International security & rough sleeping: history behind the headlines

Summary

History Extra Podcast: International Security & Rough Sleeping – History Behind the Headlines
Release Date: June 23, 2025
Host: Matt Alton
Panelists: Hannah Skoda (Medieval History, St John’s College, Oxford) and Rana Mitter (Chair in US Asia Relations, Harvard Kennedy School)

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Introduction

In this episode of the History Extra Podcast, host Matt Alton delves into the intricate ties between historical events and contemporary headlines, specifically focusing on international security and the issue of rough sleeping in the UK. Joined by experts Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter, the discussion navigates through centuries of policies, societal attitudes, and global relations to shed light on today's complex challenges.

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1. The Evolution of International Security and Collective Security

Rana Mitter opens the conversation by examining how nations have historically sought to ensure their security amidst a tumultuous and conflict-ridden world. He traces the concept of collective security from the early 19th century European "Concert of Nations" to the formation and challenges of the League of Nations and the United Nations.

Rana Mitter (01:33): "The idea that somehow there should be some sort of international organization that would create that kind of collective security... the United Nations, of course, founded in 1945, still remains probably the last resort for many people in terms of how those ideas of collective security are actually going to be exercised."

Rana highlights the pivotal role of Henry Kissinger, who was influenced by Metternich's statecraft, in shaping modern collective security mechanisms. Despite these efforts, he underscores the persistent failures, such as the outbreak of the World Wars, which question the efficacy of collective security arrangements.

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2. Medieval Foundations of Security and Governance

Hannah Skoda contributes by drawing parallels between modern and medieval attempts to secure peace and order. She references Dante Alighieri's Monarchia, where Dante advocates for a universal monarchy to ensure earthly happiness and reduce conflict.

Hannah Skoda (07:50): "Dante's first point in this is to say earthly power should not be subject to the spiritual power of the papacy... what we therefore need is universal monarchy. We need a single emperor... who will exercise ultimate secular control... and ensure the maximum earthly happiness."

Hannah also discusses the Pax Mongolica, illustrating how the Mongol Empire, despite its notorious violence, facilitated extensive trade routes that inadvertently promoted economic interdependence among regions, hinting at early notions of collective security through economic means.

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3. Historical Parallels to the UK's Decriminalization of Rough Sleeping

As current headlines reveal the UK government's plans to decriminalize rough sleeping, Hannah and Rana explore historical precedents that inform this modern shift. Hannah outlines the development of Vagrancy Acts from the 14th century through the 19th century, emphasizing the longstanding societal divisions between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor.

Hannah Skoda (20:52): "These acts persecuted those in homeless situations, something that was rising dramatically after the Napoleonic wars and the Industrial Revolution... it's about distinguishing between those who deserve charity and care and those who don't."

Rana draws a comparison with early 20th-century China, referencing Janet Chen's Guilty of Indigence, which discusses similar legislation aimed at regulating the urban poor to foster a modern, efficient nation-state.

Rana Mitter (27:58): "In early 20th century China, urban poor were subjected to institutional changes... echoing Victorian Britain's workhouses and the mentality behind the Vagrancy Acts."

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4. The Intersection of Economics and Security

The panelists delve into the concept of economic security as a pillar of collective peace. Rana references Montesquieu's Enlightenment-era ideas that promoting trade and economic interdependence could foster peace among nations.

Rana Mitter (16:13): "The promotion of trade and commerce is something likely to bring collective peace... concepts embodied in institutions like the World Trade Organization."

However, both Hannah and Rana acknowledge the double-edged sword of economic interdependence, where over-reliance on trade can also lead to new forms of conflict.

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5. Reflections on Urban Regulation and Society's Treatment of the Poor

Hannah examines medieval European cities, highlighting how urban regulation was intertwined with societal attitudes towards the poor. She references medieval manuscripts, such as the Macclesfield Psalter, which juxtapose images of beggars with symbols of societal order and Christian charity.

