag resulted from the inevitable delay between the occurrence of an offence and its prosecution, but this too seems unlikely. In this connection it should be noted that there was a close correspondence between the terminal dates of both the ‘harvest year’ and what Hay has described as the ‘court year’ (‘War, Dearth and Theft’, supra note 8 at 122). Bowden defines the harvest year as ending on 28 September (‘Statistical Appendix’, supra note 10 at 869); the final sitting of the assizes was usually in either July or August, and the final sitting of quarter sessions was usually in September. If it is assumed that most offences were tried at the next sitting of the relevant court, then it follows that the cases recorded in each annual set of court records derive from roughly the same sequence of months as do each of the values in the price index.

57. Slack, Paul, ‘Vagrants and Vagrancy in England, 1598-1664’, Economic History Review 2nd ser., xxvii (1974) 369–70Google Scholar; Paul Slack, ‘Poverty and Politics’, supra note 35 at 169; Peter Clark, Provincial Society, supra note 5 at 235-36; Clark, Peter and Slack, Paul, English Towns in Transition 1500-1700 (London, 1976) 93Google Scholar; Victor Skipp, Crisis and Development, supra note 3 at 39-40; Buchanan Sharp, In Contempt of All Authority, supra note 3 at 68; A.B. Appleby, ‘Disease or Famine?’, supra note 43 at 429.

58. Of these two roads, Ermine Street was probably the more important. It was the principal route to York, and until the latter part of the seventeenth century it appears to have been the busier. The third major road running through Hertfordshire was Watling Street; it linked London with the west of the country. See below Figure 7. See also Johnson, W. Branch, Hertfordshire (London, 1970) 15–39Google Scholar.

59. For an instructive discussion of the relationship between crime and urban migration in developing countries see Clinard, M.B. and Abbott, Daniel J., Crime in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective (New York, 1973)Google Scholar.

60. E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, Population History, supra note 3 at 212, 431; Peter Bowden, ‘Agricultural Prices’, supra note 3 at 600, 605-06; Peter Bowden, ‘Statistical Appendix’, supra note 10 at 865; E.H. Phelps Brown and Sheila Hopkins, ‘Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consummables’, supra note 10 at 29; Brown, E.H. Phelps and Hopkins, Sheila, ‘Wage-rates and Prices: Evidence for Population Pressure in the Sixteenth Century’, Economica n.s., xxiv (1957) 306Google Scholar.

61. It is worth recalling here Appleby's contention that because of improvements in agriculture, the close relationship which had existed between prices and mortality during periods of harvest crisis weakened during the course of the seventeenth century: A.B. Appleby, ‘Grain Prices and Subsistence Crises’, supra note 14 at 883; A.B. Appleby, Famine in Tudor and Stuart England, supra note 3 at 155-81. See also Victor Skipp, Crisis and Development, supra note 3 at 42-78; J.A. Sharpe, Crime in Seventeenth-Century England, supra note 2 at 214. Having noted the apparent decline in the level of property offences during the seventeenth century, Sharpe draws attention to the socio-economic background of this change. In particular he notes that ‘the position of the rural poor, and hence perhaps of social relations in general, was less precarious in the late seventeenth than in the late sixteenth century’.

62. J.M. Beattie, ‘Pattern of Crime’, supra note 8 at 93-95; J.M. Beattie, ‘The Criminality of Women’, supra note 8 at 103-7; Douglas Hay, ‘War, Dearth and Theft’, supra note 8 at 117-60. See also Barbara Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict, supra note 8 at 229-38.

63. This figure is based on the annual totals noted in Cruikshank, C.G., Elizabeth's Army, (London, 1966) 290Google Scholar. When it is recalled that by 1590 England's population was approaching a total of 4 million, the number of soldiers noted above seems small. But the population liable to military service was of course smaller than the national total. Peter Clark notes that between 1591 and 1602 approximately 6,000 men were sent from Kent to serve in either Ireland or Europe (Provincial Society, supra note 5 at 226). This figure comprised 5% of the county's total population of 130,000, or about 16% of the adult (i.e. ages 15-59) male population. Although still small, this proportion is not inconsequential. These calculations assume a balanced sex ratio and an age structure as described by Wrigley and Schofield: Population History, supra note 3 at 528.

64. Sutcliffe, Matthew, The Practice, Proceedings and Lawes of Armes (London, 1593) 298Google Scholar. See also A.P.C., 1591-1592, 150; 1592, 151.

