Charity, debt and social control in England’s early modern prisons

From the mid-sixteenth century, the prison was increasingly fundamental to social relations and economic life in early modern England. An explosion of civil litigation was accompanied by unprecedented levels of imprisonment for debt, leaving many prisoners reliant upon a growing economy of prison charity. This article addresses the nature of such charity, its role in prison society and what it suggests about early modern attitudes towards imprisonment. It uncovers the range and scale of prison relief, from official aid to everyday begging and face-to-face alms. Charity was vital to prison life, and thus to securing growing credit networks. Yet by extension it was also a vector of moral judgement that left prisoners dependent, subordinated and subject to discipline. This article uncovers assumptions about the function of imprisonment for debt implicit in both practices of and commentaries on prison charity. The moral logic of early modern debt gave new disciplinary meaning to the prison, emphasized by the potential for social judgement inherent in charity. Theories of prisons’ punitive and reformative potential emerged to police social relations based on credit, trust and reputation. Thus, the ethical context of credit relations gave prisons new significance as institutions of moral judgement, punishment and rehabilitation.