Hannah Skoda (33:44): "Having the poor around provides an opportunity for people to show Christian charity... it's also a kind of imitation of Christ."

She notes a shift from the vibrant, charity-oriented portrayal of the poor in earlier centuries to more regulated and controlled urban environments in later medieval times, prefiguring modern legislative approaches to homelessness.

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6. Escalation and De-escalation in International Relations

Rana brings in the iconic example of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis to illustrate the delicate balance between escalation and de-escalation in maintaining international security. He reflects on how diplomatic dialogue and unspoken compromises prevented nuclear confrontation.

Rana Mitter (16:40): "The Cuban missile crisis... was eventually resolved by both sides talking tough to each other, but also working out where they could stand down, where they could de-escalate."

Rana suggests that the lessons from such historical moments are crucial as the global environment becomes increasingly fragile and turbulent.

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Conclusion

The episode adeptly weaves together historical analysis and contemporary issues, offering listeners a nuanced understanding of international security and societal approaches to homelessness. By drawing on centuries-old policies, debates, and philosophies, Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter illuminate the complexities that continue to shape our world today. As the UK moves towards decriminalizing rough sleeping, these historical insights provide valuable context for understanding and addressing the underlying societal challenges.

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Transcript

[Matt Alton]

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[Hannah Skoda]

I'm Hannah Skoda. I'm fellow and tutor in medieval history at St John's College in Oxford.

[Rana Mitter]

I'm Rana Mitter. I'm St. Lee, chair in US Asia relations at the Harvard Kennedy School and I'm a specialist on modern Chinese history.

[Matt Alton]

Hannah and Rana, thank you so much for being with us. We are talking in the middle of June against a backdrop of headlines of an escalating situation in the Middle East. We're not going to comment today too much about the history of that specific situation, but it does give us the chance to have a wider think about escalation and about how nations have historically tried to guarantee their security in a complex and comple conflict ridden world. Rana, did you want to kick off thinking about this?

[Rana Mitter]

