Begin the Beguines: A Review of Walter Simons' Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200-1565

In the "Prologue" to his Life of Mary of Oignies, James of Vitry (d. 1240) reminds Archbishop Fulk of Toulouse of the wonderful things Fulk had seen on an earlier visit to the diocese of Liège. The centrality of the passage for the early history of the beguine movement warrants its full citation.

You saw many holy virgins in the lily gardens (cf. Song 6:1) of the Lord and you rejoiced. You saw crowds of them in different places where they scorned carnal enticements for Christ, despised the riches of this world for the love of the heavenly kingdom, clung to their heavenly Bridegroom in poverty and humility and earned a sparse meal with their hands. Although their families abounded in great riches, yet they preferred to endure distress and poverty and were forgetful of their people and the home of their father rather than to abound in riches which had been wrongly acquired or to remain in danger among worldly pomps. You saw holy women serving God and you rejoiced. With what zeal did they preserve their youthful chastity, arming themselves in their honourable resolve by salutary warnings, so that their only desire was the heavenly Bridegroom. Widows served the Lord in fasts and prayers, in vigils and in manual labour, in tears and entreaties. Just as they had previously tried to please their husbands in the flesh, so now the more did they attempt to please their heavenly Bridegroom in the spirit. Frequently they recalled to memory the words of the apostle that the widow "that lives in pleasure is dead" (1 Tim 5:6) and, because holy widows "share with any of the saints who are in need," they washed the feet of the poor, "made hospitality their special care" (Rm 12:13), applied themselves to works of mercy, and promised to bear fruit sixty-fold (cf. Mt 13:18). You have seen holy women serving the Lord devoutly in marriage and you rejoiced, women teaching their sons in the fear of the Lord, keeping honourable nuptials and "an undefiled wedding bed" (Heb 13:4), giving themselves to prayer for a time and returning afterwards together again "in fear of the Lord lest they be tempted by Satan" (1 Cor 7:5). Many abstained from licit embraces with the assent of their husbands and, leading a celibate—indeed, an angelic—life, they were so much the more worthy of the crown since they did not burn when put into the fire (cf. 1 Cor 7-9).²

In 1211, Fulk had marveled at the crowds of virgins, widows, and chaste matrons praying, fasting, and keeping vigils while remaining in the world, earning their sparse livings through manual labor and caring for the poor, the ill, and the dying. Although James reports that some "shameless men . . . hostile to religion" slander these women, he insists on the abstinence, virtue, and sanctity of their lives.³

The Liège women not only brought together contemplation and withdrawal from the world with charitable and self-sustaining action within it, but also attained rapturous states of ecstatic union with God. In a catalogue of their virtues, James again reminds Fulk that he had seen "other women who were wasting away with such an intimate and wondrous state of love in God that they were faint with desire, and who for many years could only rarely rise from their beds. There was no other cause for their sickness except him, since their souls had melted with desire (cf. Song 5:6)."⁴ Others were overwhelmed with continual tears or "so rapt outside of themselves with such a spirit of inebriation that 'while the King was on his couch' (Song 1:12) and they rested in that holy silence throughout...