Of Kammesierers, or Learned Beggars.
Of Kammesierers, or Learned Beggars.
HE vjth chapter is about the Kammesierers.
These beggars are young scholars or young
students, who do not obey their fathers
and mothers, and do not listen to their masters’ teaching,
and so depart, and fall into the bad company
of such as are learned in the arts of strolling and
tramping, and who quickly help them to lose all
they have by gambling (VERJONEN), pawning (VERSENKEN),Pg 18
or selling (VERKÜMMERN) it, with drinking
(VERSCHÖCHERN) and revelry. And when they
have nought more left, they learn begging, and KAMMESIERING,
and to cheat the farmers (HANZEN-BESEFLEN);
and they KAMESIER as follows: Item, that they
come from Rome (id est, from the brothel [SONNENBOSS]),
studying to become priests (on the gallows,
i.e. DOLMAN); item, one is acolitus, another is epistolarius,
the third evangelicus, and a fourth clericus
(GALCH); item, they have nought on earth but the
alms wherewith people help them, and all their
friends and family have long been called away by
death’s song. Item, they ask linen cloth for an alb
(id est, for a harlot’s shift, i.e. GLIDEN HANFSTAUDEN).
Item, money, that they may be consecrated at
next Corpus Christi day (id est, in a SONNENBOSS, i.e.
brothel), and whatever they get by cheating and
begging they lose in gambling (VERJONEN), or with
strumpets, or spend it in drink (VERSCHOCHERNS
und VERBOLENS). Item, they shave tonsures on their
heads, although they are not ordained and have noPg 19
church document (FORMAT), though they say they
have, and they are altogether a bad lot (LOE VOT).
Conclusio: As to these Kammesierers give them
nought, for the less thou givest them the better it
is for them, and the sooner they must leave off.
They have also forged FORMATÆ (literæ).