Abraham-men

Last updated August 24, 2023

The Abraham-men (also Abram-men or Abraham coves) were a class of beggars claiming to be lunatics allowed out of restraint, in the Tudor and Stuart periods in England.

The phrase normally refers to the practice of beggars pretending that they were patients discharged from the Abraham ward at Bedlam. The phrase can be traced back as far as 1561,^[1] when it was given as one of The Fraternity of Vagabonds, by John Awdeley. It also appears in the taxonomy of rogues given by Thomas Harman, which was copied by later writers of rogue literature. The author of O Per Se O (1612) reported that Abram-men made marks on their arms with 'burnt paper, piss and gunpowder' to show they had been in Bedlam Hospital: "some dance, but keep no measure; others leap up and down".^[2] The phrase Abraham-men also appears as a disguise for Edgar in King Lear (1604–05) and John Fletcher's Beggar's Bush . They were called anticks or God's minstrels, and later Poor Toms, from the popular song "Tom of Bedlam". John Aubrey, the antiquary, said they were common before the English Civil War, and wore a badge of tin on their left arms, an ox horn around their necks, a long staff and fantastical clothing. However, the badge seems to have been in myth. It may have been convenient theatrical property. Richard Head wrote in The Canting Academy, or Devils Cabinet opened (1673) that they

used to array themselves with party-coloured ribbons, tape in their hats, a fox-tail hanging down, a long stick with streamers, and beg alms; but for all their seeming madness, they had wit enough to steal as they went along.

In 1675 the governors of Bedlam issued a public notice in the London Gazette:^[3]

"Whereas several vagrant persons do wander about … pretending themselves to be lunatics under cure in the Hospital of Bethlem commonly called Bedlam, with brass plates about their arms and inscriptions thereon: These are to give notice that there is no such liberty given to any patients kept in the said Hospital for their cure, neither is any such plate as a distinction or mark put upon any lunatic during their being there, or when discharged thence. And that the same is a false pretence, to colour their wandering and begging, and to deceive the people."

Bedlam specialised in the care of mental illness from 1403, and remained the only such hospital in England until the seventeenth century. There cannot have been many genuine ex-inmates. In 1598 there were only 20 patients there, one who had been there over 25 years and others for several years.

In 1737 the Dictionary of Thieving Slang still described Abram-men as "shabby Beggars, patched and trick'd up with Ribbons, Red-Tape, Fox-tails, Rags of various Colours; pretending to be besides themselves, to palliate their Thefts of Poultry, Linnen, &c. A sort of itinerant Hedge-Robbers, and Strippers of Children, &c."

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bethlem Royal Hospital</span> Psychiatric hospital in London

Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as St. Mary Bethlehem, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam, is a psychiatric hospital in London. Its famous history has inspired several horror books, films, and TV series, most notably Bedlam, a 1946 film with Boris Karloff.

"Tom o' Bedlam" is the title of an anonymous poem in the "mad song" genre, written in the voice of a homeless "Bedlamite". The poem was probably composed at the beginning of the 17th century. In How to Read and Why Harold Bloom called it "the greatest anonymous lyric in the [English] language."

Begging is the practice of imploring others to grant a favor, often a gift of money, with zero expectation of reciprocation. A person doing such is called a beggar or panhandler. Beggars may operate in public places such as transport routes, urban parks, and markets. Besides money, they may also ask for food, drink, cigarettes or other small items.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thieves' cant</span> Cant used by various peoples in English-speaking countries

Thieves' cant is a cant, cryptolect, or argot which was formerly used by thieves, beggars, and hustlers of various kinds in Great Britain and to a lesser extent in other English-speaking countries. It is now mostly obsolete and used in literature and fantasy role-playing, although individual terms continue to be used in the criminal subcultures of Britain and the United States.

A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors, vulgarly called vagabonds was first published in 1566 by Thomas Harman, and although no copies of that edition survive, it must have been popular, because two printers were punished by the Stationers' Company in 1567 for pirated editions. Two editions were published in 1568, and a revised edition in 1573. It is one of the fundamental texts for rogue literature. Harman is one of the first writers to use the word rogue, which was adopted in the Poor Law legislation of 1572.

