Mendicant

“ The friars mendicant, who will live as their fathers lived.
The first figure that appears is a “friar mendicant, living by the alms of the king’s subjects, forming himself to the fashions of the people.” He is “going about from house to house, and when he comes to aged and simple people he will say to them, ‘Father or sister, what a world this is! It was not so in your father’s days. It is a perilous world. They will have no pilgrimages. They will not we should pray to saints, or fast, or do any good deeds. ”

“ In whatever part of London I might be, if I asked for the residence of a mendicant, it was pretty sure to be in a quarter very remote from the one in which he asked relief.
The next was, that—
Those mendicants who professed to want work and not charity, always belonged to trades in which it was scarcely possible to give them employment without trusting them with valuable property. ”

“ It has been well said that one-half of the world does not know how the other half lives, and the history of mendicants of every degree would furnish the outside public with strange revelations, many of which would appear almost incredible.
The mendicant poor are in every way a different race of beings to the working population of this country. ”

“ To assume the semblance of misery 162is the business of the mendicant, and his success depends upon the skill with which he exercises deception. A mass of filth, nakedness, and squalor, is thus kept moving about the country, entering every house, addressing itself to every eye, and soliciting from every hand; and much of the filth and indolence observable in the cabins, clothing, and general conduct of the peasantry, may I think be traced to this source, and I doubt even if those above the class of labourers altogether escape the taint. ”

“ The only thought which oppressed the spirit of the mendicant was, that his bones, when he came to die, would be deposited in the soil of strangers, and his only prayer was that he might be buried among his kindred. ”

“ Once upon a time there was a town called Atpat.1 In it there lived a bania who had no son. Every day a religious mendicant used to come to his house and call out, “Alms! Alms! In the name of God, give me alms.” But when the bania’s wife offered him alms he refused them, because she had no children. She told her husband, who advised her to play a trick on the mendicant. She hid behind her door, and as he called out “Alms! alms!” she slipped a gold piece into his wallet. But the mendicant caught her and became very angry. ”

“ They agreed, nevertheless, that in all extensive communities, such as ours, circumstances will occur in which an individual, by the failure of his ordinary means of subsistence, will be exposed to the danger of perishing; that to refuse relief, and, at the same time, to punish mendicity, when it cannot be proved that the mendicant could have obtained subsistence by labour, is repugnant to the common sentiments of mankind; that it is repugnant to them to punish even depredation apparently committed as the only resource against want. ”

“ The begging system of the Friars, perhaps more than any other cause, contributed to swell the ranks of vagabonds. These religious mendicants, who had long been increasing in number and dissoluteness, gavePg x to beggars sundry lessons in hypocrisy, and taught them, in their tales of fictitious distress, how to blend the troubles of the soul with the infirmities of the body. Numerous systems of religious imposture were soon contrived, and mendicants of a hundred orders swarmed through the land. ”

“ If the common man was saved from starvation only by support from the resources of the state, it was the necessary consequence of this mendicant misery—although it also reciprocally appears as a cause of it—that he addicted himself to the beggar's laziness and to the beggar's good cheer. ”

“ Yet, under the present system, such persons as these either share the discomforts, the filth, the turbulence, and the demoralising fellowship of the thief, the mendicant and the prostitute, who crowd the vagrant wards of the workhouses, or are compelled to brave the inclemency of the weather and the pains of hunger by reason of their unconquerable aversion to such companionship. ”

“ If the master of the house passes his hand outside and puts a thing into the hand of the mendicant, or takes something out of the mendicant's hand and brings it into the house, the master of the house is culpable and the mendicant is free.2 If the mendicant extends his hand into the house and the master takes something out of it, or puts something into it which is drawn to the outside by the mendicant, they are both free. ”

“ All that I have just said demonstrates sufficiently, I believe, that the cause named above plays a considerable rôle in the etiology of mendicity and vagrancy. It is still necessary to give an answer to the question: do all the individuals who fall under the unfavorable conditions named under one and two, become vagrants or mendicants? It is evident that the answer must be negative. Three expedients offer themselves to one who has fallen into the blackest poverty; mendicity, theft, and suicide. ”

“ Brother after brother tried, but the great creature still remained untouched, when a travelling mendicant stepped forward and cried aloud:
"That is no bird, but an evil magician who has taken that form to deceive you all. If he is not killed before he takes his own form again, he will bring misery and ruin upon this town and the surrounding country."
You know perhaps that mendicants or beggars in India are often holy men whose advice even kings are glad to listen to; so that, when everyone heard what this beggar said, there was great excitement and terror. ”

“ By this munificent lavishment of spiritual favors, the mendicant orders soon found themselves transported from an apparent condition of pauperism to a real condition of princely wealth and power; enjoying at the same time all the sympathy that indigence could excite, and all the luxury that money could purchase. Exempted from secular jurisdiction, they were empowered to plunder, ravish and murder with impunity; privileged to demand alms of all, they were the masters of the fortunes of all ”

“ These mendicants live on public favour and contributions; they wear clothes, are deemed harmless, never ask alms, but are always willing to accept them, and have no laws of celibacy, as is the case with some wandering beggars in India, who are naked except the wrapper; sometimes they settle, making fresh converts, but many wander from city to city, always finding people disposed to administer to their necessities. They are distinguished from other sects, by each individual carrying a small tambourine, and wearing clothing of a deep buff colour. ”