Absolutely. And I would say that in some ways, governments have spent a huge amount of the modern era thinking about how the emergence of different types of nation states, different types of empires, have been able to live with each other without essentially escalating into conflict. Now, we all know that over the course of, let's say, the last 300 years or so, that hasn't been an entirely successful exercise. History tells us that not one, but two immense, titanic world wars took place in the 20th century. And of course, there are plenty other examples of smaller but still deadly conflicts that have emerged from the failure of what's become known as collective security. But that idea is still a very, very tempting one. The question of whether or not it's a chimera or whether or not actually there is the genuine possibility of using the capacity of states to pool their resources, pool their sovereignty in a sense, and their right to react to international event and hand them over to international organizations or international agreements. And the way in which this has happened has essentially changed quite significantly over the last couple of hundred years or so. One of the figures only died a couple of years ago, but very much someone involved with this, both as an analyst and as a practitioner over the last century or so, was Henry Kissinger, former U.S. secretary of State and National Security adviser. And as many people may know, but it's worth remembering, he started off as an analyst of the political history of nations and empires in Europe, and particularly was fascinated by the statesman Metternich, who he felt was one of those great figures who in some ways managed to manipulate or shape the way in which states dealt with each other. The Kissingerian way of looking at these things was whether or not you get, as in the early 19th century, what became known as a concert of nations, in other words, getting big, powerful countries to come together. And again on the morning actually of the day, we're recording this and where the G7, the group of the six, at least potentially most powerful economies in the world, coming together to discuss the Middle east and other issues too. But the constant of Europe in some ways perhaps is a predecessor to that kind of G7, G8, G20 type of gathering with the idea that collectively, even with the idea that there might be rivalries over resources or over territory, or even over ideas and ideologies, nonetheless it was in the collective interests of nations and countries and empires with often very different worldviews to live together in a peaceful and effective way. And some people would say that from the European point Of view, the 19th century was quite a good. Quite a good example of that. Between 1815, the end of the Napoleonic wars, and 1914, the outbreak of World War I, you get a situation in which, at least in terms of the core European powers, there's mostly a peaceful situation, thanks to agreements made in the aftermath of Napoleon's defeat. Lots of exceptions, of course, Franco, Prussian wars in the 1870s, and of course, huge numbers of violent colonial incursions into Africa, Asia and elsewhere. But nonetheless, the idea that this kind of collective security could work had come pretty much the mainstream in many ways, up to the early 20th century. The 20th century, of course, provides the counter example. Of course, it's the Balkan wars and the other European and other tensions that lead up eventually to the explosion, the cataclysm that comes in August 1914 and in the four years that follow that with the millions upon millions of deaths that come from World War I, then push people into that idea that There must be some more formalized mechanism to create collective security. And that's the era, the interwar era of the League of Nations, which is in some ways not ultimately as successful as attempt to try and create an international organization that would keep the peace. We know that in Asia it didn't stop Japan from invading Manchuria and northeast China in 1931, and that in the later 1930s it didn't stop Hitler from expanding across Europe and seizing territory essentially through coercion and violence. But it did set in mind, I think, the idea that somehow there should be some sort of international organization that would create that kind of collective security. And the United nations, of course, founded in 1945, still remains probably the last resort for many people in terms of how those ideas of collective security are actually going to be exercised. When it was founded, it was of course the primary members, in terms of strength in the international community who were made permanent members of the Security Council. The United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China. And those five still stay at the heart of the Security Council today, even though the world has changed massively around them. But that question of whether or not there are going to be any means other than that kind of collective security that can keep the peace is now very much in doubt. There is a school of thought that says that the re emergence of great powers and of essentially strongman type leaders, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and others who may seek to essentially use their own personalistic preferences, the leader to leader contact, they prefer, rather than using international organizations. That may be the way that we're heading. Again, one of the things that people have tended to assume is that the post Westphalian world, in other words, the world after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which essentially gives rise in the eyes of many to the modern system of international relations, is also the world in which modern collective security emerged. A world in which you have defined nation states and the idea potentially of pooling or sharing rights to be able to get that kind of collective peace. States in the pre modern era tended to operate on significantly different lines, particularly in the medieval era. I don't know, Hannah, if this whole talk about collective security and the way it can be either breached or maintained really has much parallel in that pre modern, that medieval world.

[Hannah Skoda]

