The Large Beguinage, or Beguinage of Our Lady of the Vine, in Brussels

NOTE: This is my interpretation of the history of the Large Beguinage, or Beguinage of our Lady of the Vine, in Brussels. It is based on my translation (warning bells ought to go off at this point if you are aware of my limited knowledge of French) of the authoritative account by Pascal Majérus called “Ces femmes qu’on dit béguines... Guide des béguinages de Belgique; Bibliographie et sources d’archives.” Volume 1. Archives générales du Royaume, 1997. Library of Congress number Z7840.B28 M35 1997.

I also consulted the delightful little book by Marcel Depelsenaire called “Béguines de Belgique,” Editions du Brabant Wallon, Library of Congress number NC 266.D46. V.47 1974. The Depelsenaire book has very short historical statements that appear to be in harmony with (and handy digests of) the Majérus book, but its real charm lies in the very well-done black on white pen drawings of the beguines, their habits, and their beguinages all over Belgium.

So here is my abridged interpretation/translation of the history of that place:

In 1250, Renier van Breedteyck (died 1257), cure of Meerbeek, offered to a group of women a piece of land bounded by the Senne, extending to the gates of the city. Religious women wearing habits moved here and worshiped in a small chapel consecrated to 'Our Lady of the Vine'.

With official protection from both church and civil authorities, the beguinage grew. There were some withdrawals from the beguinage as well in favor of beguines going into recognized orders at local abbeys. But all in all the place grew astonishingly. A gothic church was built for/by them in the years at the turn from the 13^th to the 14^th century. The church was placed under the protection of (dedicated to) John the Baptist. Their small village was laid out in squares with streets at right angles as was the style in this region at the time for building villages.

At the start of the 14^th century the area was rocked with accusations of heresy. In spite of this, the duke of Brabant renewed his pledge of protection in 1304. The community was large by then, with most living in the beguinage but many commuting from their homes in the city to work as a beguine by day and live as one by night in their own homes.

One of these beguines who commuted is accused of heresy. She preached a doctrine of spiritual liberty. She taught a concept of love called ‘seraphic love,’ roughly meaning the love as practiced by the angels and somewhat reminiscent of spiritual love ideas of other times. Her name was Bloemardine (about 1260-1335, perhaps she died in 1336 of natural causes). Though she was accused of heresy, she was not officially tried and executed, probably because she was the daughter of an important person, a rich man and official, named Guillaume, who founded the hospice of the Holy Trinity in Brussels in 1316.

Her teachings were countered by two famous mystics of her place and time, Hadewijch, a fellow beguine, and Jan van Ruusbroec or Ruisbroeck (1293-1381). [For a discussion of the war of words between Bloemardine and Ruisbroeck see the link given below]  Later during the 1330s, one could find on the roads of the region groups of wandering mendicants, living by begging and preaching, called the Free Spirits (started in Germany) who taught doctrines similar to those supposedly taught by Bloemardine. Bloemardine was thus a promoter of this heresy before it came to the area in force.  (I personally quite like this particular heresy, by the way, and if you consult this extrenal web site [by clicking on the marked text] you will see at least one very good argument that it was just a variation on the same set of themes the Cathar religion of the south was based on: all these heresies were alternative forms of Christianity brutally suppressed until the floodgates of the Reformation were opened, but Protestants also loathed the Free Spirits of their own day, although they also had beliefs in common with them).

AN ASIDE BASED ON PREVIOUS READINGS: Bloemardine's work was popular.  How popular can be gleaned from the fact that the great Brussels mystic and philosophical/theological thinker and writer Ruusbroec was hounded by the public and became the subject of mocking, raunchy songs by the singing entertainers of the day because they thought she was right and he was not only wrong but also mean-spirited.  A classic case of the public not understanding his technical language, perhaps?  I think the public had little sympathy for her claims to revelations and constant seraphic companions, but they liked her idea that once endowed with the Holy Spirit one could do no wrong.  She apparently used quite sensual imagery to explain her religious views not unlike other mystics of the time, something which Ruusbroec did not like either.   The Catholic Encyclopedia says that many Beguines were under the spell of the Free Spirit's delusions.  Maybe so.  But Bloemardine became a local prophet and leader of the movement.  None of her writings survived, but neither did Ruusbroec's tract against her.  (I like the Free Spirit heresy's main panentheistic belief structure and its theological implications, sorry).

