Author: Laura Swan Publisher: ISBN: 9781629190082 Category : Beguines Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
The beguines began to form in various parts of Europe over eight hundred years ago. Beguines were laywomen, not nuns, and they did not live in monasteries. They practiced a remarkable way of living independently, and they were never a religious order or a formalized movement. But there were common elements that these medieval women shared across Europe, including their visionary spirituality, their unusual business acumen, and their courageous commitment to the poor and sick. Beguines were essentially self-defined, in opposition to the many attempts to control and define them. They lived by themselves or in communities called beguinages, which could be single homes for just a few women or, as in Brugge, Brussels, and Amsterdam, walled-in rows of houses where hundreds of beguines lived together--a village of women within a medieval town or city. Among the beguines were celebrated spiritual writers and mystics, including Mechthild of Magdeburg, Beatrijs of Nazareth, Hadewijch, and Marguerite Porete--who was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake in Paris in 1310. She was not the only beguine suspected of heresy, and often politics were the driving force behind such charges. The beguines, across the centuries, have left us a great legacy. They invite us to listen to their voices, to seek out their wisdom, to discover them anew.
Author: Bernard McGinn Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1441134581 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 177
Book Description
The great German mystic Meister Eckhart remains one of the most fascinating figures in Western thought. Revived interest in Eckhart's mysticism has been matched, and even surpassed, by the study of the women mystics of the late13th century. This book argues that Eckhart's thought cannot be fully be understood until it is viewed against the background of the breakthroughs made by the women mystics who preceded him.
Author: Saskia Murk-Jansen Publisher: ISBN: 9781743240205 Category : Beguines Languages : en Pages : 136
Book Description
The Beguine movement arose in Europe during the thirteenth century and consisted of women living together in chastity and poverty, doing works of Christian charity. Although many of their number were wealthy, this urban phenomenon had no founder, no single rule, and no agreed way of life. The Beguine movement was part of a yearning to democratize religion, and it produced four great writers.Saskia Murk-Jansen, a specialist in medieval women's mysticism, looks at the lives and works of Beatrijs of Nazareth, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Hadewijch, and Marguerite Porete. These mystics used images, metaphor, and paradox to express the numinous aspect of God. They pioneered vernacular literature and forged theological visions out of their own experience. Their writings provide an invaluable supplement to the work of their male contemporaries.Saskia Murk-Jansen probes the key images in Beguine spirituality including the soul as the bride of God, suffering as an integral part of a relationship with the Holy One, and the desert as a place to focus on the transcendent. In this excellent, balanced treatment, Murk-Jansen clearly outlines the development of the movement, pointing to its influence as well as its repression by church authorities.
Author: Steven Walker Publisher: Critical Publishing ISBN: 1913453847 Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 197
Book Description
A shocking reminder of the cruel history of childhood that has been largely hidden and forgotten. Children Forsaken provides a long, historical, overarching examination of the phenomenon of child abuse. In the UK battered child syndrome was 'discovered' in the 1960s, whilst child sexual abuse gained attention in the early 1980s. Subsequent enquiries, legislation and practice developments have focused narrowly on reacting to events giving the impression that child abuse is a recent problem. Yet the historical record provides a multitude of examples of the ritual slaughter, sexual and physical abuse of children continuing since Ancient times. This book place child abuse in the context of the way children and childhood have been understood throughout the ages, but also show that despite legal definitions, and children's rights laws, children and young people continue to suffer. This book enables practitioners and those training in the helping professions to gain a deeper understanding of how embedded in human society child abuse has been and still is. Practitioners need to perceive child abuse as a long-standing problem about children's status in the World, their legal and human rights, and that much work is still needed to ensure children's needs and safety are paramount. "This ambitious book paints an important and erudite picture of child abuse and social responses to it, bringing us up-to-date with a call for continued vigilance, compassion, and action." Professor Jonathan Parker, Bournemouth University
Author: Emilie Zum Brunn Publisher: Paragon House Publishers ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
This text revives the works of five powerful mystics of the Middle Ages and provides a valuable inspirational resource for all spiritual seekers.
Author: Hadewijch Publisher: Paulist Press ISBN: 9780809122974 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 440
Book Description
Hadewijch, a Flemish Beguine of the 13th century, is undoubtedly the most important exponent of love mysticism and one of the loftiest figures in the western mystical tradition.
Author: Tanya Stabler Miller Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 0812246071 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
In the thirteenth century, Paris was the largest city in Western Europe, the royal capital of France, and the seat of one of Europe's most important universities. In this vibrant and cosmopolitan city, the beguines, women who wished to devote their lives to Christian ideals without taking formal vows, enjoyed a level of patronage and esteem that was uncommon among like communities elsewhere. Some Parisian beguines owned shops and played a vital role in the city's textile industry and economy. French royals and nobles financially supported the beguinages, and university clerics looked to the beguines for inspiration in their pedagogical endeavors. The Beguines of Medieval Paris examines these religious communities and their direct participation in the city's commercial, intellectual, and religious life. Drawing on an array of sources, including sermons, religious literature, tax rolls, and royal account books, Tanya Stabler Miller contextualizes the history of Parisian beguines within a spectrum of lay religious activity and theological controversy. She examines the impact of women on the construction of medieval clerical identity, the valuation of women's voices and activities, and the surprising ways in which local networks and legal structures permitted women to continue to identify as beguines long after a church council prohibited the beguine status. Based on intensive archival research, The Beguines of Medieval Paris makes an original contribution to the history of female religiosity and labor, university politics and intellectual debates, royal piety, and the central place of Paris in the commerce and culture of medieval Europe.
Author: Glenn E. Myers Publisher: InterVarsity Press ISBN: 0830835512 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 225
Book Description
In Seeking Spiritual Intimacy Glenn Myers introduces us to the Beguines, a network of faith communities in Medieval Europe, where women organized their world around a simple life with Christ at the center. Learn from the insights of wise women of faith who, from their modest homes and communities, revitalized the faith of a continent.
Author: Letha Böhringer Publisher: Brepols Publishers ISBN: 9782503551357 Category : Beguines Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This volume investigates the diverse meanings assigned to and adopted by lay religious women in northern Europe between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. While many outstanding studies have unearthed the local or regional significance of such women, little comparative or transregional scholarship exists to date. Moreover, traditional emphasis on medieval ecclesiastical condemnation of beguines has obscured the extent to which their communities were intertwined with supportive local social structures. Exploring the multiplicity of contemporary perspectives in the Belgian, Dutch, French, and German contexts over time, the volume traces not only the women's relationships to various authorities and institutions, but also the specific terms used to represent and respond to 'beguines'. Illuminating the kaleidoscopic ways in which medieval people categorized, described, and engaged with such women, the collected essays also underscore the extent to which simple dualities of 'clerical' and 'lay', 'elite' and 'popular', and 'orthodox' and 'heretical' are insufficient constructs with which to map intersections of medieval gender, lay religiosity, and society. In doing so, they propose new avenues and coordinates for exploring the sociospiritual topography of medieval Europe.
Author: Laura Swan
Author: Bernard McGinn
Author: Saskia Murk-Jansen
Author: Steven Walker
Author: Emilie Zum Brunn
Author: Hadewijch
Author: Tanya Stabler Miller
Author: Glenn E. Myers
Author: Letha Böhringer
Author: Shaun T. Griffin