It's a really interesting question, and my initial response is to say no, I think this is really a modern way of thinking. But once one starts to think about it, of course people do care about security in the Middle Ages and they think through various ways, assuring It. So one of the most famous thinkers of the Middle Ages is, of course, Dante Alighieri, writing In the early 14th century in Italy, famous for writing his Commedia, which is a journey through hell and then Purgatory and then heaven. But he also wrote a text called the Monarchia on Monarchy, where he considers the idea of universal monarchy. And Dante's writing in a very particular Context in the 14th century of a debate between earthly secular power and spiritual power wielded by the papacy and the relationship between the two of them. So Dante's first point in this is to say earthly power should not be subject to the spiritual power of the papacy. These are two separate things. And the point of earthly power is to assure the earthly happiness of the maximum number of people. So that's his first sort of particular point, and he's writing in this very particular context. But he then goes on to say, what we therefore need is universal monarchy. We need a single emperor, the Holy Roman Emperor, who will exercise ultimate secular control over the maximum number of peoples. And this will apparently reduce conflict and ensure the maximum earthly happiness. So that's one sort of theoretical construct, way in which people are thinking about this in the 14th century. Another way we might consider people discussing and thinking about collective security is really in an economic sense, how to ensure the maximum sort of economic trading connections with the minimum of risk to life and limb of merchants who are going along those routes. And in that context, again, in the same period, 13th, 14th centuries, we might think about the so called Pax Mongolica, means the Mongol peace. So we associate the Mongol Empire with horrific levels of violence, which is true, the levels of violence are absolutely appalling and extraordinary. But one of the ways in which people are thinking about Mongol expansion is in the ways in which it actually joins areas together and makes really extensive trade routes from China to Western Europe possible to travel along without such risk to life and limb. And in some ways, that sort of sense of an extensive commercial network is used as a sort of explanation for what the Mongols are up to. And then we might again in the same period, think about the ways in which people use this within Europe as a justification for war. I was thinking about the case of Siena. So Dante Alighieri comes from Florence. Siena is like the kind of smaller sibling of Florence nearby, feeling very, very dominated by Florence in the 14th century. And Siena is being attacked very often by mercenaries employed by the Florentine state. But Siena decides that in order to assure their security, they also need to start employing huge numbers of mercenaries as well. And that's a really interesting point, I think, because it shows the way in which the idea of security is being used to justify extreme levels of violence. But it's also an example of a case in which people are really, really conflicted about whether this is a good idea, whether security can be assured through more violence, or whether violence just breeds violence. And the discussions that people have about this in the 14th century are really very sophisticated and very kind of emotionally fraught, really, about how actually to assure peace. And in the case of Siena, in many ways, it's kind of a cautionary tale because they do end up employing mercenaries. But of course, that very, very quickly gets out of control, so that the same mercenaries who they've been paying are then essentially able to blackmail Siena into making huger and huger payments to in order to assure their security. So I have a figure here. From 1342 to 1399, 291,379 florins were paid by the city of Siena to mercenary companies, essentially to pay them off to assure their security. The cost of living Then is about 14 florins per person per year, which gives you a sense of the enormity of this payment. Another context in which we might think about how problematic people find the idea of collective security in the Middle Ages actually might be crusading as well. So I'm loath to talk too much about crusading now, because in a sense, I think the parallels are very, very problematic. But it's very striking that in 1095, when Pope Urban first calls for a crusade at the Council of Clermont, he gives this very famous sermon to a huge number of French nobles who turn up to it. And he says that we need to go on crusade to the Holy Land, essentially for reasons of security. He says, first of all, it's because the Byzantines need us. Secondly, he says it's because pilgrims to Jerusalem are being attacked by Turks. So it's a matter of security. And then thirdly, really interestingly, he says, let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. So it's also about internal security within Europe. There's so much violence within Europe, let's turn it outwards to another land altogether. And again, very, very quickly, this kind of argument for security through war or war justified by security is problematised. People find it very, very difficult to get to grips with, and they see the challenges in this. So, for example, Gerhard of Reichensberg in 1162 points out that actually he thinks the Crusades are really motivated by avarice, and all these other motivations are just a kind of cloak masking what's really avarice. The annals of Wurzburg on the Second Crusade are absolutely magnificent. They tell us that God allowed the Western Church, on account of its sins, to be cast down. Thereupon arose certain Pseudo prophets, sons of Belial, witnesses of the Antichrist, who seduced Christians with empty words. And they then go on to say that this argument was made about protecting the Holy Land, the interests of security, and so on. But actually these were the words of the devil, and all they've done is breed more violence. So I think actually the more I thought about it, the more I realized there are ways in which this sort of rhetoric of security and very deep concerns about security are mobilized in the Middle Ages. But I think people are very acutely aware of of the problems, particularly when it's used to justify violence. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies so you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

[Matt Alton]

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[Rana Mitter]

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[Matt Alton]

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[Rana Mitter]

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[Hannah Skoda]

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[Rana Mitter]

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[Matt Alton]

Anything you can imagine is possible.

