The Statute of Cambridge 1388 (12 Rich. 2, ch. 7) was a piece of legislation passed in 1388 in England which placed restrictions on the movements of labourers and beggars.[1] It prohibits any labourer from departing from the hundred, rape, wapentake, city, or borough where he is dwelling, without a testimonial, showing reasonable cause for his going, to be issued under the authority of the justices of the peace. Any labourer found wandering without such letter, is to be put in the stocks till he find surety to return to the town from which he came. Impotent persons are to remain in the towns in which they be dwelling at the time of the Act; or, if the inhabitants are unable or unwilling to support them, they are to withdraw to other towns within the hundred, rape, or wapentake, or to the towns where they were born, and there abide during their lives..[2]
