The Poor as Stateless, Undisputed and Homeless: About the Problem of Groups of Beggars, Cheaters and Vagabonds in Southern Germany in Modern Times

Abstract

In the early modern period, not all people had the right to nationality. In the 17th and 18th centuries, by linking national law and the law of the poor, administrative and police ideas were sought to protect their own resources by declaring marauding groups of beggars as non-subjects, strangers, and stateless. As a result, beggars could be divided into eligible and unauthorized, “hardworking” and “lazy”, healthy and sick. At the same time, after a strict selection only a few of them could hope to be covered by national law and eligible for the financial support through alms. Early modern estates reacted more and more “sternly”, defending themselves against groups of beggars flowing into the country from the outside. Translated by Agnieszka Chabros