mendicant
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈmɛn.dɪ.kənt/
- Formal
:
mendicante
- In fact, not so much through their active begging as through the massive amount of alms that these very popular orders began to receive, mendicants were drawing away a significant amount of financial resources that might otherwise have gone to other areas of the church.
- mendicant orders
Examples
-
In his later difficulties with the Marchetti family, he sometimes flattered the bishop by appealing as a mendicant himself, asking for charity to pay his debts, claiming, "I am without linen, shoes, clothing."
Academic text (1997) -
Even though almost all beguine communities eventually placed themselves under the supervision of the mendicant orders, and many actually entered the orders as communities of lay tertiaries, their position remained a perilous one.
Academic text (2003) -
The beguines especially were closely associated with the mendicant orders, above all with the Franciscans.
Academic text (2003) -
The first Friars are Franciscan mendicant Friars.
-
Moreover, any assault on the moral and religious value of mendicancy might also threaten the position of the mendicant orders themselves, not just the beguines.
Academic text (2003) -
The journal of the Sire de Gouberville has numerous entries recording visits by mendicant preachers.
Academic text (2018) -
The churches of the mendicant orders were important sites for such foundations, but lords also founded Masses in parishes where they had seigneurial rights.
Academic text (2018) -
The secular-mendicant conflict originated practically with the inception of the mendicant orders themselves in the early thirteenth century.
Academic text (2003) -
Fortunately for Thomas, anyway, the Dominicans, though mendicants, provided privileges for their scholars and abbots.
Fiction book (1995) -
The organization invited the local mendicants to share their experiences of seeking alms in the community.
Synonyms
31
8.0
A man who belongs to a religious group and helps people
Surface Forms
Etymology
Mendicant comes from the Latin words mendicare 'to beg' and mendicus 'beggar'. In medieval times this name was used for friars who chose to live by asking for 'alms', so a mendicant is a religious person who relies on charity.