Heterodox Beguines and Beghards

To understand the condemnation, one must first take the measure of what was never condemned: the beguinal movement itself, one of the most original creations of medieval Christendom^[1].

Neither nuns nor wives: a third state

The 13th-century beguine takes no perpetual vow, knows neither enclosure nor imposed habit, keeps ownership of her property and may leave her community, including to marry^[2]. She lives alone, in a small shared house or in a large collective court, the beguinage (begijnhof): she works with her hands, spinning, weaving, lace-making, nurses the sick, teaches poor girls and prays the offices^[3]. In other words: a consecrated life without the law to frame it, a lay holiness before its time.

The male counterpart exists: the beghards, mostly weavers and artisans of the cloth towns, living in small fraternities of the same type^[4]. At Cologne, some even became mendicant beghards, living on alms in convents: at least two are attested in 1317, on the occasion of the will of Adolf of Revele^[5]. This male mendicancy, without a rule or a recognized superior, would soon worry the bishops as much as the preaching of women. In the Low Countries they are also sometimes called lollards, from the verb lollen, "to mumble" prayers, with no connection whatever to the English lollards, Wyclif's disciples who appeared half a century later: see the article Wycliffism^[6].

The very origin of the word is debated: the old derivation from Lambert le Bègue, the priest of Liège, is no longer accepted by historians, who hesitate between Middle Dutch beggen ("to pray") and Old French béguin (the coif of devout women)^[7]. The vagueness of the name reflects the vagueness of the status: for a century, no one quite knew in which box to place these women.

Liège, 1207: Mary of Oignies and Jacques de Vitry

The first historically documented face of the movement is Mary of Oignies (1177-1213): after nursing lepers for twelve years with her husband, she withdrew in 1207 to Oignies, in Hainaut, to lead a life of prayer and charity^[8]. Her confessor, the canon Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240), wrote her Life (Vita Mariae Oigniacensis) around 1215: this text made these "holy women of Liège" known to all Christendom and gave the movement its orthodox credentials^[9].

_"She wept with those who weep and rejoiced with those who rejoice, carrying in her heart the miseries of all.", Jacques de Vitry, Life of Mary of Oignies, around 1215 (Ignispedia translation)^[10]

A second center formed around the priest Lambert le Bègue, who died at Liège in the 1170s and had small houses built for pious women around the church of Saint-Christophe, although the tradition making him "the founder" is now abandoned^[11]. The essential point lies elsewhere: from the 1210s onward, the movement exploded because it answered a massive social reality, cloth towns full of solitary women, widows or spinsters, who wanted to live the Gospel without the cloister.

Jacques de Vitry pleaded their cause as far as Rome and won the goodwill of Pope Honorius III (1216): beguines are not a new order, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) has just forbidden creating any, but pious laywomen whom the Church agrees to protect^[12]. It is this pontifical protection that would make the condemnation of their deviant fringe so delicate a century later: how to strike the wanderers without breaking the faithful?

Expansion: hundreds of houses from the Low Countries to the Rhineland

In a century, hundreds of houses and courts sprang up: Liège, Nivelles, Louvain, Ghent, Bruges, then the Rhineland, Cologne, Strasbourg, Basel, and as far as northern France and Italy^[13]. Several thousand women lived in them by the end of the 13th century, supervised by the mendicant friars, Dominicans and Franciscans, who provided preachers and confessors^[14].

This prosperity had its reverse side: communities without a common rule, without canonical visitation, open to every influence, including the most adventurous. Bishops complained from the mid-13th century onward: there they preached without mission, debated theology without training, read in the vernacular treatises that no one supervised^[15]. The soil of heterodoxy was ready.

The Church never reproached beguines for praying, working or remaining lay. It condemned three precise deviations, which together outline another Christianity^[16].

Preaching without mandate, disputing about the Trinity

First grievance, formulated word for word by the Council of Vienne: women and men without learning dispute and preach "on the most high Trinity and the divine essence" and introduce on faith and the sacraments opinions contrary to the Catholic faith^[17]. Plainly: preaching becomes a right everyone claims for himself, whereas Scripture warns that "no one takes this honor upon himself" (Heb 5:4) and that Christ entrusted the teaching of the nations to the apostles (Mt 28:19-20)^[18].

Contempt for the sacraments and ascetic effort

Second grievance: once arrived at a supposed state of perfection, the beghard or beguine would declare fasting, prayer and works useless, grant his body whatever pleases it on the pretext that the senses are now subject to the spirit, and hold the virtues as a ladder fit only for the imperfect^[19]. This is the exact opposite of the way of the saints: the further the soul advances, the more it clings to the means of grace, instead of declaring itself freed from them.

The contagion of the Free Spirit

Third grievance, the gravest: these theses did not arise in isolation. They joined the current which the article The Heresy of the Free Spirit studies for itself, this claim to a union with God so total that the soul, become impeccable, could no longer sin whatever it did^[20]. The Rhenish inquisitors would explicitly accuse the beghards arrested at Cologne in 1326 of professing this heresy^[21]. Here we keep to the beguinal dossier: the doctrine of the Free Spirit in full belongs to the neighboring article.

