Maldininkai-Elgetos Lietuvoje Ir Prūsų Lietuvoje
Beggar-Pilgrims in Lithuania and in Lithuanian Prussia

Summary/Abstract: Using the sources currently available, it is almost impossible to determine when exactly beggars and tramps first appeared in the lands of the Balts. We only find information about them in the written sources from the 16th century on (although this information is fragmentary and even contradictory). Even so, information from the chronicles of this period is sufficient to allow consideration of parallels between beggars and the servants of the old religion, and consequently of the reasons for the appearance of the first beggars as well. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the supplicant was already performing sacrifices in secrecy from the ecclesiastical and temporal powers. The supplicant was forced to wander about and hide his calling. The supplicant thus became the original supplicant-beggar, whom, according to tradition, the community continued to maintain and support. From the end of the 17th to the beginning of the 18th century, the beggar had become a syncretic figure of two religions (pre-Christian and Christian) made up of equal parts Christian charity and honor for the remains of the old hierophantic class. The differentiation of the image of the beggar in the traditional period (to negative and positive) is connected with the appearance of the so-called charlatan beggars.

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