Beatrice's World
SARA MOENS Beatrice’s World The Rise of Cistercian Nunneries in the Bishoprics of Liège and Cambrai Beatrice of Nazareth was but one of many women from the southern Low Countries who chose to devote themselves to God by living according to the ideals of the Cistercian Order. In the first half of the thirteenth century, the region experienced a genuine boom of Cistercian nunneries, despite the ban on the further incorporation of women’s communities into the Order issued in 1228 by the Cistercian General Chapter.1 In fact, the ban proved rather coun- terproductive as it seems to have incited a new wave of foundations.2 The fact that they belonged to the same Order does not imply, however, that the trajec- tories and the histories of these communities are interchangeable. The origins and early history of the Cistercian nunneries in the southern Low Countries are, in fact, quite heterogeneous. The communities of Florival, Maagdendaal near Oplinter3 and Nazareth, which provided a home to Beatrice as well as to her father and siblings, have received some attention from medievalists such as Ploegaerts (1925), Sabbe (1955), Rey- pens (1955), the collaborators of the Monasticon Belge (1968 & 1992) and De Ganck (1986).4 Because of their connection to Beatrice, the three communities 1 Statuta capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786, ed. by Joseph-Marie Canivez (Louvain: Bureau de la revue, 1934), vol. II, anno 1228, nr. 16, p. 68. The statute prohibits the incorporation of new nunneries into the Order. Although it did not attempt to ban the imitation of Cistercian customs among women, it made it clear that the Order would not assume the pastoral care for these communities.
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