_"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.", Saint Paul, 2 Corinthians 3:17^[22]

This verse, wrenched from its meaning, served the wanderers as a slogan: the "freedom" of the Spirit became dispensation from obeying men and the precepts of the Church^[23]. Saint Paul spoke of the freedom of the children of God in the face of the letter that kills; he was made to say freedom from all visible authority. The council would answer point by point.

A single name dominates the dossier: Marguerite Porete (around 1250-1310), a beguine of Hainaut, probably from Valenciennes or its surroundings, author in the vernacular of the Mirror of Simple Souls, and the first great figure of the deviation to pay with her life^[24].

A beguine of Hainaut and her book in the vernacular

The Mirror is an allegorical dialogue between the Soul, Love and Reason, written in Old French: the "annihilated" soul takes leave of the Virtues, now useless to whoever has reached union^[25]. The most famous formula, and the most damning at the trial, rings out like a manifesto:

_"Virtues, I take leave of you, forever.", Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, around 1290 (Ignispedia translation)^[26]

That a woman without training should write theology in French, outside all university supervision, and circulate her book from town to town: this was already, in the eyes of the pastors of 1300, a scandal of method before being a scandal of doctrine. The substance, a soul so united to God that it would be freed from observances, completed the book's suspect character. The modern attribution of the book to Marguerite was only rediscovered in 1946 by Romana Guarnieri, who recognized her text behind anonymous manuscripts that had circulated for centuries^[27].

From Valenciennes to Paris: the trial (1308-1310)

As early as 1306, the book was publicly burned at Valenciennes by order of the bishop of Cambrai; Marguerite persisted in spreading it^[28]. Arrested in 1308, she was handed over to Guillaume of Paris, a Dominican, inquisitor of France and confessor of King Philip the Fair^[29]. The trial lasted nearly two years: a commission of twenty-one theologians, masters of the University of Paris, examined fifteen propositions drawn from the Mirror and censured them^[30].

Marguerite refused to take the oath, refused to answer, refused to defend herself: eighteen months of prison did not bend her silence^[31]. Her co-defendant, Guiard of Cressonessart, an apocalyptic preacher tried at her side, ended by submitting and escaped the stake: he was imprisoned^[32]. She, declared a relapsed heretic, she had already been condemned for the same book, was handed over to the secular arm on 31 May 1310, on the place de Grève^[33].

The stake of the place de Grève, 1 June 1310

On 1 June 1310, Marguerite Porete climbed the stake raised on the place de Grève in Paris, three weeks after the fifty-four Templars burned near the porte Saint-Antoine^[34]. The chronicle begun by Guillaume de Nangis reports that the crowd, come to see a condemned woman, wept before her courage^[35]. Three bishops had sealed the sentence; the book was proscribed and every copy had to be delivered to the flames^[36].

The affair made an immense noise: a year later, at the Council of Vienne, the Fathers would have before their eyes the example of what uncontrolled preaching could produce. Marguerite's condemnation was not yet that of the movement, but it prepared its examination.

Fifteenth ecumenical council, convened by Clement V at Vienne in Dauphiné, opened on 16 October 1311 before some three hundred prelates, the council dealt first with the affair of the Templars; but it devoted to beguines and beghards two decrees that would set precedent^[37].

Cum de quibusdam: dissolving without destroying everything

The first decree, Cum de quibusdam mulieribus, targets the way of life itself: it forbids women to continue leading the beguinal life outside approved frameworks, orders the liquidation of houses operating without supervision of the mendicant orders, and expressly spares beguines who live "honestly" or join a supervised third order^[38]. In other words: the council does not suppress beguines, it suppresses unsupervised beguines. The bishops are charged with execution, house by house^[39].

Ad nostrum: the eight condemned errors

The second decree, Ad nostrum qui, condemns eight articles professed by beghards and beguines, whose text passed into Denzinger (nos. 891-899)^[40]. Here they are, with the Catholic answer refuting them:

_"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.", Saint John, First Epistle, 1:8^[49]

This single verse ruins the system's centerpiece: proclaimed impeccability. Christian perfection exists, the Church canonizes it, but it is growing charity and growing humility, never enfranchisement: the saint knows himself a sinner to the end, and that is precisely what makes him a saint^[50].

The decrees of Vienne do not execute themselves: it is Pope John XXII (elected in 1316) who restarts the machinery, entrusting bishops and inquisitors with hunting down the recalcitrants^[51]. Twenty years of prosecutions follow, from the Rhine to Languedoc.

The Rhineland: Strasbourg (1317-1319) and Cologne (1326)

It is on Imperial soil that the hunt is most methodical, and the Inquisition's first attempt to operate in Germany^[52]. At Strasbourg, from 1317 to 1319, the inquiry strikes a great number of suspects: mostly exiles, capital punishment remaining the exception^[53]. At Cologne, in 1326, Archbishop Heinrich von Virneburg has some fifty beghards arrested, expressly accused of professing the heresy of the Free Spirit^[54]. The Rhenish dossier shows the method: they strike not the name of beghard, but the theses of Vienne, impeccability, contempt for the sacraments, wild preaching.

