THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
temporary testimony to the existence there of
" whole troops of holy maidens "; the ascetic spirit
took hold also of the married women,
2. The Early who frequently made vows of conti- Communi- nence. Religious excitement did not
ties. fail to produce pathological phenomena; stories are told of visions, prophecies, convulsions, incessant tears, loss of speech, and the like. Probably between 1170 and 1180 some of Lambert's followers, to whom his opponents gave the name of Beguines in mockery, had formed a sort of conventual association on a suburban estate belonging to him. By the analogy of the later Beguinages. they probably inhabited a number of small houses grouped about the church and hospital of St. Christopher, and shut off by a wall from the outer world. The first inmates were mostly women of position, who renounced their propertv and supported themselves by their own labors. "
The religious impulse given by Lambert continued active after his death (probably 1187), and familiarized the people of the Netherlands with the idea of ascetic following of Christ long before the advent of the mendicant orders. Throughout the next century, the need of founding similar institutions for the large numbers of
3. Extension Beguines was felt, first in Flanders during the and then in the neighboring French
Twelfth and German districts. In France St.
Century. Louis showed them special favor, and erected a large Beguinage in Paris, modeled after the Flemish, in 1264; others sprang up, large or small, in all parts of France during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The extension of the system in the other Latin countries was probably considerable, but exact data are wanting. In Germany only a few towns on the lower Rhine, such as Aix-la-Chapelle and Wesel, had Beguinages in the strict sense. Here the usual rule was for women who wished to renounce the world at first to live separately in their own houses or in solitary places; as time went on, they came together in larger or smaller houses put at their disposal by pious gifts, and formed communities of a monastic type. The growth of these convents was remarkable, and continued from the first third of the thirteenth century to the beginning of the fifteenth, by which time the majority of German towns had their convents of Beguines, The statutes varied much in the different houses; the number of inmates was between ten and twenty on an average. There was no uniform dress, but most of the members wore hoods and scapulars resembling a religious habit. Sometimes those who had property retained full control of it; in other cases a portion fell to the convent when they died or left. Celibacy was required as long as they stayed, but they were always free to leave and marry.
The name of " voluntary poor," which many convents bore, and the regulations of such houses, show the continuance of Lambert's influence in favor of desertion of the world and penitential asceticism; but the Franciscan ideas, very similar in their tendency, which were widely spread not long after, found here a fruitful soil. As early as the
thirteenth century a large proportion of the Beghards or Beguines of France, Germany, and northern Italy were under the direction of Franciscans or Dominicans, and so closely related 4. Relation with the penitential confraternities to the Men- attached to both these orders that the dicant Or- members of these (tertiaries) were ders. commonly known in the Latin countries as beguini and beguince—a. fact which has caused much confusion in the study of the history of the real Beguines. The disapproval of these latter by the papal authorities brought about, when it came, a still closer identification with the tertiaries; many joined these for protection, and in the fifteenth century numerous Beguinages were transferred to the Augustinian order. While the original Beguines abstained from begging, it became more common among them in France and Germany by the beginning of the thirteenth century. As in the Latin countries the Beguines are found among the extreme defenders of the Franciscan ideal of poverty, so we find frequently among those of Germany the belief that their strict poverty designated them as the true followers of Christ. In accordance with this view, they were apt to withdraw themselves from the teaching of the clergy and listen rather to the exciting exhortations of their " mistresses " or of wandering preachers in sympathy with their beliefs. They developed a system of extreme corporal austerity, and lost themselves in mystic speculations which increased their tendency to see visions and to condemn the ordinary means of grace; even the moral law seems at times to have been regarded as not binding upon them. The impulse of apocalyptic enthusiasm, given by Joachim of Fiore (q.v.) and spread by the " spiritual " Franciscans among the laity, as well as the quietistic mysticism of the Brethren of the Free Spirit (q.v.), found an entrance into their houses before the end of the thirteenth century. Early in the next century, the influx of women of high social position declined more and more, and the new foundations took on more of the modern character of benevolent institutions. By the end of the fifteenth century, in Germany at least, they had almost completely lost their first religious fervor and had forfeited much of the popular respect they had formerly enjoyed.
As to the Beghards or male communities, the question whether the first associations known by this name can be directly connected with Lambert le Begue. or sprang up after his death in imitation of the Flemish Beguinages, can not be decided with our present knowledge. They are first met with in Louvain (c. 1220) and Antwerp (122S). The names beguin and begard (Flemish usually bogard; Middle High German begehart and Megger) were given in mockery and are of Walloon origin; other names are Lollards (probably from the Mid- 5. The die Dutch lollen, to murmur; see Male Com- Lollards), "voluntary poor," boni munities. pueri, boni valeti, etc. In the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they spread throughout Germany, into Poland and the Alpine districts, and even into the