We live in days of great social upheaval. The late 1100s were much the same. For generations, rural life and agriculture were the unquestioned norm. Now there was a great migration to the towns, which grew rapidly and a new ‘middle class’ of merchants and craftsmen evolved. Also, the Crusades had led thousands of men to their death, leaving an imbalance of women.
The Church was not well placed to cope with this new climate. For centuries, the beating heart of the faith had been in the monasteries, but these were almost always in the country, sticking to ancient traditions and largely out of touch with new social developments. Many had grown rich and complacent and cared little for service and evangelism. Women who wanted to live radically for God had few openings. The time was ripe for a new expression of the kingdom of God, and the Beguines rose to the challenge.
This was a spontaneous movement that began with a group of praying women in Liège, Belgium, in the 1190s. Not wanting either of the usual options of marriage or a nunnery, these radical women pioneered a new form of community. They pledged themselves to prayer, poverty and celibacy. Seeing how society was changing, they chose to stay in the towns, especially the poor suburbs, where they could serve the people with Jesus’ love.
Adult women during the Middle Ages were expected to live under the guardianship of a man, either within the household as a wife and mother, or dedicated to the Church and living in a convent as a nun. The Beguines questioned this concept and lived outside of these set boundaries. Women who entered Beguinages (Beguine houses and/or convents) were not bound by permanent vows, in contrast to women who entered convents. They could enter Beguinages having already been married and they could leave the Beguinages to marry. Some women even entered the Beguinages with children.
They aimed to recover the simplicity, love and outreach of the early Church. They preached (which was not allowed), and in the language of the people, not Latin. Their communal settlements had a hospital, a place of worship, and work-shops for spinning, lace-making and other crafts that were to generate an income. They held literacy classes for poor children, supported widows, and took in orphans. And at every turn, they proclaimed God’s love for the poor.
Beguines had no mother-house, nor common rule, nor any appointed head the order. Every community was complete in itself and fixed its own order of living. Later many adopted the rule of the Third Order of Saint Francis. These communities were varied in terms of the social status of their members; some of them only admitted ladies of high degree; others were exclusively reserved for persons in humble circumstances; others again opened their doors wide to women of every condition, and these were the most densely peopled. Several, like the great Beguinage of Ghent, numbered around a thousand.
In the beginning, the clergy's attitude towards Beguines was ambivalent. The groups were religious and the women were dedicated to chastity and charity, which could not be condemned in any way. However, the fact that they existed without men (except for priests and confessors to lead them) was suspect to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. For this and many other reasons, many Beguines came to be known as heretics and were persecuted as such. Though they were never an approved religious order, they were at one point granted special privileges and exemptions customary for approved orders. The Church, however, did not approve of their lack permanent vows. Women were not supposed to have that much freedom.
A male offshoot began, taking the name Beghards, but never made the same impact as the women - perhaps because they were not so very different from the Franciscan friars. It was the Beguines, the women of vision who put that vision into action and gave it a demonstrable structure, who made the mark for God. They had heard the pulse of the society God had placed them in, and met its need. The movement multiplied, and by 1270 there were Beguine communities in most towns in Belgium, Holland and North Germany.
I find this group very interesting as it appears as a geniune grass roots movement - well ahead of its time - and not part of a traditional order. How tragic that the people who should have nurtured the movement should be the ones to cause its demise - history does, sadly, repeat itself. May we be the ones who recognise and nurture the young grass blades (new movements of God) and never trample them down.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Jules! As with so many mediaeval movements, the verdict of history is usually written by the victors.
ReplyDeleteTraditionally, the origins of the Beguines (and their name) is attributed to Lambert Le Begue, a preacher in Liège, who advocated precisely such a movement for women. So they began with priestly sanction. But as the 13th century went on, the women tended to retreat into mysticism and relied less on their own labour, often turning to begging instead. In some cases, this shift caused problems for the Beguines. For example, Marguerite Porete, a French Beguine and mystic, was burned at the stake in Paris in 1310 by civil authorities.
Which serves to underline the danger for any movement of drifting from its original calling and fire.