power, at their discretions, to enable to beg within such limits as they
shall appoint, such of the said impotent persons as they shall think
convenient; and to give in commandment to every such impotent beggar (by
them enabled) that none of them shall beg without the limits so appointed
to them. And further, they shall deliver to every such person so enabled a
letter containing the name of that person, witnessing that he is authorised
to beg, and the limits within which he is appointed to beg, the same letter
to be sealed with the seal of the hundred, rape, wapentake, city, or
borough, and subscribed with the name of one of the said justices or
officers aforesaid. And if any such impotent person do beg in any other
place than within such limits, then the justices of the peace, and all
other the king's officers and ministers, shall by their discretions punish
all such persons by imprisonment in the stocks, by the space of two days
and two nights, giving them only bread and water."

Further, "If any such impotent person be found begging without a licence,
at the discretion of the justices of the peace, he shall be stripped naked
from the middle upwards, and whipped within the town in which he be found,
or within some other town, as it shall seem good. Or if it be not
convenient so to punish him, he shall be set in the stocks by the space of
three days and three nights."

Such were the restrictions under which impotency was allowed support.
Though not in itself treated as an offence, and though its right to
maintenance by society was not denied, it was not indulged, as we may see,
with unnecessary encouragement. The Act then proceeds to deal with the
genuine vagrant.

"And be it further enacted, that if any person or persons, being whole and
mighty in body and able to labour, be taken in begging in any part of this
realm; and if any man or woman, being whole and mighty in body, having no
land, nor master, nor using any lawful merchandry, craft, or mystery
whereby he might get his living, be vagrant, and can give none account how
he doth lawfully get his living, then it shall, be lawful to the constables
and all other king's officers, ministers, and subjects of every town,
parish, and hamlet, to arrest the said vagabonds and idle persons, and
bring them to any justice of the peace of the same shire or liberty, or
else to the high constable of the hundred; and the justice of the peace,
high constable, or other officer, s