ABSTRACT
Most of the stories recounted in The Little Flowers of St. Francis were written about a century after the Saint Francis's death by Brother Ugolino de Monte Santa Maria. The widely popular collection attests to the affection common people felt for St. Francis and reveals an indulgent attitude toward begging. Franciscans and members of the other mendicant orders founded in the thirteenth century continued to seek alms but not so much by begging from door to door as by preaching and hearing confessions, taking special collections in churches, and receiving gifts and bequests. Sixteenth-century governments attempted to curb mendicity by sporadic enforcement of harsh laws, particularly against "sturdy" – that is able-bodied –vagabonds, and by efforts to license and regulate begging by people unable to work or suffering from loss of property as a result of war, fire, shipwreck, or natural disaster.
