ABSTRACT
From Justinian's law on incerta mendicitas codified in the first century to the prohibitions issued in the last year of the twentieth century and from one European country to another, the perception of poverty and begging has not changed significantly. It would therefore seem that efforts to historicize and to locate the various attitudes towards mendicity and the attempt to trace back the reasons for those attitudes, including anxieties about disguise, are in part vain. There are, however, crucial differences marking the attitude towards poverty and mendicity on the part of the 'affluent societies' today: in the first place the classic distinction between 'impotent' and 'able-bodied' poor has disappeared. In other words, the idea of a 'fraternity' developed by the early modern mind, as well as the idea of the beggars' theatrical, world-creating skill, shows more mature sociological and psychological perspicacity than might at first sight be thought.
