Erklärung: also 'those seeking alms' (easier to pronounce).
In the Middle Ages, monasteries dispensed alms (monetary) as well as food and clothing to petitioners, sometmes from the main gate, sometimes from the kitchen gate.
Also, those seeking alms/petitioning for alms would ask those entering the monastery for money. It was considered poor form to enter/leave the monastery as a guest without giving alms to the petitioners, who, because they were allowed to stay at the monastery gate (close to holy ground), were considered the deserving poor.
I'm a medievalist by training, specialized in monastic history.
I went with alms seeker, since I think this provides the right image. "Petitioner" would probably be the more correct translation, since it has a wider meaning. 4 KudoZ-Punkte wurden für diese Antwort vergeben
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Erklärung: also 'those seeking alms' (easier to pronounce).
In the Middle Ages, monasteries dispensed alms (monetary) as well as food and clothing to petitioners, sometmes from the main gate, sometimes from the kitchen gate.
Also, those seeking alms/petitioning for alms would ask those entering the monastery for money. It was considered poor form to enter/leave the monastery as a guest without giving alms to the petitioners, who, because they were allowed to stay at the monastery gate (close to holy ground), were considered the deserving poor.
I'm a medievalist by training, specialized in monastic history.
Rebecca Garber Vereinigte Staaten Spezialgebiet Muttersprache: Englisch PRO-Punkte in Kategorie: 16
Hinweis von Fragesteller an den Antwortenden
I went with alms seeker, since I think this provides the right image. "Petitioner" would probably be the more correct translation, since it has a wider meaning.
Erklärung: A polite word for beggars. ;-)
No reference - but this is in a personal glossary of mine. Perhaps you can see if it applies in your contect.
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By the time he was 30, Pierre was a civil servant whose job was to act as a link between petitioners from Toulouse to the King of France and an enforcer of royal decrees http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/men/fermat.html
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 28 mins (2007-06-01 15:25:45 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Erklärung: according to my 1891 Flüglers German-English dictionary. Grimm="rogator"
Duden = " jmd., der mündlich od. schriftlich eine Bitte um Hilfe o.Ä. vorbringt: Er wusste nicht recht, wohin mit den Händen er war hier B. (H.Weber, Einzug 390)."
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1905 Muret-Sanders = "hanger-on"
Jonathan MacKerron Deutschland Muttersprache: Englisch PRO-Punkte in Kategorie: 31
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2007-06-01 17:11:00 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
I would suggest 'supplicant' includes petitioners seeking favours and beggars seeking alms, and thus serves as a catch-all. A beggar or alms-seeker is hardly a petitioner and a petitioner is hardly a beggar. Petitioners also sought aid for 'legal' claims...
HeinrichB Kanada Spezialgebiet Muttersprache: Englisch PRO-Punkte in Kategorie: 12
The translation workplace 
