Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/369

 BEGHARDS AND BEGUINES. 353 a pious knight who devoted himself to good works, is said to have been instrumental in providing for five thousand Beguines through- out Europe. The great Beguinage of Ghent, founded in 1234, by the Countesses of Flanders, Jeanne and Marguerite, is described in the seventeenth century as resembling a small town, surrounded with wall and fosse, containing open squares, conventual houses, dweHings, infirmary, church, and cemetery, inhabited by eight hundred or a thousand women, the younger living in the con- vents, the older in separate houses. They were tied by no perma- nent vows and were free to depart and marry at any time, but so long as they were inmates they were bound to obey the Grand Mistress. The guardianship of the establishment was hereditary in the House of Flanders, and it was under the supervision of the Dominican prior of Ghent. How large was the space that Be- gumism occupied in public estimation in the thirteenth century is shown by Philippe Mousket, who calls Conrad of Marburg a Be- guine, " uns hegins mestre sermonniereP * Those who thus lived in communities could be subjected to wholesome supervision and established rules, but it was other- wise with those who maintained an independent existence, either m one spot or wandering from place to place, sometimes support- mg themselves by labor, but more frequently by beggary. Their customary persistent cry through the streets—'' Brod durch Gott " —became a shibboleth unpleasantly familiar to the inhabitants of the German cities, which the Church repeatedly and ineffectuaUy endeavored to suppress. A circumstance occurring about 1240 il- lustrates their reputation for superior sanctity and the advantages derivable from it. A certain SibyUa of Marsal near Metz, we are told, seeing how many women under the name of Beguines flour- ished in the appearance of religion, and under the guidance of the Dominicans, thought fit to imitate them. Assiduous attend- ance at matins and mass gained her the repute of pecuhar holi- ness. Then she pretended to fast and live on celestial food, she had ecstasies and visions, and deceived the whole region, not ex- hardis pp. 43, 105, 127, 131-2— Wadding, ann. 1485, No. 27.-B. de Jonghe B^l- gmm Dominican, ap. Ripoll II. I70.-Chron. Rimee de Ph. Mousket, 28817 (Bou- quet. XXII. 54). ^ II.— 23
 * Miraei 0pp. Diplom. I. 429 ; II. 998, 1013 ; III. 398, 523.-Mosheiin de Be-