Reasons for increased poverty and vagabondage

Rapid population growth (2.8 million to 4 million) increased pressure on land, food, and employment opportunities.
Bad harvests from 1594–1598 led to food shortages.
Demand on housing led to rent racking (landlords charging an extortionate amount from tenants).
Flu in 1556 killed over 200,000 people, many of them farmers, which affected food supply.
Many landowners enclosed their common land and started sheep farming, displacing peasants and forcing them into towns or vagrancy (i.e. homeless and begging).
There was a decline in monastic charity after Henry VIII had ordered the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–1540), closing hundreds of Catholic churches that previously provided support to the poor.

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