Changing attitudes to the poor

Changing attitudes: reasons

• fear that poverty led to disorder and was a potential cause for rebellion
• cost of dealing with the poor, especially poor rates 
• population changes and enclosure meant poor were increasing
• changing economic circumstances, including wool trade, bad harvests and enclosure, forced the authority to develop a more constructive attitude

Elizabethans and poverty

• the deserving and impotent: those who couldn't help themselves…