Mendicant orders refers primarily to certain Christian religious or monastic orders that adopted a lifestyle of poverty, travelling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to the poor. These orders rejected the previously established monastic model of living in one stable, isolated community where members worked at a trade and owned property in common, including land, buildings and other wealth. By contrast, the mendicants avoided owning property, did not work at a trade, and embraced a poor, often itinerant lifestyle. They depended for their survival on the goodwill of the people to whom they preached.

The term "mendicant" is also used in some non-Christian religions to denote holy persons committed to an ascetic lifestyle, which may include members of religious orders and individual holy persons.

Christian mendicant orders

Background

What is called the mendicant movement in Church history took place primarily in the 13th century in Western Europe. Up until that time the monks of Europe worked at their trade in their monastery. While renouncing personal property, they owned all things in common as a community after the example of chapters 2 and 4 of the Acts of the Apostles.