Making the Margins in the Thirteenth Century: Suburban Space and Religious Reform Between the Low Countries and the County of Champagne

During the thirteenth century the suburban margins emerged as spaces of religious renewal. Men and women like St Francis, Yvette of Huy, and Mary of Oignies underwent intense personal conversions in the margins and took on new lives of devotion caring for the poor, sick, and leprous. The role of women in this process has often been overlooked, yet between the Southern Low Countries and the county of Champagne new female communities took root in derelict hospices and farm buildings along the urban fringe. In this way, the margins functioned as spaces to remake the self, to critique urban society, and reform the religious life.