[Rana Mitter]

The Disney Hulu Max Bundle plan starting at 16.99amonth. All these and more streaming soon. Terms apply. Visit DisneyPlus Hulu MaxBundle.com for details. The idea of economics as one of the things that underpins security that you have there. Economic security, I think, is a really important idea that has also a longer history. There's a concept that it begins to emerge in the Enlightenment in Europe, sometimes just named for short, du commerce, sweet commerce. There are various thinkers, I think, who are involved with it, but one of them is Montesquieu, who again, is one of the more prominent thinkers of that Enlightenment era. And the idea being that essentially the promotion of trade and commerce is something likely to bring collective peace. And of course, there always has been that longer standing economic argument that by encouraging trade and creating interdependence, you also encourage the possibility of peace in various ways. It's possibly fair to say that the current US Administration is very, very keen on reorienting world trade. But also the idea that you step away from warfare and that you step into large amounts of commercial transaction, the term transactional is often used about that administration, is in some ways a reflection of that longer idea that the rise of commerce, the rise of trading is likely to bring about a peaceable situation. Of course, what also ends up happening in many cases and, and that's true today as well as in the past, is that over dependence on trade or trade relationships can also lead to conflict of a different sort. So du commerce, sweet commerce is not necessarily a universal recipe for peace, but it's certainly a wider concept that many people have experimented with. And some ways you can think of something like the World Trade Organization as an implementation of Montesquieu's ideas. Although whether it's a successful implementation, I think depends on your point of view of how that kind of international, global society is going at the moment. It's also worth, I think, briefly reflecting on one other element that again, you know, seems to be part of the very fast changing headlines as we're recording this, which is the question of escalation. People talk about the Middle east at the moment, but it's worth remembering that these questions of how politicians calculate whether to press harder or pull back are very long standing. And perhaps for those who do modern history, the classic example remains one of the most dangerous moments in global history. 1962, the Cuban missile crisis, when the Soviet Union moved missile installations potentially with the capacity to hit the United States to the island of Cuba. Fidel Castro just taken over there, and that's less than 100 miles from the coast of the southern United States, from Florida. And essentially that showdown, it's become quite famous, but still worth remembering between young US President John F. Kennedy, an older but in some ways still relatively untested. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev could have turned, and many people thought it would turn, nuclear confrontation between the two sides. People felt that the die was being cast for what might have been a nuclear attack, which, of course, at that time was, you know, fewer than two decades. It was less than two decades since the atomic bombs had hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki and destroyed so many lives. And the aftermath, of course, also horrific there as well. It's very much in people's minds at the time. In some ways, people's thinking has moved away from this question of nuclear annihilation in recent years. We're in the post Cold War environment. We've had to think about it less. But that question of not just escalation but what you escalate to, is, I think, going to be one of the things that we're going to have more and more of in the next few months and years and decades to come, as the global situation does become more fragile and more. More turbulent. And looking at historical examples, well, the fact that the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 was eventually resolved by both sides talking tough to each other, but actually also working out where they could stand down, where they could de. Escalate, where they could reach an unspoken compromise that actually meant that both sides could step away without feeling utterly humiliated. Maybe those lessons from Kennedy and Khrushchev are rather ripe ones, rather important ones to bring up at a moment when escalation in all sorts of areas does seem to be once again part of global politics.

[Matt Alton]

Here in the uk, the Government has announced that it plans to decriminalise rough sleeping, with the change in law set to go ahead in 2026. This is a story with explicit historical parallels. And, Hannah, would you like to guide us through some of those?

[Hannah Skoda]

