Beguines and Beghards

As Beguines and Begarden the members of a community christian devotional life were from the 12th century in the Netherlands and the 13th century in Germany, France, northern Italy and Switzerland called without monastic vows. Beguines ( women members ) and Begarden ( male members, also called Lollards Lollards or ) led a pious, celibate life in orden similar housing communities, were partially denounced by the Church as heretical and saw persecution by the Inquisition exposed. At the beginning of the early modern period were these religious communities, if they still existed, ecclesiastical integrated or joined the Reformation.

Name

Other spellings for Beguines and Begarden: Beguines or Begutten, Beguinae or Beghardi, Beguines and Beghards, further comprising: Bagynen, Beguini, Beck Arden and Picards.

Other names for Beguines and Begarden: Polternonnen, Seelfrauen, Seelschwestern, Mate Mans ( = comrade ), cells brothers or Celliten. A close historical connection existed among the Lollards and the brothers and sisters of the free spirit.

The name of Beguines appeared already 1209/11 on in Cologne. At this time, set the terms and Beguines Begarden but still foreign names, which fall ( as they call themselves ) were rejected by the brothers and sisters. It was only in the 15th century, the members of this community took these names.

The origin of the name Beguines or Begarden is not clearly understood. Narratives in conjunction with the name of St. Begga that was made in a later period the patron saint of the Begin houses seem to be based on a legend.

An interpretation variant provides the names origin in the derivation of the name of a Liege priest Lambert le BEGUES (also: Lambert de Beghe = Stammler ) founded in 1180 in Liège in a belonging to him large garden near the city a number of individual houses that he and virgins widows without distinction of status or wealth under the condition to apartments was that they lived chaste and modest, hard-working and friendly together.

Another interpretation sees the term Beguines a corruption of Al -lived - ses. The name Albigenses was used by the Church in accurate way for all sorts of new heretical in their view, lay movements, but later found its most common use as a synonym for the community of faith of the Cathars.

Faith and organization

The aim of the Beguine Begarden movement was the realization of a life in imitation of Christ in apostolic poverty, the Vita apostolica. Men and women, among the latter many single women and widows, joined since the beginning of the 13th century regardless of their wealth or object to religious communities together, but without belonging to a recognized as a lay religious community. As Beguines and Begarden they renounced any personal possessions, lived in orden similar housing communities and put their living largely by hand safely.

Beguines and Begarden were just made a vow on time, which was renewed on a yearly basis. In contrast to the nuns or brothers in the monasteries were allowed the Beguines and Begarden to excrete them from the EC, to marry and lead a middle class life, their assets but they had to leave behind in this case. For this reason, living in the heyday of the movement only older women in the Begin houses, and some orders before wrote that an unmarried woman was not before age 40 beguine.

The Beguines can be considered as part of the Beguine Begarden movement as the first secular association of pious women in Christianity. They lived in so-called beguinages. Each community was sovereign and independent. She had a Grande Dame or champion, who was from among them, mostly, elected for one year. The different beguinages sometimes had different objectives. Beguines devoted themselves in their work not only moral and religious, but also for practical purposes, including nursing, care Abandoned, the rescue morally " Fallen " and education. They also acted as body washerwomen or practiced the textile crafts. Although most Beguines were originally wealthy, they cared by these activities for their livelihood. Prayer and contemplation were next essential life content. From the community of Beguines some well-known mystics, for example, Margareta Porete emerged.

For those Beguine Begarden groupings who were suspected of heresy, the Catholic Church was certainly not in a good light: " Absolute poverty and anti-clerical opposition were the basics that are found in all heretical Begardengemeinschaften that we have sources. " Likelihood of confusion was sometimes with the pursued also by the Inquisition Waldenses, as some Beguines / Begarden rejected the power of oaths or the belief in purgatory.

History

The movement of the Beguines and Begarden can be the first time at the beginning of the 13th century in Belgium and Flanders prove.

On the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated that spiritual communities had to basically be written only after the existing rules of the order, in 1216, however, the Beguines and Begarden were given at the request of Jacob Vitrys an oral authorization from the Pope. Then came the period of the greatest expansion of the Beguines and Begardenwesens. Convents emerged in most of Western Europe, especially in northern Italy, southern France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Bohemia, and Switzerland.

The Beguines and Begardengemeinschaften existed in parallel or in opposition to the Catholic Order of which they differed principally by their laity, and had the local clergy often against them.

Had their heyday in the Beguines of the mid-13th until the first half of the 14th century. For the period 1350 to just under 1250 Beguines are accepted in more than 25 convents Begin for Cologne.

In addition to the sedentary Beguine and Begardengemeinschaften emerged in the latter half of the 13th century, migratory communities, which ensured their livelihood by begging. They often represented religious ideas of the German mystic Meister Eckhart and were frowned upon not only by the Church, but also by the townsfolk. Especially these groups came the cry, almost stand or to spread heretical ideas themselves heretics. In particular, the German bishops opposed the motion and set in 1311 at the Council of Vienne, a conviction by, of which the Pope only the Southern Netherlands (Flanders) ausnahm. The German beguinages were dissolved in the sequence.

During the Inquisition in Toulouse sentenced numerous Beguines and Begarden as a heretic for walling and combustion of the year 1307, Pope John XXII issued. a bull was assured grace in all those Beguines and Begarden who wanted to accept the rule of the Franciscan Tertiaries on March 7, 1319. Many communities thereupon placed themselves under the protection of the Franciscans or Dominicans. Middle of the 14th century there was the Holy Roman Empire under the Inquisitor, Walter Kerlinger to intense persecution of Beguines and Begarden: Emperor Charles IV in 1369 praised the merits guy Ingers the alleged extermination of the Beguines and Begarden in Magdeburg, Bremen, Thuringia, Saxony and Hesse. The bull of Pope Nicholas V on February 12, 1453 took all that time still existing conventions on the bosom of the church, and gave them the rights of the Tertiaries. Examples of such a community that survived from a Begin founding to the present day, the Dillinger Franciscans and the Franciscan Sisters of Maria Stern in Augsburg. Within the territory of the Reich disappeared the Beguines and Begarden with the 16th century. In northern Germany they mostly accepted the Reformation.

In Belgium, where the Beguines were ecclesiastically organized, they exist today as well as not, 2004 was of only 5 active Beguines in Flanders ( including in Kortrijk and Ghent ) reported. Died 2008 in Ghent, the penultimate Beguine at the age of 99 years. The last Beguine, Marcella Pattyn, lived in Kortrijk in a nursing home, where she died on 14 April 2013.

UNESCO took 13 of the 26 existing Flemish Beguine, including the on in Bruges, in the list of world cultural heritage.

As part of the women's movement there were some ups modern " Beguine ". Although this tie in with the social model of traditional Beguines, but renounce their Christian religious component and emphasize in particular the aspect of self-determined living together in communities of women.

Known traces of the Beguines

• Beginenberg

• Begin House ( Hannover), existed from the 13th century until the Reformation
• Begin House ( Kempten ), an ensemble of buildings with unique finds of medieval life
• Begin house in St. Wolfgang (Heilbronn)

• Beginenturm (Hannover)
• Beguine communities in Geldern