Book of Orders

Cover page of the 1586 edition.

Introduction

The Book of Orders was a series of proclamations first issued under Queen Elizabeth I and reissued through the early seventeenth century to regulate the grain trade during recurring food shortages. The original version appeared in 1586 following the failed harvest of that year and was followed by new editions in 1594, 1595, 1600, 1608, 1622, and 1630–31. It instructed justices of the peace to survey local grain stores, ensure that hoarders brought surplus grain to market, and compel fair pricing in times of dearth. The Orders also sought to guarantee that “the poorer sort” had priority at market, reserving the first hour of sale for their use in 1586, and the first two hours by 1594. These directives reflected an anxiety that market forces alone could not secure subsistence for the poor and that moral and administrative intervention were necessary to sustain social order. Sharp characterizes the Book of Orders as an attempt “to regulate the market in order to meet the subsistence needs of consumers” and “to compel the transfer of grain from private hands to the open market place.”

Regulation and Enforcement

In tone and purpose, the Orders blurred economic regulation with religious obligation. They instructed officials to persuade “the richer sort bee earnestly mooved by Christian charitie, to cause their Graine to be solde under the common prices of the Market to the poorer sort: a deede of mercie, that wil doubtlesse be rewarded of Almightie God.” The document’s prescriptions extended far beyond price control. Carriers, bakers, brewers, maltsters, and badgers were required to obtain licenses identifying quantities of grain and destinations of transport. Millers were prohibited from reselling grain, ordered instead “to continue the orderly vse of grinding of all maner of Corne that shall be brought to them, in reasonable good sort, and vpon reasonable toll.” Bakers were to bake for the poor, and the number of alehouses was to be reduced so that barley could be reserved for bread. Sharp explains that “those accused of hoarding were to be referred to the attorney-general for future legal action, probably in Star Chamber.” In this framework, economic supervision became a form of moral surveillance—grain was not merely a commodity but a measure of righteousness.

Poverty and Labor

The Orders also recognized that hunger derived not only from scarcity but from poverty. The 1586 version identified “low wages and unemployment” as barriers to food access and required parishes to raise poor rates, supply raw materials for manufacture, and compel clothiers “not nowe in this time of dearth…leave off his trade, whereby the poore may bee set on worke.” Neighboring parishes were to assist those overburdened with poor residents. In Sharp’s analysis, the Orders “acknowledged the problems of poverty, low wages, and unemployment that deprived many of enough money to buy food” and thereby “linked relief with labor.” These provisions joined economic management to the enforcement of civic virtue, transforming subsistence into a shared ethical responsibility.

Feeding and Moral Obligation

The religious dimensions of the Book of Orders resonate with the early modern ethics of feeding described by David B. Goldstein. In Eating and Ethics in Shakespeare’s England, Goldstein writes that “feeding the hungry is an ethical cornerstone of every major religion,” and that in early modern England this duty “became embedded in the metaphorical as well as the literal realms of ethical behavior.” He further observes that eating itself “provides a lexicon of relationship” through which individuals learn “their place in the interlocking circles of the world.” Hunger, for Goldstein, reveals the foundation of ethical awareness: “Hunger is astonishingly sensitive to the hunger of the other man… it is thus that, in hunger, at a very humble level, transcendence progressively appears.” The Book of Orders, with its insistence that the rich sell below market price as a “deede of mercie,” can be understood as a governmental codification of this moral worldview. It translates the ethics of feeding into administrative form, binding compassion to hierarchy and appetite to piety.

Star Chamber and Public Discipline

The Orders were enforced through exemplary punishment as well as moral exhortation. Star Chamber prosecutions publicized disobedience to reinforce royal authority. In 1597, Edward Framington, High Constable of Norfolk, was fined £500 for hoarding grain and ordered to restore his land “to husbandry again.” Another offender, John Mison of London, mocked the Orders, declaring, “I will keepe none of there bastardes, my goodes are my nowne, they, nor the Queene nor the Councelle haue to doe with my goodes.” As Anthony Brano notes, Mison’s defiance “fuses economic greed with sexualized contempt for the poor,” treating deprivation as moral failure and asserting the primacy of private property over communal duty. In this collision between charity and ownership, the Orders encounter the ideology they sought to restrain—the conviction that one’s goods are one’s own, unanswerable to either Crown or God.

Jonson’s Satire and the Violence of Scarcity

Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson’s Every Man Out of His Humour (1599) transforms the social tensions of the Book of Orders into satire. The play’s miserly farmer Sordido hoards grain, prays for famine to enrich himself, and panics when “an order from the justices” arrives demanding that he sell his stores. Jonson’s scene mirrors the real-world inspections and moral rhetoric of the Orders, turning administrative procedure into grotesque comedy. Brano argues that Jonson “satirizes the farmer/merchant, who is on the one hand a cut-throat capitalist and public servant on the other,” and that Sordido’s hoarding dramatizes “forms of violence against people unable to protect themselves.” The play exposes “the violence of scarcity”—the way economic self-interest inflicts harm without visible bloodshed.

Local Variation and Moral Economies

Sharp situates the Book of Orders within a patchwork of regional practice. He observes that “England possessed not a single, nationwide moral economy but a series of localized, community-based moral economies.” Local magistrates often refused to export grain to London or Bristol, claiming that local populations should be fed first. The Privy Council, conversely, demanded that grain be diverted to urban centers “for the preservation of the people.” This tension between local charity and national supply underscores the fragility of the system. It was at once a bureaucratic apparatus and a moral appeal, dependent on compliance rather than coercion.

Decline and Legacy

The last official issue of the Book of Orders appeared in 1630–31. Afterward, central regulation of the food supply declined, particularly after the abolition of Star Chamber in 1641. Yet Sharp demonstrates that the principles of the Orders survived in popular practice. During the eighteenth century, food rioters “acted out their own radical version of the dearth orders,” seizing grain, forcing its sale at fair prices, and redistributing it to the poor. The moral economy that the Privy Council had once tried to legislate became a vernacular code of justice enacted from below.

Conclusion

Viewed as an artifact of capitalism, the Book of Orders exposes the contradictions of an economy in transition. It reveals a state that sought to govern the market through moral rhetoric and to preserve social hierarchy through compassion enforced by law. Its repeated reissue testifies both to the persistence of crisis and to the failure of persuasion: moral order had to be decreed precisely because it was no longer self-sustaining. An analysis of moral economy, a reflection on the ethics of feeding, and a study of the violence of scarcity together illuminate the cultural work of this document. It stands at the intersection of theology, governance, and commerce, translating divine injunction into administrative form and revealing how deeply early modern England feared the moral consequences of hunger.