A Spatial Context for Medieval beguines

A digital thesis presented

by

David Simpson

to

The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the subject of History

California State University, San Marcos San Diego, California

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Antonio Zaldívar Committee Members: Dr. Darel Engen

May 2019

1. Intro

This is a project to provide geographic context to the medieval beguine movement. The beguines were a lay religious movement in the late Middle Ages. They had buildings that cloistered them from the urban environments that lived in, and yet they were a distinctly urban movement. This project seeks to analyze the geographic data that maps can provide. The beguines existed at a very particular time in a very particular place, the thirteenth century in the of northern Europe.

2. What is a beguine?

A clear and coherent definition of a beguine is almost impossible. What we now call the beguine movement was never an organized entity; it had no overall leadership, no rule to set pious standards, and very little inter-community cooperation. Rather, it was a loose assortment of women who wished to live their lives in a common way. In the late twelfth century, laywomen in Germany and the Low Countries in Western Europe began moving to major urban areas and attempting to live a more pious form of life, creating a natural and localized association of like- minded laywomen. (1) While it was never a formal religious movement with its own rule, like the Franciscan or Dominican orders, there are things that can be said about their common way of life. The Beguines’ were attempting to live their version of the vita apostolica, to live chaste and humbly, to sanctify their daily lives, and to live as close to God as they could.

1) Deane, Jennifer, "Beguines" Reconsidered: Historiographical Problems and New Directions (Monastic Matrix, August 2008). Commentaria3461. https://monasticmatrix.osu.edu/commentaria/beguines-reconsidered-historiographical-problems- and-new-directions

3. Beguinages

Starting in the thirteenth century, housing complexes were built to allow beguines to live their pious lives. These women were trying to live their holy life removed from the urban societies in which they existed. They often had contact with only a single parish priest or mendicant friar, who performed the sacraments for them and was their only contact to established Catholic structures. The beguines existed inside and outside of traditional spaces, both physical and spiritual; they were both part of the world they lived in yet sought to leave that world behind with prayer, fasting, and communal living. There were two kinds of beguinages, the larger court beguinage, and the small convent beguinage. The convent beguinage was often a single house with multiple women living inside. The larger, and more spectacular, court beguinage was a walled enclosure. They typically had a small church in the middle with houses surrounding it.

4. Urban Enviroments

Beguines and the structures made for them, beguinages, were part of the rising urbanism starting in the eleventh century. The transition to a money economy gave rise to trading centers, particularly in the low countries. The great urban centers of medieval and Germany were in full swing by the thirteenth century and the local political power was shifting. Urban growth on the back of increasing mercantilism was new in Northern Europe and particularly strong in the low countries. There was a tense relationship between the traditional structures of medieval society and the rising wealth in the cities, as the merchant class represented a potential challenge to traditional landed nobility. While these two groups were not always openly hostile toward each other in the thirteenth century, money was changing the nature of political authority. This change in power was the cause of both new energy in urban spaces and a sense of the corruption and loss of traditional regions.

5. Beguinage

The large beguinage in Turnhout is one of the most complete examples of a court beguinage we still have today. The foundation date is not definite; however, the first mention of it was in a ledger of 1339. The beguinesin Turnhout had strong ties to the Dukes of Brabant; in fact, the land the building stands on was the property of the Dukes. At the turn of the 16th century, there were fifty women and twenty houses. The beguines continued to expand until the beguinage reached its peak in 1675 when there were 375 women living in the court. This video was designed to give context to the spatial dimensions of a court beguinage. Filming began in 2015 during the restoration and repurposing of the beguinage. It is now low-income housing.

6. Beguinages Founded in the 1230s

Here is an interactive map showing where beguinages were founded. The push pins represent court beguinages, and the color fields represent convent beguinages.

