setting up fraternal groups throughout Italy, France, Spain, the Crusader States, and
later Germany, England, Scotland, Poland, and elsewhere. Always they were drawn
to the cities. Sleeping in “convents” on the outskirts of the towns, the Franciscans
became a regular part of urban community life as they preached to crowds and
begged their daily bread. Early converts included women: in 1211 or 1212 Francis
converted the young noblewoman Clare. She joined a community of women at San
Damiano, a church near Assisi. Clare wanted the Damianites to follow the rule and
lifestyle of the friars. But the church disapproved of the women’s worldly activities,
and the many sisters following Francis—by 1228 there were at least 24 female
communities inspired by him in central and northern Italy—were confined to cloisters
under the Rule of Saint Benedict. In the course of the thirteenth century laypeople,
many of them married, formed their own Franciscan order, the “Tertiaries.” They
dedicated themselves to works of charity and to daily church attendance. Eventually
the Franciscans, like the Dominicans, added learning and scholarship to their mission,
becoming part of the city universities.
The Beguines were even more integral to town life. In the cities of northern
France, the Low Countries, and Germany, these women worked as launderers,
weavers, and spinners. (Their male counterparts, the “Beghards,” were far less
numerous.) Choosing to live together in informal communities, taking no vows, and
being free to marry if they wished, they dedicated themselves to simplicity and piety.
If outwardly ordinary, however, inwardly their religious lives were often emotional
and ecstatic. Some were mystics, seeking union with God. Mary of Oignies (1177–
1213), for example, imagined herself with the Christ-child, who “nestled between her
breasts like a baby.... Sometimes she kissed him as though He were a little child
and sometimes she held Him on her lap as if He were a gentle lamb.”^20
Defining the Other