Bloemardine's writings were published and spread in the 1310s. The fact that Bloemardine was a beguine from the Brussels beguinage led to its doors being closed (to new entrants, basically the practice of letting women in to work by day was stopped, but I do not believe the entire population was removed and disbanded, although the source I am using says it “temporarily closed its gates,” literally) in 1317. An official investigation is conducted by the bishop in December of 1323, involving learned clerical scholars and high civil authorities of the time and place. The 23d of the following February (1324) the bishop pronounced that all suspicion of heresy had been lifted from the community and reinstated the order’s rules and statutes, but the place was not allowed to reopen its doors to new blood and be repopulated until 1333.

Effects of instability in society were still being felt at this late time from the peasant revolts that took place in 1303 and 1306. The lack of strict regulation over the day to day activities of the beguines were an issue. It was finally resolved by allowing them to reopen, to allow new members, but only as a well regulated and wholly enclosed community of women. No more commuting members like Bloemardine, who was obviously out of control. Bloemardine still being alive at this time and her writings still secretly circulating may have influenced this long decision process.

The beguinage at its full reopening focused on the drapery/tapestry industry as its primary way of supporting itself and it was successful to say the least. By 1372 there were 1,270 beguines, and Brussels had only 30,000 inhabitants, meaning about 3% of the city was in the beguinage.

By contrast (and this is why I do not think closing the doors meant depopulation) in 1526 there were 95 houses with a foyer with two inhabitants (two in each house, is my interpretation but it is not clear in my source). By the end of the Middle Ages this beguinage is not just an ecclesiastical entity but an economic one, the most important one in the city, and its liberties and privileges are the occasion for many conflicts with local corporate bodies.

Then came the Calvinist revolution, and the iconoclasts of 1566 who believed graven images were a sacrilege, and pillaged the Our Lady of the Vine church, stripping it of all its decor and making it a Calvinist church. In 1579 all Catholic worship was prohibited in the city. The church was transformed into a Protestant church and then sold and partly demolished (for building material no doubt) in 1584.

The reconquest of the city led to the final destruction of the edifice. The church is reconsecrated in 1604, marking the start of a restoration that took until 1620 for the main parts of the church, with work continuing until 1650. Protected now by several archdukes, the beguinage began a new era of prosperity. Bolstered by this prosperity, the beguines voted to commission a new church and brought in a renowned architect who designed the baroque church still standing today (and closed while under restoration once again). The building program lasted from 1657, when the cornerstone was laid, until 1676 when the new church was consecrated. In this building program the beguines did not seek nor receive the blessing of the Council of Brabant. This was a big mistake, it turns out, since this meant that the inevitable requirements for more money than originally anticipated to finish the church was a burden to be met by the beguines alone, and they could not meet their obligations. The cost was 331,318 florins. A great fortune.

The beguines took out loans and then took measures to help repay those loans that caused their ruin. They mandated, just like was done in real orders of nuns who took lifetime vows, that novices will have to pay 100 florins for admission, and places in the church and in the cemetery were now sold to the highest bidder, even to non-beguines. This meant that new beguines would not be admitted unless they had money to help with completing the church. This meant only aristocratic women would be able to become beguines, destroying one of the two fundamental things that made the beguine movement so attractive and successful, which was its allowing women from all walks of life to become dedicated religious women, and only for as long as they wished.

This new way of doing business stopped growth. An attempt at reform in 1694, and an episcopal order in 1696, were insufficient to avert the crisis. The beguinage becomes depopulated, only 510 are in residence in 1717. By 1730 there is a slight increase to 610, but 53 years later the number is just 325 (in 1783). The church was closed in 1797.

The new church was one of the grandest in the land, unique in many ways. But that was little consolation. What happened was also the coming together of many other influences that diminished their ability to engage in the cloth-making commerce that had made them so prosperous. Businesses were expanding, providing both competition and there was a resulting lowering of the prices that could be obtained for finished products, simple economics of supply and demand. They worked as before, but it was just not as profitable as it once was. They went bankrupt.