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67. H.R.O., HAT SR 3/86-88; SR5/28-29. See also ibid., SR4/19; 5/187; 9/182; QSB 2A/84; P.R.O., ASSI 35/41/1/15; 35/42/3/6.

68. See also Barbara Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict, supra note 8 at 229-35. Cf. J.A. Sharpe, Crime in Seventeenth-Century England, supra note 2 at 206-8; J.M. Beattie, ‘Pattern of Crime’, supra note 8 at 93-95; J.M. Beattie, ‘Criminality of Women’, supra note 8 at 103-6; Douglas Hay, ‘War, Dearth and Theft’, supra note 8 at 124-26, 143.

69. Cf. Douglas Hay, ‘War, Dearth and Theft’, supra note 8 at 124-26, 135-46. Hay notes that the relationship between prosecutions and prices in the eighteenth century is similarly strengthened when the fact of war is taken into account. However, because of the different pattern of demobilization, Hay's account of the relationship is different than that advanced above.

70. Here I am speaking only of property crime. In the case of many statutory misdemeanours, particularly those related to the marketing of food, there was a formal connection between economic conditions and the administration of criminal justice. See for example the Orders and Directions … for the Better Administration of Justice (London, 1630).

71. John Walter and Keith Wrightson, ‘Dearth and the Social Order’, supra note 6 at 108-28.

72. Wrightson, Keith, ‘Two Concepts of Order: Justices, Constables and Jurymen in Seventeenth-Century England’, in Brewer, J. and Styles, J., eds., An Ungovernable People: The English and Their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1980) 39Google Scholar. See also Douglas Hay, ‘War, Dearth and Theft’, supra note 8 at 152-54.

73. P. Lawson, ‘Crime and Criminal Justice’, supra note 44 at 100, 172ff.

74. Keith Wrightson, English Society, supra note 2 at 164-65. See also John Walter and Keith Wrightson, ‘Dearth and the Social Order’, supra note 6 at 111; Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Piety, supra note 3 at 122; Bruce Lenman and Geoffrey Parker, ‘The State, the Community and the Criminal Law’, supra note 7 at 37.

75. Douglas Hay, ‘War, Dearth and Theft’, supra note 8 at 154-55.

76. P. Lawson, ‘Lawless Juries: The Composition and Behaviour of Hertfordshire Juries, 1573-1624’ (forthcoming). Jurors can of course only be used as surrogates so long as it is assumed that they were not wholly under the control of judges. While judicial pressure must be counted among the various factors influencing the deliberations of juries, the available evidence suggests to me that juries did enjoy a measure of independence in reaching their verdicts. On this question see P. Lawson, ‘Lawless Juries’.

77. Of those arraigned at the assizes, the following proportions were convicted: for Hertfordshire, 47% in low price years and 48% in high price years; for Sussex, 52% in low price years and 53% in high price years; for Kent, 54% in low price years and 58% in high price years. Cf. Joel Samaha, Law and Order, supra note 2 at 57; Douglas Hay, ‘War, Dearth and Theft’, supra note 8 at 155-56; Barbara Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict, supra note 8 at 58. When this paper was presented at the 1985 conference of the American Society for Legal History, several of the comments focused on the ways in which the response of victims might have been influenced by economic crisis. Professor Charles Donahue, with one eye on economic theory, noted that under normal circumstances some victims were dissuaded from prosecuting because the incentives were outweighed by the disincentives. He then suggested that as economic conditions worsened this balance might have changed: the incentives to prosecute may have begun to outweigh the disincentives, perhaps because of an increased desire for revenge, or because of an increased desire to protect property, or because of some other change in attitudes. The result would have been an increase in the number of recorded property crimes—an increase which would have paralleled the increase in prices, but which would have occurred independently of any change in the level of crime. In a similar vein Professor Robert Palmer suggested that under normal circumstances some property crimes may have been prosecuted in the civil courts, for only there could victims hope for some compensation. He then suggested that as economic conditions worsened these motives may have changed. Victims may have grown more interested in revenge than in financial compensation, and in consequence they would have turned from the civil courts to the criminal courts. Once again the result would have have been an increase in the number of recorded property crimes which would have paralleled the increase in prices, but which would have occurred independently of any change in the level of crime. In general it must be accepted that many victims chose to remedy their complaints outside the official system of criminal justice. Moreover it may be that the decisions of these victims were influenced by economic conditions. Nonetheless there is little evidence to suggest that victims were influenced in the manner outlined by Professors Donahue and Palmer. The evidence that does exist suggests that during periods of economic crisis victims were more inclined towards mercy than revenge. (See for example Hext's, Edward comments, written during the crisis of the 1590‘s: Tudor Economic Documents, ii, 339ffGoogle Scholar.) If this was so then high prices must have dampened rather than stimulated the desire to prosecute. In consequence the annual totals of recorded crimes may underestimate actual crime levels. Of course these suggestions must remain highly speculative for too little is yet known either about the attitudes of victims, or about the decision to prosecute.

