Trouble with Gypsies and “Counterfeit Egyptians” in Early Modern England

This paper explores the social, cultural, legal and political response to Gypsies in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. It engages three levels of problem: first, historiography and scholarship, as literary, historical, folkloric, and activist scholars have grappled with textual and archival sources plagued by inadequacies of evidence; second, the problem faced by early modern councillors, magistrates and parliamentarians as they sought to devise strategies for handling Gypsies and the so-called ‘counterfeit Egyptians’ who traveled with them;  and third, the problem of Gypsies themselves, who struggled to thrive in a shifting environment of suspicion, hostility and persecution, alongside pockets of toleration and acceptance.

Grounded on the interdisciplinary literature on Gypsies in history, this paper introduces new evidence from under-explored archives to expose English confrontations with people called Gypsies.  Depositions, indictments and commentary from Star Chamber and other courts reveal splits and developments within early modern officialdom that shed indirect light on the itineraries, activities and survival strategies of the Gypsies themselves. Questions for consideration include the degree to which Gypsies in England were associated with Romanies in Europe; the robustness or porosity of Gypsy identity in the face of assimilation, blending and emulation; the dynamics of labeling Gypsies as idle, dissembling, deceitful rogues; and the problem of retrieving a Gypsy history from non-Gypsy sources. Were early modern Gypsies an ethnic group, a social amalgam, or exemplars of a lifestyle? To what extent was their identity culturally constructed? How did England’s ‘Gypsy problem’ reveal the historical vectors of marginality, authority, and transgression exhibited in the companion papers in this panel?