ABSTRACT
It is, perhaps, unreasonable to expect an entirely uniform pattern of law enforcement over the whole span of the early modern period, a period that lasted for some three hundred years from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth. Not surprisingly, therefore, it is possible to detect fluctuations in the rigour with which the law was imposed. One thing that seems to have goaded the authorities into especially brisk activity was economic pressure. In towns in particular crime levels shot up when there was a dip in the trade cycle and hence a growth in unemployment. The courts responded with increased levels of indictments. A similar pattern occurred when wheat prices rose, though on these occasions the change was felt more sharply in the countryside than in the towns. All this suggests, argues Professor Beattie, “that a large number of people were close enough to the subsistence line for changes in prices to register immediately in their fortunes and for them to turn to theft to fill the gap”. He might have added that it also suggests a certain degree of panic on the part of the public and of the powers that be, alarmed by the rising level of crime.
