I’ve read a few sources about rules that were made to control the poor people. After reading it, I think that rules that were created treated the poor fairly and discourage the nasty vagrants to beg.  Some factors that increased the poor people rate were that lands were being enclosed by owners who wanted to do sheep farming instead to make more money which caused other people to be out of work. Also there was a decline in Christianity to feed and clothe the poor people and also when King Henry VIII closed down all the monasteries to get money for his very expensive war.

However, Queen Elizabeth I decided to pass law that were meant to treat the poor people fairly and to sort out the between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor also called as vagrants. Her decision to make laws to control the poor rate was very hard as she might face rebellion from her people. She made laws like asking the parish to officially record the poor people so that they can distribute the money that was kindly ask and requested from the Sunday services. During 1563, another law was created that categorized the poor people into more categories which included deserving poor, deserving unemployed and undeserving poor. The deserving poor and deserving unemployed were put into relief houses like the indoor relief for deserving unemployed and outdoor relief for the deserving poor. In the outdoor relief, the people categorized there were given the basic needs of a human including some money and the outdoor relief provided care, medical attention and apprenticeship to work with. And the undeserving poor were punished and by getting harsh punishment. Later in 1576, each town was forced to provide its own poor people with work. I personally think that they wouldn’t be so many people just lying about and doing nothing.

The undeserving poor were punished heavily by being beaten until they reach the stones that marked their town’s parish. In 1547, vagrants could be forced to work as slaves but sadly it was canceled because it was considered too harsh. I think that that law should continue because it make the vagrants think about what they did to other people giving away their hard earned money to stupid people like him. Vagrants could also be whipped, be road repairer, whipped, made a hole in their ear and being sent to the house of corrections and deported.