Yes. So the government announced on 10 June 2025 that the Vagrancy act of 1824 would be repealed by spring 2026. So the 1824 Vagrancy act was an act persecuting, prosecuting, I think a little bit of both, really, those in homeless situations, which was something which was rising very dramatically after the Napoleonic wars and the Industrial Revolution, but also in the context of the increasing privatisation of land as well. And we talked about the impact of enclosure across the centuries. I think in a previous episode too. These things are not unrelated. I'm really struck by it, because the 1824 act, of course, is the basis of the current legislative position. But actually, Vagrancy acts in this country have a much Longer history. And in some ways they date really back to the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century. So the Black Death both produced increasing numbers of people living in terribly precarious situations, those who didn't actually die. But it also produced increasing amounts of mobility, both geographical mobility and social mobility. So this was partly because it struck most dramatically at those at the bottom of the social spectrum. So mortality rates there were really exceptionally high. And that in some ways kind of opened up more opportunities for other labourers either to move around between different areas or to demand slightly better conditions. So it's a period in which there was a great deal of anxiety from those in better off social situations that, that social hierarchies and social kind of distribution were starting to look a little bit more mobile than they were used to. So the 1351 statute of labourers was passed specifically to try to get laborers to stay in one place and stop demanding better conditions. But it included a clause which said of if these same employees refuse to accept employment in such a manner, they mean the way in which they would have been employed just before the Black Death, they should be punished by imprisonment. And that's a really crucial moment at which they start to make this distinction between people who they think can work and won't work and those who absolutely can't work. So it's this distinction between deserving and undeserving poor which does not come from a place of generosity. Over the course of the Middle Ages, then, this distinction becomes even more emphatic and even more draconian and cruel in its implications. So in 1494, for example, we find the Vagabonds and Beggars act, where they say, vagabonds, idle and suspected persons, shall be set in the stocks for three days and three nights and have none other sustenance but bread and water, and then shall be put out of town. Every beggar suitable to work must do so. So it's all about distinguishing, apparently between those who won't work and those who can't work. In the 16th century, things get even nastier. Henry VIII in 1530 passes a statute again about vagabonds and beggars. And I quote, beggars who are old and incapable of working receive a beggar's license. So they're trying to sort of control the phenomenon amongst those who actually can't work, on the other hand, there should be whipping and imprisonment for sturdy vagabonds. They are to be tied to the cart tail and whipped until the blood streams from their bodies. So it's sort of 14th to 16th century phenomenon, I think, which really sees the intensification of this kind of persecution of those who are perceived as being vagabonds. And then of course, in the intervening centuries, up until 1824, these things get. Get nastier and nastier. So 1744, George II's Vagrancy act includes a whole range of people who are sort of seen as somehow rootless. It includes, quote, beggars, unlicensed peddlers, fencers, jugglers, bear wards, minstrels, fortune tellers and gamesters, and any persons wandering abroad in ale houses, barns, outhouses or in the open air not giving a good account of themselves. So it's a very distressing kind of history, I think, and particularly in terms of this distinction that's drawn between those who deserve charity and care and those who apparently don't. Again, I thought it might be worth drawing attention to a sense that there have always been people who found this really problematic and who found it actually pretty morally abhorrent to treat people in these in this way. One thing that's very striking is that this kind of legislation really kicks off, say in the 1350s, but actually that's the high point of the history of the Franciscan and Dominican movements. So these are monastic movements, sort of travelling friars, both orders founded in the 13th century and both founded as so called mendicants. So these were monastic orders whose entire purpose was to go around begging. In the first instance they said, because if you do that, you won't get too attached to worldly goods and you'll be more Christlike. And they're held up as a great model. So there's always this sort of sense of ambivalence that on the one hand begging is this really holy thing to do, and on the other hand it's being demonized more and more. And then we find little hints here and there of the ways in which people are worrying about the immoral and very unchristian ways in which the poor are being treated. So in lots of medieval sermons we find kind of exhortations to people to care more for the poor. And then sometimes we find little witticism, sort of poking fun at the hypocrisy of society. There's one very particularly beautiful medieval psalter that's a book of the Psalms, a religious text produced in the 14th century, around 1330 in East Anglia, called the Macclesfield Salter. And it's very elaborate and beautiful, but around the edges of the religious text it has little marginal illuminations showing various scenes from everyday life and sort of comical images like, I don't know, a monkey playing a trumpet or something. But it's also got a rather intriguing little marginal image of a beggar on crutches staggering along at the bottom of this text of one of the psalms. And then in the corner of this folio of parchment, seated on a rather beautiful sort of foliage construction, a very, very fat pig holding a big tankard and having a good swig from the tankard and turning his head in the other direction from the beggar. So who knows exactly what that illuminator was trying to do, but it looks very strikingly like somebody saying, we're treating the poor in a way that does not map on to all the things we say we do as a Christian society in the 14th century. And I think actually, all the way through this history of attitudes towards the homeless, towards what have been termed beggars, vagabonds, et cetera, has been sort of shot through with this sense of ambivalence and sort of moral concern about the justifiability of treating people in this way.

