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.

Introduction 1. Who Were the Beguines? 2. Beguines across Europe 3. The Beguinage 4. Beguine Ministries 5. Beguine Spirituality 6. Beguine Compassion 7. Beguines as Preachers and Performers 8. Literary Beguines 9. Were Beguines Heretics? Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

EXCERPT from the INTRODUCTION:

The beguines began to form in various parts of Europe over eight hundred years ago—around the year 1200. Beguines were laywomen, not nuns, and thus did not take solemn vows and did not live in monasteries. The beguines were a phenomenal way of life that swept across Europe, yet they were never a religious order or a formalized movement. And they did not have one specific founder or rule to live by. But there were common elements that rendered these women distinctive and familiar, including their common way of life, chastity and simplicity, their unusual business acumen, and their commitment to God and to the poor and marginalized. These women were essentially self-defined, in opposition to the many attempts to control and define them. They lived by themselves or together in so-called beguinages, which could be single houses for as few as a handful of beguines or, as in Brugge, walled-in rows of houses enclosing a central court with a chapel where over a thousand beguines might live—a village of women within a medieval town or city. And each region of Europe has its own beguine stories to tell.

Some beguines were suspected of heresy, and often politics
were the driving force behind such charges. Certain clerics
defended beguines against charges of heresy, while other women
had to go undercover by joining a Benedictine or Cistercian
monastery.
[...]
Beguines existed all the way into the twenty-first century—
news agencies reported the death of the “last beguine,” Marcella
Pattyn, in 2013. She was in her early nineties and had lived in
Belgium. However, there are reports of young women making
spiritual promises and seeking a beguine lifestyle, both in Europe
and North America. Some of these new beguines live with their
parents, or by themselves, and others have created informal communities.
[...]
Scholars have identified 111 medieval beguinages
in Belgium alone, and thirteen of them are UNESCO World
Heritage sites: Ghent, Leuven, Diest, and Brugge; Hoogstraten,
Lier (Lierre), Mechelen (Malines), and Turnhout; Sint-Truiden
(Saint-Trond), Tongeren (Tongres), Dendermonde (Termonde),
Sint-Amandsberg (Mont-Saint-Amand-lez-Gand), and Kortrijk
(Courtrai). Today most homes within the surviving beguinages
in the Low Countries are affordable housing for the elderly, writers,
or artists. The exteriors and gardens are kept as they might
have been when beguines—the original builders—lived there.
Most of these beguinages will have one home, furnished appropriately
for the medieval period, open for visitors to explore and
learn about the beguines and their way of life.