The Counterfeit Vagrant The Dynamic of Deviance in the Bridewell Court Records and the Literature of Roguery

• Published in: Rogues and Early Modern English Culture p. 120
• Main Author: MARTINE VAN ELK
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: University of Michigan Press 01.02.2010
• Subjects: Anthropology; Arts; Behavioral sciences; British culture; British studies; Counterfeiting; Court records; Criminal law; Criminal offenses; Criminals; Ethnography; Ethnology; European studies; Government; Government information; Government officials; Governors; Homelessness; Housing; Human geography; Human populations; Law; Literary history; Literary studies; Literature; Living arrangements; Persons; Political science; Population studies; Public records; Renaissance literature; Social order; Social sciences; Sociology; Vagrancy
• ISBN: 9780472113743; 0472113747
• DOI: 10.3998/mpub.17647.7

Rogue literature of the early modern period is notoriously ambiguous in its presentation, characterized by a curious combination of jest and morality that has been the subject of much critical discussion. Early twentieth-century historians and readers of rogue literature tended to treat these works as serious anthropological descriptions of the Elizabethan underworld, but more recently, with the exploration of key archival sources, the consensus has become that much of what is “uncovered” in the rogue literature bears little relationship to the historical record of the period, especially because of the absence of any evidence for the guildlike organization of rogues