Vagrancy, Homelessness, and English Renaissance Literature (review)

In this absorbing study of early modern vagrancy in its literary and cultural manifestations Linda Woodbridge addresses the ways in which vagrancy functioned not only as a Renaissance "other" but also as a comic literary diversion from more pressing issues of material deprivation. Woodbridge convincingly demonstrates connections between, on the one hand, pamphlet descriptions and anti-poverty legislation and, on the other, romanticized literary representations and philosophical debate. Her central thesis is that the mythic reputation of the vagrant can be undone through historicized analysis. One of Woodbridge's discoveries is that rogue literature "influenced statutes" (4). Surprising as it may seem, this claim is well supported in the chapter on Thomas Harman, where she eloquently shows that his Caveat for Common Cursetors, Vulgarly Called Vagabonds "may have influenced high echelons of Elizabethan officialdom, and . .. left its mark on important social legislation" (41). Another discovery is that the representation of the vagrant accorded with a contemporary "othering" process. Early modern constructions of vagrants participated in a dialectical dynamic, the respectable finding in vagrants "qualities they disowned in themselves" (16), while the homeless offered a "mute reproach" to home-owning complacency (166).

Woodbridge contextualizes representations of vagrants within a broader nexus of cultural practice. Simon Fish's A Supplication for the Beggars, for instance, is juxtaposed with contemporary anxieties about the financial state of monastic foundations; Martin Luther's Liber Vagatorum is read as part of the comic literary tradition; and Juan Luis Vives's De Subventione Pauperum acquires additional density in Woodbridge's rehearsal of semantic connections between demons, vagrants, and the poor. By consistently setting images of vagrants alongside larger fields of activity, Woodbridge is empowered to speculate about attempts to shore up early modern social categories. One of her most significant arguments attaches to the claim that "insistence on the fixity and divine sanction of boundaries . . . actually helps to produce essentialist pronouncements about the immutability of such boundaries" (115).

Such subtle historicizing notwithstanding, a subliminal tendency in Vagrancy, Homelessness, and English Renaissance Literature is to suggest a split, rather than an overlap, between "literary" and "historical" materials. Woodbridge speaks of the "discrepancy between the historical record . . . and contemporary representations" (2) as if these two areas of figuration can be neatly discriminated. None of this is particularly problematic, although one might have wished, at times, for a greater acknowledgment of, in Louis Montrose's phrase, "the historicity of texts and the textuality of histories."¹

In her otherwise-stimulating account of sixteenth-century English rebellion, Woodbridge downplays vagrants' participation. Referring to apprentice disorder in London in the 1590s, she states: "the actual rioters had been apprentices, not vagrants" (7). But it should be noted that apprentices banded riotously with vagrants on at least two occasions during this period. In 1590, apprentices and vagrants joined forces to attack the gentlemen of Lincoln's Inn, and in 1595, they again united to pull down the pillories in Cheapside and Leadenhall, setting up gallows against the door of the Lord Mayor.² Woodbridge is also to be questioned on her claim that "vagrants traveled mostly alone or in small groups rather than in large, threatening bands" (11). Well-documented as they are, these solitary vagabonds obscure a bigger picture. Vagabonds could congregate in substantial numbers, as witnessed in 1588 when five hundred discharged soldiers, or "vagarant and ill disposed persons," almost managed to loot Bartholomew Fair.³ More generally in her discussions of rebellion, Woodbridge tends to refute the seriousness of contemporary disturbances: "[M]odern historians . . . appear to have exaggerated the threat of disorder" (151).⁴ But this assessment neglects material instances of explosively charged insurrection. Thus a gathering of apprentices outside the Tower of London on 29 June 1595 resulted in the arrest of the leaders, their conviction for treason, and, on 24 July, their execution.⁵

A further reservation I had about this book is its formulation of famine...