MENDICITÀ. – Begging as a profession, one of the consequences of the phenomenon of pauperism. Generally accompanied by vagrancy, a weakening of the moral sense, and neglect of the most elementary rules of hygiene, begging may represent a danger to the organized community; with regard to those who engage in it, begging represents a tragic situation of exclusion from social life, of social impossibility of any affirmation of personal identity and human dignity.
The principal causes of begging are: inability to work due to sex, age, or congenital or acquired physical or mental disabilities; the capacity for work not absorbed by society (involuntary unemployment); vice, which causes illness, lack of foresight, and voluntary unemployment; and social prejudices that exclude certain categories from social life.
Begging was viewed differently in the various historical periods, and consequently different measures were taken to mitigate or eliminate II.
In the Roman period, the poor were generally regarded as an instrument for exercising one’s liberality, with political rather than charitable ends. The grand distributions of grain (frumentations), oil, and meat, originally private munificence, later became a common form of state liberality. Examples of laws repressing begging are not lacking in Roman legislation either; a constitution of Gratian, later incorporated into the Code of Justinian, in fact established that able-bodied beggars should become the servants of whoever reported their begging (Cod., XI, 25).
With the spread of Christianity, begging came to be regarded under a new aspect: the concept of liberality was replaced by that of charity. The evangelical precept « Fate elemosina di quanto avanza » (Lc. 11, 41) shaped the mentality of the first Christians and left deep traces throughout the Middle Ages. The Roman matron Fabiola, who was the first to establish a hospital for poor invalids; Pammachius, who created a shelter for pilgrims at Porto Romano; and Belisarius, who in the sixth century founded a hospice for the poor in Rome, are the first examples of a tradition of almsgiving and assistance to beggars for the love of God, which would become a characteristic of the Christian world in every age, adapting itself to the economic and social environment.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the work of the Churches on behalf of the poor expanded under the unified direction of the papacy, while retaining the possibility of responding to the manifold aspects of poverty through the action of the various religious Orders and professionally oriented confraternities. The medieval Christian was concerned with the beggar more than with the causes of begging, and sought in every way to help him, not only because the beggar was a brother, but also because the beggar was the means by which the benefactor acquired supernatural merits.
With the weakening of the Christian spirit as a consequence of the spread of humanism and the « reformation », and with the increase in the number of beggars resulting from structural changes in the European economy, the Church’s work became insufficient. In France and England, the first examples of state intervention appeared, through the transformation of the administrative system of hospices, control over charitable donations, the establishment of poor taxes, punishment of unauthorized begging, etc. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, begging was regarded as a vice, and attempts were made to solve the problem by persecuting beggars or forcing them into labor. In this regard, the « poor law » enacted during the reign of Elisabetta of England (1801) is significant: it established forced-labor houses and imposed extremely severe penalties on all those caught begging (mutilation of the ears, branding, etc.). The horror inspired by vagrants also prompted grandiose works of state assistance, such as, for example, the famous Hôtel royal des invalides, founded in Paris by Luigi XIV in 1674, and the Albergo dei poveri founded in Naples by Carlo di Borbone in 1751. In Catholic countries, the Catholic Reformation brought about a great revival of charitable activity, with a series of new charitable institutions associated with the names of great saints, such as Camillo de Lellis, Vincenzo de' Paoli, Caterina da Genova, Ignazio di Loyola, Gaetano Thiene, Filippo Neri, etc.
With the Enlightenment first and the French Revolution thereafter, the conception of begging changed once again: it was no longer regarded as a vice of the individual, but as a vice of society. The poor person had a right to assistance, which became a fundamental responsibility of the State and, only subsidiarily, of the various religious or professional associations. This concept was clearly expressed in 1790 by the « Comitato di m. » of the French National Assembly, which was the first to speak of preventive measures to be undertaken by the State for the elimination of begging.
In Protestant nations, state assistance is still predominant today, whereas in Catholic countries there is a tendency to revalue the important tradition of private charity and to regard the State solely as the coordinating and supervisory body.
Italian legislation has addressed the problem of begging several times: the public-security law of 20 March 1865 restricted begging to incapacitated persons possessing a certificate of indigence, issued only by the municipalities that lacked a beggars’ shelter; the Crispi law of 1889 and the subsequent decree specifying the procedures for its implementation restricted the possibility of issuing such certificates, allowing admission to a shelter in another municipality and establishing an order of precedence among the bodies responsible for bearing the cost of shelter (charitable institutions, municipalities, the State). Complementary to the public-security provisions are those of the Penal Code, still in force, which punish with arrest the beggar lacking a certificate and those who employ children under eighteen from another family for begging. The public-security law of 22 July 1897 establishes the procedures for
Alongside the direct measures taken by the authorities with regard to begging, all the indirect forms of intervention must also be taken into consideration today (the expansion of social insurance, assistance to children, improved hygienic conditions, etc.), which, by acting upon the causes of begging, have considerably reduced its extent and seriousness.