Labels and Libels: Naming Beguines in Northern Medieval Europe ed. by Letha Böhringer, Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane and Hildo van Engen (review)

This collection of essays is the first volume of Brepols’s new series Sanctimoniales, and comes out of the work of the Arbeitskreis geistliche Frauen im europäischen Mittelalter (Research Group for the Study of Religious Women in the European Middle Ages) which was established in 2004 by the series’s co-editors.

The beguines and beghards that are the focus of the essays collected here represent the new forms of medieval spirituality that emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The new approach to faith was characterised by a personal and inner-oriented kind of religious life, that reflected the ideals of poverty and penance, and Christ’s sufferings and it tended to marginalise the intermediary role of the clergy. Groups of beguines and beghards could be found all over Europe, especially in the Low Countries, Germany, and northern France. Indeed, in his contribution, Walter Simons claims that more than one hundred and fifty beguinages ‘are known to have existed in the southern dioceses of the Low Countries before 1300’ (p. 37).

In general, the book tackles the problem of terminology: various words were used to name beguines and beghards, which have misled both contemporaries and later scholars. Even the etymology of the words ‘beguine’ and ‘beghard’ has been questioned, but most of the nine contributors stick to the theory that they originate from the root ‘begg’, and related to murmuring or mumbling after reciting prayers. Simons further remarks that ‘any question of terminology raises the far more difficult one about the relationship between language and social change’ (p. 9). This problem helps explain why different groups reacted differently to this new form of religious practice and why traditionalists clashed with reformers.

Limitations of space prevent a detailed discussion of each contribution, but two are especially noteworthy. Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane, focusing on beguines in Würzburg, writes about two Clementine (after Pope Clement V) decrees in terms of their effect on beguines: ‘The Clementine decrees have received insightful analysis in recent years, yet the repeated generalization of the “common” or “vulgar” naming of the women has been taken rather at face value’ (p. 54). Deane adds that in 1320, ‘a marked terminological shift appears’; that is, after the publication of the Clementine decrees, there is virtually no use of the term ‘beguine’ in fourteenth-century documents from Würzburg, apart from two incidences of the term ‘beguinages’ (p. 64).

In her essay, which focuses on lay religious women in thirteenth-century Brabant, Vera von der Osten-Sacken casts more light onto the character of the beguine movements and their daily accomplishments. Like most of the other contributors to this volume, von der Osten-Sacken relies directly on Latin records, such as Jacques de Vitry’s Vita Mariae Oigniacensis, for her evidence. Von der Osten-Sacken also reveals that the role models of beguines came about not only through ‘external preaching’ but also through ‘their own biblical studies’ (p. 101). And although their principles followed those of the Cistercians – beguines fostered personal relations with adjacent Cistercian women – the first beguines rejected enclosure to form open lay communities. The first beguines are also thought to have originated from affluent, middleclass families, which had become wealthy through trade and financial transactions. Additionally, like contemporary crusade preachers from the milieu of Petrus Cantor, the first beguines regarded suffering as God-given, and an opportunity to do penance for themselves and others, and rather than simply as punishment.

All of the contributions in this collection are very informative and as a whole form an indispensable resource on the topic of beguines and the issues related to labelling them. I fully recommend the publication to anyone interested in the topic. From a technical viewpoint, it needs to be added that...