Loitering is the act of standing or waiting around idly without apparent purpose.

St Bernard's Hospital, also known as Hanwell Insane Asylum and the Hanwell Pauper and Lunatic Asylum, was an asylum built for the pauper insane, opening as the First Middlesex County Asylum in 1831. Some of the original buildings are now part of the headquarters for the West London Mental Health NHS Trust (WLMHT).

The Vagabonds Act 1597 was an Act of the Parliament of England, which aimed to address concerns of vagrancy.

St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics was founded in London in 1751 for the treatment of incurable pauper lunatics by a group of philanthropic apothecaries and others. It was the second public institution in London created to look after mentally ill people, after the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlem (Bedlam), founded in 1246.

Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporary work, or social security. Historically, vagrancy in Western societies was associated with petty crime, begging and lawlessness, and punishable by law with forced labor, military service, imprisonment, or confinement to dedicated labor houses.

The Vagrancy Act 1824 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that makes it an offence to sleep rough or beg in England and Wales. The legislation was passed in Georgian England to combat the increasing number of people forced to live on the streets due to the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and the social effects of the Industrial Revolution. Critics of the law included politician and abolitionist, William Wilberforce, who condemned the Act for making it a catch-all offence for vagrancy with no consideration of the circumstances as to why an individual might be homeless.

The lunatic asylum or insane asylum was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital.

In historical English law, a sturdy beggar was a person who was fit and able to work, but begged or wandered for a living instead. The Statute of Cambridge 1388 was an early law which differentiated between sturdy beggars and the infirm poor. The Vagabonds and Beggars Act 1494 listed restrictions and punishments.

Beggars' badges were badges and other identifying insignia worn by beggars beginning in the early fifteenth century in Great Britain and Ireland. They served two purposes; to identify individual beggars, and to allow beggars to move freely from place to place.

John Monro was a physician specializing in the treatment of madness at Bethlem Hospital in London, better known as Bedlam.

Bedlam is a British mental health documentary that was filmed at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM). The series offers unprecedented access to clinical services, patients and staff at the Trust.

Second Thoughts Are Best: or, a Further Improvement of a Late Scheme to Prevent Street Robberies is a 1729 pamphlet by Daniel Defoe. He wrote it under the name of Andrew Moreton Esq., presented as a dissatisfied middle-class old man extremely concerned about the increase in criminality around the 1720s.

Thomas Harman was an English writer best known for his seminal work on beggars, A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors.

The Vagrancy Act 1898 was a piece of legislation in England and Wales that criminalised men who lived off the earnings of prostitution (pimping) and who solicited in public places. The bill was generally viewed as successful in its impact, leading to the similar Immoral Traffic (Scotland) Act.

The 1554 Egyptian Act is a piece of 16th century English legislature regarding Romani and travelers within the realm. The act was passed to amend previous laws regarding the Romani people. The Act of 1530 did not cover Gypsies who were born in England or those who came to England by way of Scotland.

References

↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abraham-men" . Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 72.
↑ Quoted in A. L. Beier, Masterless Men: The Vagrancy Problem in England 1560–1640 1985, p. 115; ISBN 978-0-416-39020-9
↑ Ribton-Turner, C. J., Vagrants and Vagrancy and Beggars and Begging, London, 1887, p.172

Carroll, W. C. Fat King Lean Beggar; Representations of Poverty in the Age of Shakespeare Cornell UP, Ithaca & London, 1996
The Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

External links

Entry at the BBC's H2G2

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abraham-men" . Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 72.

[2] Quoted in A. L. Beier, Masterless Men: The Vagrancy Problem in England 1560–1640 1985, p. 115; ISBN 978-0-416-39020-9

[3] Ribton-Turner, C. J., Vagrants and Vagrancy and Beggars and Begging, London, 1887, p.172

[1]

[2]

[3]