78. Based on the data provided by Wrigley and Schofield (Population History, supra note 3 at 531ff.), England's population rose by the following proportions: 1576-1603: 22%; 1569-1603: 29%; 1559-1603: 39%.

79. Brenner, Robert, ‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in PreIndustrial Europe’, Past and Present 70 (1976) 30–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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82. J.S. Cockburn, ‘Early-Modern Assize Records’, supra note 17 at 222-25.

83. Lawson, ‘Crime and Criminal Justice’, supra note 44 at 32-40.

84. ibid. at 26-7, 180ff.

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86. See in particular H.R.O., D/P 12 9/1 (Baldock Constable's Accounts); D/P 13 5/1 (Barkway Churchwarden's Accounts); D/P 71 5/1 (Little Munden Churchwarden's Accounts).

87. The presumed connection between vagrancy and theft is a central theme of the ‘rogue literature’. See Salgado, G., ed., Cony-Catchers and Bawdy Baskets: An Anthology of Elizabethan Low Life (Harmondsworth, 1972Google Scholar); Judges, A.V., ed., The Elizabethan Underworld (London, 1930Google Scholar). See also William Harrison, Description of England, supra note 14 at 193-94; William Lambard, Local Government, supra note 65 at 181; Tudor Economic Documents ii, 339-46.

88. See for example H.R.O., HAT SR1/46; SR2/128; SR3/86-88; SR5/28-29, 164-65, 168-71; SR9/181; SR10/123; SR11/43; SR13/25, 151; SR14/141.

89. H.R.O., HAT SR9/181, 183, 185; SR10/122-123, 139.

90. Estimates of population size are based on the returns to the ecclesiastical census of 1603. The Hertfordshire returns are reprinted in Munby, Lionel, Hertfordshire Population Statistics, 1563-1801 (Hertford, 1963)Google Scholar.

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92. For an overview of these changes see Penry Williams, Tudor Regime, supra note 23 at 224ff.

93. Joel Samaha, Law and Order, supra note 2 at 67ff.

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98. Keith Wrightson, ‘Two Concepts of Order’, supra note 72 at 37ff.

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101. J.A. Sharpe, Crime in Seventeenth-Century England, supra note 2 at 215. See also Joel Samaha, Law and Order, supra note 2 at 66; Keith Wrightson, English Society, supra note 2 at 164ff.

102. Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Piety, supra note 3 at 110-41; Keith Wrightson, ‘Two Concepts of Order’, supra note 72 at 32-46; Clark, Peter, ‘The Alehouse and the Alternative Society’, in Pennington, D. and Thomas, K., eds., Puritans and Revolutionaries: Essays in Seventeenth-Century History Presented to Christopher Hill (Oxford, 1978) 69–71Google Scholar; J.A. Sharpe, Crime in Seventeenth-Century England, supra note 2 at 173ff.; Peter Clark and Paul Slack, English Towns in Transition, supra note 57 at 122.

103. In his recent examination of the incidence of crime in the nineteenth century, V.A.C. Gatrell cautions historians against using prosecution records as a basis for drawing conclusions about long-term changes in crime levels. In particular he notes that for periods in which both prosecution levels and the intensity of criminal justice activity were rising, the historian is ‘not entitled to draw any inference about the real trends in crime’: V.A.C. Gatrell, ‘The Decline of Theft and Violence in Victorian and Edwardian England’, in V.A.C. Gatrell et al., eds., Crime and the Law, supra note 7 at 251. Clearly both conditions apply to the Elizabethan period. But while Gatrell's claim is, in principle, undeniable, it nonetheless seems justifiable to speculate about crime levels, at least until more is known about the workings of Elizabethan criminal justice.