[Rana Mitter]

And actually, there are remarkable similarities with the Vagrancy act, its effects, and of course, now its likely abolition with a place that might seem very far away, which was China, certainly in the early 20th century. I just want to read a statement here. It comes from a wonderful book called Guilty of Indigence by the Princeton University historian Janet Chen, and it's about the urban poor in early 20th century China. And she quotes a sociologist, Chinese sociologist, called Jiang Jingai, who's working in the 1920s and 1930s. And in the words of this sociologist, he's quite a judgmental sociologist. He says there are soup kitchens in Beijing at this time. He says that in 1931-32, it's a very harsh winter. A lot of the urban poor in Beijing need feeding. And apparently the 19 soup kitchens in Beijing at that time doled out over 2.8 million meals. So that's a significant poor relief system going on. But Zhang is a little bit judgmental about this, and he says that the soup kitchen method allowed women and men to, quote, mix indiscriminately. So that's a bad thing, apparently. And then his further quote is, it says that it also, quote, caused the poor to have dependent hearts. Now, I could think of all sorts of politicians in the Western world these days who are very keen on the poor not getting too dependent on welfare, who might want to quote Chinese sociologist Zhang jingai from the 1930s as a man after their own Hearts dependent or otherwise. And this particular quote flags up something that actually is a much bigger phenomenon and actually I think in some ways relates to the wider philosophy, if you want to call it that, behind the original Vagrancy act back in the early 19th century in Britain, which is the idea that as societies modernize, as they move into something that's more rational and bureaucratic, they don't like the idea of poor people wandering around, essentially upsetting order, you know, going and begging, people making the streets look in the eyes of the bourgeois, you know, rather unpleasant and disordered. And this is also the case very much for early 20th century China, a country which was in some ways had a weak nation state, it was under attack from much of the outside world. And proving that China could create a sort of modernized, effective working nation state was a really important task for the nationalist movements of that time. So basically having lots of the urban poor around who actually didn't fit that description, they were messy, they were in the way they insisted on sort of begging for money and not making a quotes, proper living, all of these actually made things seem in some ways a ripe target for this kind of modernisation. So the urban poor are subjected to a whole variety of institutional changes in early 20th century China that look very familiar to anyone who knows Victorian Britain. The workhouse, for instance, comes in, in a big sort of way. One thing that's interesting is gender. Apparently, at least during that period of the 1920s and 30s, the number of women coming to soup kitchens far outnumbered the number of men 2 to 1. And that may have a lot to say about the way in which, in early 20th century China, it was still difficult for women often to integrate into a modernizing workforce in quite that sort of way. So there's a great deal of attention played instead to try and make relief homes known as zhouji, which would allow the poor essentially to learn a trade. And again, if we think about work requirements for welfare in the contemporary era, there's a lot of echoes of that going on in China during this period as well. And this is for men and women, but all of these terms that are used for, I mean, we use the term vagrant, of course, over and over again here in the British context. Here are some Chinese terms that get used for these sorts of people. Pinmin just means poor people. I mean, it's fairly kind of stark description. Liu Min drifters, in other words, people who wander around without a kind of proper status in society, or in some cases, perhaps more sympathetically, nanmin refugees who actually were a Very big category, particularly during the numerous wars that wracked China during the 20th century as well. In some ways, the building of modern prisons in China during this period, again modelled on much of what happened in the west, in many ways was also drawing on the same mentality that built the Victorian workhouse as well. The idea of sort of regulated control of those who insisted on being deviant in society in some ways. And I have to say that even when the Communists take over, the Revolution, 1949, brings the Chinese Communist Party to power, you still get a sense of this sense of wanting to push back against the idea that people should have any entitlement to eat if they don't work. The People's Daily, the Communist Party's own mouthpiece newspaper, in April 1949, just as the revolution is coming to a climax, says, if you're missing a leg, don't you still have hands to work? So no kind of allowances made there for the disabled on the part of the Communist revolution. And as I say, Janet Chen's book is a fascinating insight into the parallel with this question of something like the Vagrancy act in the British context, many thousands of miles away. But so many echoes of that seem to be about the same sorts of concerns that bourgeois society has, and that of course, the poor themselves find in terms of trying to find a voice, a place for themselves in a society which doesn't necessarily want to hear what they have to have to say. And again, I imagine, Hannah, the medieval poor must also, of course, have their own status in a highly Christian society, one in which arms were important as well. That was also part of pre modern Chinese thinking that essentially being good to beggars, being good to the indigent poor actually showed a sort of virtue in Buddhist terms, but of course, as part of Christianity and of course Islam as well, that giving to the poor does become a very important part of how you define yourself as a moral person.

