'They Begged with Borrowed Children and a Woman in Men's Clothing': Gender and the Regulation of Begging in Late Medieval Germany.

This article investigates the role that gender played in the regulation of begging in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in southern German cities. Central to this analysis is an unusual legal case from Nuremberg, in which two blind beggars were exiled for seeking alms with borrowed children and a cross‐dressing woman. This case provides insight into many of the factors that influenced medieval reactions to mendicancy, including perceptions of gender, disability and deceptive begging practices. Contextualising the case in local literary and legal records reveals that all these factors together contributed to the group's condemnation, as authorities considered this near‐familial group as a whole. The case thus suggests that medieval observers considered beggars' gender not only individually but also in terms of their relationships; the more a group resembled a family unit, the less potential donors and authorities were willing to tolerate divergence from accepted gender norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]