The life of the vagrant--untethered by ties to family or community--was romanticized even in contexts where vagrants themselves were shunned and persecuted, such as the early 17th century that is the focus of this article. There are many points on which the modern western mindset--and therefore the fiction that it produces and desires--is vastly misaligned with the historic eras the fiction intends to represent. Attitudes toward independence and individualism are one such disjunction. In writing fiction about characters who don't fit perfectly into their own society, there is a temptation to have them rebel and reject that society entirely, striking out on their own, tied and beholden to no one (except the story's love interest, of course). From our modern viewpoint, it can be hard to understand just how hard and how perilous such a rejection would have been--and therefore how strong the forces were to find accommodatoin within that ill-fitting society.
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