Other beguinages had also gone bankrupt given the new economic order, several important nobles and lawmakers tried to come to the rescue but nothing worked. The problem was too big and was not unique to the Brussels beguinage.

The patrimony that had originally given the land to the order was partially revoked in 1800 with an agreement that the order could maintain a limited number of houses with other parts of the property being put to other uses little by little. In 1810 there was a large scale demolishing of homes to make way for a hospice for the city, including a wing for indigent females. Beguines were still there at the time, and allowed to remain in their houses.

In 1814 there was a general attempt at reforming and reinvigorating the beguine movement in the region but it met with stiff opposition by civil authorities and never amounted to anything. By 1818 there were a dozen beguines in the hospice as indigents. The Dutch government, at that time having jurisdiction, was asked to intervene to stop the demise of the order but refused to get involved in 1820. A grander hospice is built in 1824 on former beguine property. In 1825 there were reportedly (a surprisingly high number, to me) 62 beguines still living in their houses. By 1846 the community was completely gone. Demolition of the last of the beguinage houses was done in 1856 and the land thus cleared was sold in 1857.

The city redrew the street alignments so the original square street structure was completely erased. Brussels, as it grew, reopened the church of John the Baptist at the Beguinage as a parish church, and thanks to the vision and labor of the beguines long ago it is still one of the more impressive church building in the land. I look forward to its reopening after the current restoration project is done.

PS:  In my other writings on the Beguine movement I stressed the tension between the male church and male  political hierachy's necessary oversight (from ecclesiatical- and societal-structure points of view) and the desire of these women to live a life free of direct and daily male domination.  Being realists they did what had to be done to be given property to control and to receive protection.  They wanted to be religious women valued by their church.  This Beguinage's history shows some of that tension.

A man provides a patrimony of land and helps them get started and recognized.  Male clergy and nobles supported them.  So did female nobles.   This is all good.  Then came the societal changes of the peasants- revolts and the storms of heresy and the male domination became heavy-handed.  After society settled down again they were free to grow again, and did for a while until they dreamed of a spectacular church for themselves.  

One wonders if anything would have gone differently had there been more consultation between the Beguines and the two power structures that oversaw them.  No doubt they would have been told they would help if the planned church were more modest.  But they went their own way and were struck down by two fiscal realities: things always cost more than you were told before the work of making the building begins, and what makes you much money today may, with changing economic conditions, not support you in the future.   

There is an economic as well as a social reason for the flourishing of the beguinages in the Low Countries during the High Middle Ages: the economic reason was that there was a market for products that could be made by these women working together; the social reason was that there were many women who wanted to be religious for a time, or for longer but who had no dowries to give to a convent, and who wanted to live productive self-supporting lives.  But all that was legitimately available to a woman until the Beguine movement were the two Ms of 'mariage ou mauer' (either marriage or the wall [of a cloister]).  Both were permanent, based on vows that could not (or at least ought not to be) ever broken.  Any other option chosen by a woman made her an object of societal scorn.  

As the world changed, so did the need for this institution. But while it lasted, it produced some marvelous mystics whose revelations still make me think and feel wondrous things.  What is sad is how close some of their more provocative revelations were, in word and in spirit, to those of the heretics that were burned or otherwise forcibly controlled and suppressed.  (Margaret Porete's "Mirror of Simple Souls" comes to mind: banned generally as heretical, yet a cherished devotional guide in some prominent convents!)

The line between orthodoxy and heresy was thin and fuzzy, and changed from place to place and from time to time.  For a comparison of an orthodox and a heterodox vision of the unity of God and man see the 6th link below (from my subjective perspective of course).

Go to First Brussels November photo page.

Go to Second Brussels November photo page.

Go First Brussels December photo page.

Go to Second Brussels December photo page

Go to Third Brussels December photo page

My opinion on the difference between Bloemardine and Ruisbroeck's revelations regarding unity with God

Where Ruisbroeck once worked and lived

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