Beguinage Brugge Belgium |
|
Hover over the image for an enlargement |
|
|
A Béguinage (Dutch "Begijnhof") comprises a courtyard surrounded by small dwellings used by Beguines. A Beguinage is often encircled by a wall and secluded from the town proper by one or two gates. The Beguines were a group of religious women of the Roman Catholic Church, founded in the 13th century in the Low Countries, who lived and dressed like nuns, without taking formal vows. They often lived together in small communes known as Béguinages. The beguines sought to serve God without retiring from the world. Their success, according to the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne, was due to a surplus of women occasioned by violence, war, military and semi-military operations, which took the lives of many men. Béguinages are to be found in an area roughly corresponding with present-day Northern and North-Eastern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Western and North-Western Germany. |
|
