to endow them. In 1216, however, through Jacques de Vitry’s appeal to Pope Honorius
III, béguines in Liège, in the kingdom of France, and in the German empire, received
permission to live in communities that were connected to no established religious order
and conformed to no extant monastic rule. In 1233, Pope Gregory IX published the bull
Gloriam virginalem, which formally approved of these groups of virgins living holy
lives. With this official recognition, houses of béguines began to proliferate.
In France, the proliferation is most notable in the north, where by the mid-13th century
there is evidence for the existence of béguines in four important areas. The earliest
mention of a béguinage in northern France occurs in Cambrai in 1236, when Godfrey of
Fontaines, bishop of Cambrai (r. 1220–37), indicated his intention to support a
community of pious women. In 1239, a hospital was founded for béguines in
Valenciennes. A church was built for béguines in Douai in 1245, and béguines are
mentioned in a document from Lille dated 1247. These communities had powerful
protection from members of the clergy, particularly Godfrey of Fontaines and other
bishops who with abbots and parish priests gave public support to the spiritual béguine
life. Support from secular guardians, who furnished lands and buildings and convinced
local magistrates to support these houses for béguines, was crucial for the survival of the
communities. The most powerful protection came from the Capetians. Beginning with
Louis IX, the French crown founded and supported a number of béguine houses, and
Louis’s heirs continued the support with royal revenues. The largest of these houses was
the great béguinage of Paris, which, according to Louis’s confessor, housed close to 400
women. During the reign of Philip IV the Fair, the crown made certain that papal
privileges and exemptions continued to benefit the Paris béguinage and ensured the
construction of a chapel for them in which a priest was to celebrate Mass once a year.
The evidence for this kind of support is crucial, because by the mid-13th century
public opinion regarding the béguines took on hostile overtones. In 1274, in light of this
growing antipathy, the Council of Lyon repeated the proscriptions of the Fourth Lateran
Council against the founding of new orders. In addition, the council declared that any
orders founded since 1215 without papal approval were forbidden and dissolved.
Béguines, however, never claimed to be an order, and particular houses took refuge in
letters of protection from the pope, bishops, and civil magistrates. The most serious attack
came in 1312 from the Council of Vienne, which promulgated two decrees. Cum de
quibusdam mulieribus explicitly condemned the status of béguine, citing it as being in
violation of the Fourth Lateran ban of new orders, and yet closed with an “escape clause”
that conceded that truly pious women might be allowed to live in communal houses. The
other decree, Ad nostrum, identified in catastrophic fashion the béguines with the
organized heretical sect of the Free Spirit. The failure of the Vienne council to develop a
workable distinction between truly pious and heretical béguines resulted in what was
tantamount to a war on béguines, especially in Germany. In France, however, they may
have fared better because of support and protection from their powerful patrons in the
French court, nobility, and ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Ellen L.Babinsky
[See also: GODFREY OF FONTAINES; JACQUES DE VITRY; LOUIS IX; MARIE
D’OIGNIES: NUNNERIES: PHILIP IV THE FAIR; WOMEN, RELIGIOUS
EXPERIENCE OF]
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 202