Court Beguinages: Date Founded

Aachen 1230 Louvain, Groot Begijnhof 1232 Campbrai 1233 , Groot Begijnhof 1234 Namur 1235 Oignies 1239 Valenciennes 1239 Vilvoorde 1239

Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200- 1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

7. Beguinages in the 1240s

Ypres 1240 Tournai 1241 Liege 1241 1242 1242 1243 Lille 1244 Douai 1245 1245 Mons, Cantimpret 1245 Diest 1245 , Groot 1245 Le Quesnoy 1246 1246 Geraardsbergen 1247 Brussels 1247 Hesdin 1248 Binche 1248 Aardenburg 1249

Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200- 1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

8. Beguinages in the 1250s

Tienen 1250 Assenede 1251 Maastricht 1251 1251 Bilzen 1256 Sint-Truden 1258 Bergues 1259 Damme 1259 Mechelen, Klien 1259 Borgloon 1259 Lier 1259 Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200- 1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

9. Beguinages in the 1260s

Dinant 1261 Aalst 1261 Aachen 1261 Ghent Klien 1262 1266 Maubeuge 1267 Overijse 1267 1267 Oostburg 1269 Louvain Klien 1269

Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200- 1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

10. Beguinages in the 1270s

Oudenaarde 1272

Oudenaarde 1272

Deinze 1273

Veurne 1273

Orchies 1273

Diksmuide 1273

s-Hertogenbosh 1274

Ijzendijke 1276

Ghent, poortaker 1278

Roermond 1279

Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200- 1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

11. Beguinages in the 1280s

Beaumont 1281

Dendermonde 1288

Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200- 1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

12. Beguinages in the 1290s

Avesnes 1292 Edingen 1292 Hulst 1295

Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200- 1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

13. All Beguinages in the thirteenth century

The thirteenth century saw an incredible expansion of beguine communities. There were no active court beguinages at the start of the century and sixty-two by the end. Each structure was an exciting building project, even if they started smaller than they were at their peak. Court beguinages span the entire low countries, to France in the south and Germany to the east.

14. Graph of beguine communities in the thirteenth century

The thirteenth century saw an explosion of beguinage building. In the most active period, 1239 to 1251, the number of beguinages in the low countries expanded from five to thirty. That's twenty-five court beguinages founded over twelve years. Similarly, the expansion of convent beguinages bloomed just after from 1259 to 1273, from ten to twenty-three.

Important dates:

Vita de Marie D’Oignies(1214) The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) The Supplement to Vita Mariae d’Oignies (1230) Life of Christina the Astonishing (1232) The Life of Margaret of Ypres (1243)

15. Graph of beguine Communities after the thirteenth century

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw a relatively static number of both court and convent beguinages, with around the same number built as closed. There was a slight overall loss of beguinages as the sixteenth-century crept closer.

Important Dates:

The trial and burning of Marguerite Porete (1310) Council of Vienne, Cum de quibusdam(1311– 12) Pope John XXII, Ratio recta (1325)

16. Hadewijch

Hadewijch of Antwerp was the most critical mystical writer in the Low Countries during the thirteenth century. Scholars are still working on the details of Hadewijch’s life, but there are a few particulars known from her writing about who she was. First, her use of courtly love as a theme throughout her work and the sophistication of her writing indicates that she was from a wealthy, possibly noble, family. She either founded or was the leader of at least one beguine community, most likely in Antwerp. She was expelled from her community at some point for unclear reasons. Scholars have dated her writings to the early middle of the thirteenth century. (1) In the attached video, we allow her words to speak for themselves. (2)

(1) Simons, Cities of Ladies, 135.

(2) Hadewijch, "The Bride in the City," trans MotherColumba Hart, O.S.B., Hadewijch the Complete Works, (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1980.), 287

17. Conclusion The beguines are just one of the many groups that sprang up in response to a changing world. This project is an attempt to allow the space to speak for itself. There was a concerted effort to promote lay female piousness in the form of the beguine movement in the thirteenth century. Clerics portrayed lay holy women as casting aside their wealth to live like the poor, to serve the poor, to work for the poor. The clerical promotion coincided with an expansion of communities into almost every city in the low countries. As attitudes changed about lay female piousness in the fourteenth century, however, beguine communities saw an overall decline. The status-quo was a reluctant tolerance of beguine communities until the Counter Reformation and the council of Trent. Protections were established that allowed for a resurgence of beguine life.