The South: the beguins of Languedoc and the Spirituals

Quite different is the southern face: the beguins of Languedoc are Franciscan tertiaries who support the Spirituals, those friars partisans of absolute poverty, nourished by the apocalyptic heritage of Peter John Olivi (d. 1298), against the hierarchy of the order^[55]. When John XXII rules in favor of the Community (1317-1318), the beguins hide the fugitive friars and go so far as to organize their escape to Sicily^[56]. The answer is terrible: about a hundred beguins burned between 1319 and 1330, the first condemned as early as October 1319 at Narbonne^[57]. The inquisitor Bernard Gui records their errors in his Practica inquisitionis (around 1323-1324)^[58]; the beguine Prous Boneta, tried at Carcassonne in 1325, climbs onto the stake in 1328 (sentence of 11 November 1328, as a relapsed heretic)^[59]; the Franciscan Bernard Délicieux, their defender, is tried and condemned at Carcassonne in autumn 1319^[60].

The whole dossier of the Spirituals, absolute poverty of Christ, Olivi, Fraticelli, belongs to the article The Fraticelli: it is not repeated here. Keep only this: in the South, they die not for coifs or beguinages, but for having chosen a camp in the Franciscan war.

Brussels: Bloemardinne facing Ruusbroec

The last northern echo comes from Brussels: the mystic Jan van Ruusbroec (d. 1381) denounces by name the theses of a beguine of the city, Heilwijch Bloemardinne, too close to those Vienne had condemned^[61]. The episode proves two things: that the contagion lasted until the mid-14th century, and that it was contemplatives, not bureaucrats, who first raised the alarm.

The misunderstanding this article might leave must be dispelled to conclude: the Church never condemned beguines as such. It condemned eight theses and an uncontrolled way of life, and it let everything else live^[62].

The freedom of the children of God does not abolish obedience

The heart of the debate lies in a distinction the wanderers refused: grace elevates nature without dispensing it. To be led by the Spirit is to obey more perfectly, not to cease obeying: "If you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer under the Law" (Gal 5:18) means freedom from formalism, not from the visible Church to whom Christ said: "Whoever listens to you listens to me" (Lk 10:16)^[63]. Every authentic mystic, from Catherine of Siena, who scolded popes without ever breaking obedience, to stigmatics subject to their directors, verifies this law: union with God makes one more submissive, never unsubmissive^[64].

_"Above all, put on charity, which is the bond of perfection.", Saint Paul, Colossians 3:14^[65]

Three criteria for discernment: obedience, humility, fruits

The beguinal dossier bequeaths to today's readers a method of discernment valid for every mystical claim. First criterion, obedience: the soul led by the Spirit submits itself all the more to pastors the further it goes, displayed unsubmissiveness is already a diagnosis^[66]. Second criterion, humility of progress: the true contemplative always calls himself on the way and begins again each day, where the wanderer declares himself arrived and impeccable^[67]. Third criterion, fruits: "you will know them by their fruits" (Mt 7:16), patience, gentleness, concrete charity toward the poor and the sick, the "fruit of the Spirit" described by Saint Paul (Gal 5:22)^[68]. Orthodox beguines ticked all three boxes: obedient, laborious, charitable. Their strayed sisters ticked none: unsubmissive, arrived, sterile.

The orthodox beguinages survived, and survive

The proof that Vienne aimed right is what remained standing: the great courts of Ghent, Bruges, Louvain, Amsterdam and Mechelen continued for centuries, peopled with pious, laborious and submissive women, beguines lived there into the 21st century, and thirteen Flemish beguinages have been listed as UNESCO world heritage since 1998^[69]. The stones still pray. No condemned heresy leaves behind it eight centuries of charity: the Cathars left only ruins, see the articles Catharism and The Albigensians. Here, condemnation cut off the sick branch without felling the tree: this is the sign that it discerned rightly.

The poor cousins of Lyon, also suspect then reconciled for a time before the final break, have their own dossier: see the article The Waldensians (1170-1532). And for the eastern roots of medieval dualisms, which this article does not treat: Bogomilism (10th-15th century) and Paulicianism.

• The doctrine of impeccability in full: The Heresy of the Free Spirit, the enfranchised soul, its theses, its condemnation
• The Franciscan Spirituals and absolute poverty: The Fraticelli, Olivi, the stakes of the South, the Franciscan war
• The English namesakes, much later: Wycliffism, Wyclif and the true lollards
• The dualists of the South: Catharism, perfects, consolamentum, Catholic refutation
• The holy war 1209-1229: The Albigensians, Béziers, Muret, Toulouse and the Treaty of Meaux-Paris
• The poor cousins of Lyon: The Waldensians (1170-1532), Waldo, evangelical poverty and the break
• The Balkan roots: Bogomilism (10th-15th century), the priest Bogomil and the road to the West
• The Armenian ancestors: Paulicianism, Constantine of Mananalis, Sergius, Tephrike
• Understanding the repression: How to answer the Inquisition objection and Heretics and the black legend of the Inquisition