[Hannah Skoda]

I think that's completely fascinating and really interesting sort of resonances there. And I think that idea of sort of tidiness and regulation and control forms a very large part of this history. It's very, very striking in a European context, in a medieval European context, that actually the beginnings of these Vagrancy acts really correspond to an intense rise in urban regulation more generally. People in the 14th century, second half of the 14th century, getting more and more more concerned about things like urban hygiene and dealing with sewage. And actually, I think some of these attitudes towards those who don't have fixed residences are in a sense Part of that same kind of concern. It's also sort of a different way of measuring and conceptualizing the vibrancy of the city as well. I think if we compare, I don't know, a late 14th, late 14th century Paris, say, with late 13th century Paris, and one could do the same in London or any number of cities, and think about the ways in which people would try to portray a city which looks like it's really flourishing by the late 14th, early 15th century. It's all about how regulated and kind of tidy it is and how things can flow through it really nicely in the late 13th century. It's all about showing a hugely kind of diverse range of people. And there's a gorgeous manuscript of the life of St. Denis from Paris from the very early 14th century, late 13th, early 14th century, which shows a series of scenes of city life, all designed to show how vibrant and wonderful and dynamic Paris is. And in many of these scenes, there are beggars sitting on street corners. In the manuscript, or in one gorgeous little image, there's a leper, very tragically sitting there on the street with his clappers. So he's sounding his clappers so that people know to throw arms to him, but not to come too close. And all these things, all these people are there in the manuscript to show how vibrant and how dynamic Paris is. And the sort of a sense that actually, very explicitly, a sense that having the poor around provides an opportunity for people to show Christian charity. It's also a kind of imitatio Christi imitation of Christ. As you see these people suffering on street corners, you're reminded, apparently, of the suffering that Christ went through. And all that kind of logic is really at play in thinking about urban life in the 13th and the early 14th centuries. And I think is replaced by something which looks very different in the late 14th and 15th. And that's interesting, too, in a bigger historiographical trajectory, because I think very often people assume that this is something to do with Protestantism, that the Reformation produces different ways of thinking about poverty and making money and thinking about work ethics and success in terms of career, success in one's life and so on, the idea of the Protestant work ethic. But actually, I think it predates the coming of the Reformation by a couple of centuries. And it's much more to do with this sense of sort of control and regulation and tidiness.

[Matt Alton]

And that is about all we have time for this month. Hannah and Rana, thank you both, so much as always, for your time and your excellent thoughts. And we will be back in the middle of July. Until then, goodbye.

[Rana Mitter]

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[Hannah Skoda]

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[Rana Mitter]

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