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A few words:
Beguines were independent women who lived together in communities, the Beguinages, within the medieval cities. These Christian women were deeply religious in their way of life. Their religious belief causes a diaconal and charitable life style. Mechthild joined this Beguine movement. She herself lived in simple conditions. She cared especially for the sick and helped the poor of the society.
Today we would call a Beguine like Mechthild a “social worker”, who was motivated by her Christian faith.
The Beguines were not like nuns because they did not take vows committing to a religious life, they were not led by an abbess and could leave the religious community at any time. Uncommonly for that time, women of different estates of realm, such as noblewomen, commoners, unmarried maidens, widows and even married women lived together. Joining the Beguine community they committed themselves voluntarily to abstinence and frugality. They earned their livelihood with their inherited wealth and textile needlework, like weaving and stitching and therefore competed with the arising guilds that manufactured textiles.
Nowadays the Beguine movement is enjoying a revival. There is a German umbrella organization of Beguines and it is planned to build a Beguines house in Magdeburg. Christian nursing and social work is organized by the German welfare organizations Caritas and Diakonie.
What motivated women back then to join a religious community and what motivates them today? What was the difference between the male communities, called the Beghards, and the female communities, the Beguines? The Year of Mechthild 2007/08 gives opportunities to solve these questions.
The text below will give you some ideas of the Beguine movement when Mechthild lived.
The following text shall inspire and thus does not claim completeness.
1. Who were the Beguines?
2. Why were the Beguines controversial?
3. Bibliography (German)
1. Who were the Beguines?
Mechthild followed the medieval Poverty Movement of the 12th and 13th century with her voluntary “social descent“ from the castle to slums of Magdeburg. Just like Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, who was born into the world in a simple stable, the followers renounced wealth and power in order to share their life with the poor and the people in need. In the course of this movement new mendicant orders were founded, e.g. Franciscans (accepted by the Church in 1215) and Dominicans (founded in 1214). Furthermore, communities sprang up with new manners of living according to the ancient Christian communities, e.g. the Beguine communities at the turn of the 12th century.
The Beguines moved to the flourishing medieval trading towns, and cared for the losers of the socio-economical changes of the late Middle Ages: The old, sick, disabled, and dying people. The most deprived groups were the poor, single women who were mainly mothers. They did not receive any social care by their relatives or husbands and so had to take care of their own children and relatives. The medieval Beguines devoted themselves to practical help and spiritual care in the slums and just like them Mother Teresa devoted herself working in Calcutta 800 years later.
2. Why were the Beguines controversial?
With their independent way of living they did not correspond to the static medieval concept of the order of creation: This “ordo“ seemed to determine the unchangeable, “God-given” place of every creature and every natural phenomenon. Even the medieval social order, the division of society into estates of realm, was considered as part of this order of creation. Whoever disturbed this, violated the divine order. As unattached women, the Beguines lived without the protection of a husband or an order, and therefore outside of a clearly defined statutory law. Living temporarily together in a spiritual community permitted the Beguines to plan an active and flexible lifestyle without children. They lived independently on their inherited wealth and self-earned money. Women of all estates could join the Beguines: Noblewomen, commoners, widows and unmarried women. They avoided the order of the Middle Ages where every occupation had its place within the hierarchy, with a mandatory dress code and a unalterable code of conduct. In short: They were free in a provocative way.
They opposed the principle of this order with the solidary way of living of the human family, where they are responsible for each other without concerning the person's estate. With this alternative manner of living they were ahead of their time.
The way of living of the Beguines displeased the clergy and at the Diocesan Synod in 1260/61 they ordered that the Beguines in Magdeburg were no longer allowed to choose a confessor on their own – they had to obey the parish clergy. Their right of autonomy and self-determination in terms of spiritual issues was restricted and the influence of the Dominicans was repressed. It was an attempt of separating spiritually the Beguines from the medieval Poverty Movement.
Katharina Wieacker
3. Bibliography (German)
Unger, Helga: Die Beginen – Eine Geschichte von Aufbruch und Unterdrückung der Frau. Freiburg : Herder-Verlag, 2005
Löffler, Irene: Beginen – Lebensform und Spiritualität, Arbeitshilfe der Frauenseelsorge. Bayern, München, 2000
E-Mail: agfsb@ordinariat-muenchen.de
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