Begging as spiritual practice — the mendicant friars made poverty their profession and changed medieval Christianity.
Living by begging; relating to a religious order whose members originally lived by begging, such as the Franciscans or Dominicans.
From Latin mendicantem, present participle of mendicare meaning to beg, from mendicus meaning beggar Key roots: *mend- (Proto-Indo-European: "physical defect, fault").
The mendicant friars were revolutionary because they rejected the monastery model of cloistered wealth. Francis of Assisi scandalized his merchant father by stripping naked in the town square, renouncing all possessions, and embracing begging as a spiritual practice — founding an order that would reshape medieval Christianity.