5. The First Act Requiring the Unemployed to be Set to Work [18 Eliz. c. 3. Statutes of the Realm, Vol. IV, Part I, pp. 610-13], 1575-6.
... Also to the intent youth may be accustomed and brought up in labour and work, and thus not like to grow to be idle rogues, and to the intent also that such as be already grown up in idleness and so [be] rogues at this present, may not have any just excuse in saying that they cannot get any service or work, and then without any favour or toleration worthy to be executed, and that other poor and needy persons being willing to work may be set on work: be it ordered and enacted by the authority aforesaid, that in every city and town corporate within this realm, a competent store and stock of wool, hemp, flax, iron or other stuff, by the appointment and order of the mayor, bailiffs, justices or other head officers having rule in the said cities or towns corporate (of themselves and all others the inhabitants within their several authorities to be taxed, levied and gathered), shall be provided.... Collectors and governors of the poor from time to time (as cause requireth) shall and may, of the same stock and store, deliver to such poor and needy person a competent portion to be wrought into yarn or other matter within such time and in such sort as in discretions shall be from time to time limited and prefixed, and the same afterwards, being wrought, to be from time to time delivered to the said collectors and governors of the poor, for which they shall make payment to them which work the same according to the desert of the work, and of new deliver more to be wrought; and so from time to time to deliver stuff unwrought and receive the same again wrought as often as cause shall require; which hemp, wool, flax or other stuff wrought from time to time, shall be sold by the said collectors and governors of the poor either at some market or other place, and at such time as they shall think meet, and with the money coming of the sale, to buy more stuff in such wise as the stocks or store shall not be decayed in value....
6. Report of Justices to Council concerning Scarcity in Norfolk[297] [S.P.D. Eliz., Vol. 191, No. 12], 1586.
May it please your honours, after the remembrance of our humble duties to be advertized; that for a further proceeding in the accomplishment of your honourable letters concerning the furnishing of the markets with corn, we have according to our former letters of the ixth of June last, met here together this day for conference therein. And perusing all our notes and proceedings together, we find that throughout this shire by such order as we have taken with owners and farmers and also badgers and buyers of corn and grain, the markets are by them plentifully served every market day with corn, and the same sold at reasonable rates, viz. wheat at xxiis. the quarter, rye at xvis., malt at xiiiis. and barley at xiis., of which kinds of corn the poorer sort are by persuasion served at meaner prices. And so we doubt not but it shall likewise continue according to our direction until it shall please God that new corn may be used. And hereof thinking it best in performance of our duties to advertize your honours, we humbly take our leave. From Attlebrigge the xith of July 1586.
Your ho: humble at commandment ...
[Signature of Justices.]
[297] Quoted Leonard, Early History of English Poor Relief, pp. 316-17.
7. Orders Devised by the Special Commandment of the Queen's Majesty for the Relief and Ease of the Present Dearth of Grain Within the Realm [Lansdowne MSS., 48, f. 128, No. 54[298]], 1586.
That the sheriffs and justices of the peace by speedy warning of the sheriff shall immediately upon receipt of these orders assemble themselves together, and shall take amongst them into their charge by several divisions all the hundreds, rapes, or wapentakes of the said county.
Item, every company so allotted out shall forthwith direct their precepts unto the said sheriff to warn the high constables, under-constables, and others the most honest and substantial inhabitants ... to appear before them, ... and upon the appearance of the said persons they shall divide them into so many juries as they shall think meet, giving instruction to the said sheriff to return as few of such as be known great farmers for corn or have store of grain to sell as he can; ...
Item, they shall first declare the cause why they are sent for ... and then they shall give them the oath following:—