Everything about Beguinage totally explained
A
Béguinage is a collection of small buildings used by
Beguines, which were several lay sisterhoods of the
Roman Catholic Church, founded in the 13th century in the
Low Countries, of religious women who sought to serve God without retiring from the world.
Béguinages on the Continent
A "Begijnhof" (as the
Dutch name is) or Béguinage comprises a courtyard surrounded by small dwellings. It is often encircled by a wall and secluded from the town proper by one or two gates. Poor and elderly beguines were housed here by benefactors.
Béguinages are to be found in an area roughly corresponding with present-day Northern and North-Eastern
France,
Belgium,
the Netherlands, Western and North-Western
Germany.
The beguines were a religious women's movement. Their success, according to the Belgian historian
Henri Pirenne, was due to a surplus of women occasioned by violence, war, military and semi-military operations, which took the lives of many men. Great numbers of women had no option but to unite and collectively secure the aid of rich benefactors.
Similarly, nuns' convents in the
twelfth century enjoyed substantial initial success. Stricter rules within
Cistercian and other abbeys, however, caused many women to seek less strict surroundings. Moreover, these abbeys' initial success necessitated the refusal of a great many applications for admission. As an additional obstacle, in several cases a certain degree of prosperity was required as a condition for admission to a regular nunnery.
Town orders, such as the
Dominicans, which didn't make this requirement, were more successful for that very reason.
Famous Béguinages in Belgium
|
|-
|
|-
|
|-
|
|}
The Flemish Béguinages are a
UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998
Other Béguinages Worldwide
Begijnhof, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Breda, Netherlands
Béguinage de Saint Vaast, Cambrai, France
Elm Hill Houses, Norwich, EnglandFurther Information
Get more info on 'Beguinage'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://b__guinage.totallyexplained.com">Béguinage Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
