The Beguines: The Hermits Who Became Medieval Celebrities

Hermits and ascetics were a familiar part of life in the Middle Ages. They were generally individuals who sought out seclusion from the world to become closer to God. However, there was a group of female religious hermits in the 12th and 13th centuries who were truly the pop stars or influencers of their day: The Beguines.

The High Middle Ages generally spans the time between the 11th to the end of the 13th centuries. This was a time when a lot of things commonly associated with the medieval era took place. Europe was generally governed by a feudal system, the Black Death was a recurring issue, and crusades and jihads were a common occurrence as the forces of Christianity and Islam battled over the Middle East. These conflicts spawned a new kind of pious expression of religion: the religious military order. The most famous among these were the Knights Templar—protectors of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land—and the Knights Hospitaller, an organization founded to care for the injured, sickly, and poor visitors to Jerusalem.

This was a period of religious creativity, with newly evolving ways to express religious devotion and new ways of living a devout life. While the Crusades had opened a military route of devotion, they also helped to bring new emphasis on the importance of care and service to the less fortunate in society. In the increasingly urbanizing towns and cities of Western Europe, individuals lived extraordinary lives through care and self-sacrifice outside of the rigid institution of the monastery.

One example of this trend are the Beguines in the Low Countries: women who sought out a more pious life through a desire to get closer to God. They did this completely independently of the traditional route of the nunnery, and though not formally part of any organization, they formed networks with one another. This remarkable phenomenon caught the attention of those around them and they attracted disciples, mentors and students from far afield: both men and women, laity and clergy, and rich and poor. Here are some of their stories.

Marie was born in Nivelles (modern-day Belgium), in the Holy Roman Empire, in 1177 and died in 1213. She grew up in wealth and was betrothed at 14 to a man of equal status named Jean. Marie felt a strong urge to live a religious life and successfully convinced her husband to join her. But there was something about Marie which was different to other nuns and ascetics. Monks and nuns living in monasteries had to follow a “rule”; Marie preferred not to be tied by irrevocable vows or obey only her local superior.

Together with Jean, Marie spent over twelve years working to care for the lepers in Willambroux. It was during this time that Marie gained a following. She became almost a “living saint,” and people traveled far to meet with her. Her prayers were seen as valuable as she was a reputable judge of people’s sin. Men and women alike trusted her wisdom and guidance.

In 1208, Jacques de Vitry—a canon from Paris—visited Marie and became her disciple. In a world where social and religious life was dominated by men, Marie was able to preach to and command respect from her political superiors.

Later, Marie received several heavenly visions, declaring she could recognize the difference between consecrated and unconsecrated bread, stating that the unconsecrated bread made her ill. She died at the age of 35, supposedly of emaciation.

2. Yvette de Huy

Yvette was born in 1158 into a wealthy family in Huy, modern-day Belgium. She was forced into an arranged marriage at thirteen but her husband died when she was just 18. In this time, she gave birth to three children, but one died young. Once widowed, Yvette wanted to live a religious life and rejected her possessions, giving them to the poor. This angered her parents who, fearing their financial stability, seized her remaining children.

Throughout her life, Yvette’s father attempted to get her to remarry and tried to get the Bishop of Liège to help him. However, the bishop was impressed by Yvette’s devotion and gave her formal permission to remain widowed. Like Marie d’Oignies, Yvette then worked caring for lepers at the hospital in Huy and had a following of companions who admired her and followed her lifestyle. She devoted herself to caring for the sick, the poor, and other social exiles at great risk to her own health.

In 1190, she took this religious lifestyle one step further and chose to be confined by the Abbot of Orval in a cell near the leper hospital to live as a hermit. In this way, she chose to become an anchorite, exiled from wider society to allow her to get closer to God.

Yvette was considered to be a prophetess by local pilgrims who sought her out for advice and wisdom. She even demanded the local priests and dean visit her, confronting them about their poor religious behavior.

Christina Mirabilis, also known as Christina the Astonishing in her biographies, was born in 1150 in Brustem, also in modern-day Belgium. Christina did not have an easy start in life and was orphaned at just 15. When she was in her twenties, she suffered a crippling seizure while working in the fields. Bystanders believed her to be dead and her funeral was planned.

This is where her extraordinary life began. According to legend she began levitating and exclaimed that she could not bear to smell the sinful people around her! Christina said she had been to hell, purgatory, and heaven, and had been sent back to Earth to pray for the souls of the dead. From that point onward, she slept on rocks, begged, and ate whatever she could get. She stood in freezing water for hours, rolled in fire without harm, and was even dragged under the water wheel of a mill. All the time she remained uninjured.

Throughout her life, she avoided people where she could, climbing up trees or atop church spires, and lived her whole life in poverty. Those around her were unsure what to think of this. Was she a holy woman of God, blessed with knowledge of the experiences of tortured souls in purgatory? Or was she suffering from demons or insanity? She was jailed twice in her life under suspicion of demonic possession and mellowed her lifestyle a little in response.

She saw out her last few years in St. Catherine’s convent, Saint-Trond, and died of natural causes at 74. Additionally, showing the sisterhood present among these Belgian women, Marie d’Oignies supported Christina and her work, despite never forming an official order together.

The curious actions of these women, along with many others in the Low Countries at this time, did not go unnoticed by the wider authorities of the Catholic Church. These women often had followers among the clergy, and they had supporters across the Christian world. However, the refusal of these Beguines to conform to the institutions of the monastery and the hierarchies of the Church meant that they generated suspicion.

At the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, Pope Innocent III decreed that no new religious orders should be founded and instead those wishing to live a holy life should do so by following the rule of an existing and approved monastic rule. This effectively brought an end to the level of freedom offered by the Beguines’ communities. It also helped to rein in a short period of female religious agency.

The Council of Vienne in 1311 finally spelled the end for Beguines. This council is best known for dissolving the Knights Templar, declaring them heretics and seizing their land. In the Holy Roman Empire, Beguines were also accused of heresy and the Papacy sought to gain formal control over the most influential order at the time, the Franciscans. This marked over one hundred years of disagreement and contention between the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church and the desire of the laity to express their piety outside of the cloister.

Their Legacy

Several of the Beguines attracted the attention of significant members of the Catholic Church. Jacques de Vitry knew Marie d’Oignies personally and was so entranced by her spirituality that he wrote a biography of her life. Contrary to a lot of his peers, Jacques believed in the legitimacy of this new form of female spirituality, was fascinated with their power and perceived equality with priests and members of the clergy by their communities. He appealed to Pope Honorius III to recognize the Beguine movement as a legitimate order. The new pope—in contrast to his predecessor Innocent III—allowed pious women to live together in sororities for the benefit of their community. However, he stopped short of recognizing them formally as an order.

Thomas of Cantimpré was a member of the Dominican religious order and was a prolific commentator on the Beguine movement. His first work was a supplement to Jacques’ existing biography of Marie, but he was so impressed with the woman and her life that he expanded on the original text with more details of her life and spirituality. He worked to convert Marie’s personal way of life into a spiritual guide and a model way of living for others to emulate.

Thomas also wrote saints’ lives (vitae) of other Beguines that fascinated him, including Christina Mirabilis. Though the historical value of these vitae as accurate texts is limited, they are immensely valuable in understanding the reputation that these women were garnering.

Though ultimately the Beguine movement was betrayed by a Church set on preserving the strength of its hierarchies and institutions, the work of Jacques and Thomas, among others, helped to cement their legacy as independent women pursuing their lives on their terms. They were able to resist the patriarchal pressures of marriage and childcare and devote themselves to the spiritual care of themselves and their communities.