The church’s high regard for poverty, for religious reasons, and the duty of Christians to help the undeservedly poor were queried for the first time around the middle of the 14th century. Although the notion of charity when dealing with beggars lived on throughout the entire early modern period, there was an increasingly critical way of looking at the associated problems. In the cities in particular from the 16th century there were enhanced efforts to deal with fraudulent begging [4. 49–52]. The sharpened criticism of “professional” and fraudulent collecting of alms led to…
Beggar (823 words)
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Ammerer, Gerhard, “Beggar”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_017552>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20160907
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