“ We are far enough, in this case, from that mendicity which is understood as a means of existence and the essential condition of a life of idleness. It is the opposite extreme, and we are true and just to St. Francis and to the origin of the mendicant orders only when we do not separate the obligation of labor from the praise of mendicity.4
No doubt this zeal did not last long, and Thomas of Celano already entitles his chapters, "Lament before God over the idleness and gluttony of the friars;" ”

“ The transition from the one state to the other is not a very pronounced one, and the step into the position of a habitual beggar is not hard to take after a certain number of lessons in the mendicant's art have once been learnt. ”

“ So the mendicant, the prince, with the puppy and the young hawk, went on their journey. At last they went into the depth of the forest far away from the houses of men, where they stopped before a hut thatched with leaves. That was the mendicant’s cell. The mendicant said to the prince, “You are to live in this hut with me. Your chief work will be to cull flowers from the forest for my devotions. [181] You can go on every side except the north. If you go towards the north evil will betide you. You can eat whatever fruit or root you like ”

“ The majority of the beggars of the City, we are glad to say, are foreigners and their children. An American mendicant is rarely seen. Our people will suffer in silence rather than beg, but the foreigners do not seem to be influenced by any such feelings. ”

“ One thing is certain, and that is that in town or country a man or a woman must be in the lowest depths of poverty and distress to refuse to throw a few reis into the bags of the licensed mendicants who, bareheaded, and clad in scarlet or white gowns, go round soliciting alms for the support of the churches on whose behalf they are sent out. ”

“ A tattered mendicant, who could not collect any coins, lost as he was in the midst of the crowd, and who had not probably found sufficient indemnity in the pockets of his neighbors, had hit upon the idea of perching himself upon some conspicuous point, in order to attract looks and alms. ”

“ He was a ragged old man, with a canvas bag, half filled with crusts, slung upon his side. I had already met many such beggars in this part of France. They travel about from village to village, filling their bags with pieces of bread that are given them, and selling afterwards what they cannot eat as food for pigs. As they rarely receive charity in the form of money, they do not expect it. This kind of mendicant is distinctly rural, and belongs to old times.
The bold front of an early Renaissance castle, with round towers at the angles, capped with pointed roofs, drew me from the highroad. ”

“ In some cases, then, it is more profitable, and in all cases more easy, not to work. In consequence of these facts we read very often that the public ought not to give to these idlers. But the public cannot distinguish this class of mendicants from the others. It is certainly true that professional mendicity would diminish if nothing were given to mendicants; but on the other hand the great misery among the other poor would be aggravated still more. ”

“ It would be a nice point to decide, whether the horrors of passing every day among the mendicant friars are more revolting than the pernicious riches of the other orders, which reduce so many families into mendicants. ”

“ It is rather the contrary that takes place, since the army of vagrants and mendicants is now mainly composed of those who have not been able to find work. Vagabondage and mendicity are at present punishable because of the importunity of the mendicants, the losses experienced by persons living in the country especially, and also because of the danger to society from the fact that the dangerous criminals are partly recruited from this class. ”

“ The country curates, who, for the most part, have been mendicant students in their time, give him shelter for the night, and a comfortable meal, and often enrich him with several quartos, or halfpence in the morning. ”

“ From the Nuremberg mendicancy regulations Johannes Janssen quotes certain highly practical enactments which belong to the latter half of the 14th century. The so-called “meat and bread foundations,” which had been enriched by the Papal Indulgences granted to benefactors, were not available for any public beggars, but only for the genuine poor. In 1478 the town council issued a more minute mendicant ordinance. Here we read: “Almsgiving is a specially praiseworthy, virtuous work, and those who receive alms unworthily and unnecessarily lay a heavy burden of guilt on themselves.” ”

“ The women and children have the true whine of the professional mendicant, as they frequent thronged bazaars, receiving charity and stealing what they can. They sell mock baubles in some instances, but only as a cloak to other enterprises, and as a pretence of an honest calling. ”

“ If vagrancy and mendicity sprang from the innate qualities of man, there would always have been vagrants and mendicants, which is not the case. The appearance of these is due to the economic structure of society. ”

“ In times that were hard and wild and disordered, when there was no system of poor-relief save through the Church, the lot of widows and of women and girls who had no male protectors was exceedingly hard, and for such the mendicant associations had a clear attraction as a means of asylum and refuge. ”

“ Then I began to look for a bed, and asked another policeman where the City Lodging House was, as I was in need of shelter. He raised his hand and pointed through the alley to a bright light, the City Jail. And so in this city, amidst the “Latter-Day Saints,” men are compelled to lose their self-respect, and seek shelter in a vermin-infested city jail, or else become a common “Moocher.”
I did become a mendicant and went to the Y. M. C. A., but they could do nothing for me. I was about to enter the Salvation Army, when the lights went out and the place closed for the night. ”

“ The poor to whom the citizens here refer are beggars; the poor householders who remained at home are not considered. Moreover in describing the sturdy vagabonds the word beggars is used, thus showing that it was the mendicant class of whom the citizens were thinking, and that they so far had little conception of distinguishing between the beggars and other poor. The citizens go on to say, that the classes of sturdy beggars they have in their mind are "the child unapt to learning," "the sore and sick when they be cured," and "such prisoners as are quit at the sessions." ”

“ They subsist by begging altogether. They are not vicious nor intemperate, nor troublesome particularly, except as beggars. In that calling they have a pertinacity before which a Northern mendicant would grow pale. ”

“ That mendicants generally levy contributions on the humane and charitable, to three or four times the amount that would support an equal number of paupers, either in alms-houses or at their own dwellings. ”