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17-406: Originally the beguine institution was the convent , an association of beguines living together or in close proximity of each other under the guidance of a single superior, called a mistress or prioress. Although they were not usually referred to as "convents", in these houses dwelt a small number of women together: the houses small, informal, and often poor communities that emerged across Europe after

34-587: A brewery, a bakery, a hospital, and some farm buildings. Several of these beguinages are now listed by UNESCO as World Heritage sites. Around the mid-thirteenth century, the French king Louis IX founded a beguinage in Paris, which was modeled on the court beguinages of the Low Countries. The Oxford English Dictionary , citing Du Cange , gives the origin of the word "beguine" in the name of Lambert le Bègue , "Lambert

51-667: A convent is not placed under the responsibility of an abbot or an abbess, but of a superior or prior. In modern English usage, since about the 19th century, the term convent almost invariably refers to a community of women, while monastery and friary are used for communities of men. In historical usage they are often interchangeable, with convent especially likely to be used for a friary. When applied to religious houses in Eastern Orthodoxy and Buddhism , English refers to all houses of male religious as monasteries and of female religious as convents. The mendicant orders appeared at

68-511: A priory is a lesser dependent house headed by a prior . In the Middle Ages , convents often provided to women a way to excel, as they were considered inferior to men. In convents, women were educated and were able to write books and publish works on gardening or musicology. or on religion and philosophy. The abbess of a convent was often also involved in decisions of secular life and interacted with politicians and businessmen. Unlike an abbey ,

85-506: A wealthy benefactor who pledged to provide for their needs. The understanding of women's motivations for joining the beguinages has changed dramatically in recent decades. The development of these communities is clearly linked to a preponderance of women in urban centers in the Middle Ages, but while earlier scholars like the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne believed that this "surplus" of women

102-441: The Low Countries had at least one court beguinage: the communities dwindled and came to an end, over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They were encircled by walls and separated from the town proper by several gates, closed at night, but through which during the day the beguines could come and go as they pleased. Beguines came from a wide range of social classes, though truly poor women were admitted only if they had

119-483: The Stammerer", an early supporter of the movement who died around 1180. While a small beguinage usually constituted just one house where women lived together, a Low Countries court beguinage typically comprised one or more courtyards surrounded by houses, and also included a church, an infirmary complex, and a number of communal houses or 'convents'. From the twelfth through eighteenth centuries, every city and large town in

136-1218: The beginning of the 13th century with the growth of cities; they include in particular the Dominicans , the Franciscans , the Carmelites , and the Augustinians . While the Benedictine monks and their various variants devoted themselves to their agricultural properties, the mendicant friars settled from the start in the cities, or in the suburbs thereof, preferably in the poorer and more densely populated districts. They therefore had to adapt their buildings to these new constraints. Mendicant orders Jus novum ( c.  1140 -1563) Jus novissimum ( c.  1563 -1918) Jus codicis (1918-present) Other Sacraments Sacramentals Sacred places Sacred times Supra-diocesan/eparchal structures Particular churches Juridic persons Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of Catholic canon law Clerics Office Juridic and physical persons Associations of

153-537: The building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church , Lutheran churches , and the Anglican Communion . The term convent derives via Old French from Latin conventus , perfect participle of the verb convenio , meaning "to convene, to come together". It was first used in this sense when the eremitical life began to be combined with the cenobitical. The original reference

170-625: The faithful Pars dynamica (trial procedure) Canonization Election of the Roman Pontiff Academic degrees Journals and Professional Societies Faculties of canon law Canonists Institute of consecrated life Society of apostolic life Mendicant orders are, primarily, certain Catholic religious orders that have vowed for their male members a lifestyle of poverty , traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching , evangelization , and ministry , especially to

187-504: The first half of the 13th century: The other mendicant orders recognized by the Holy See today are the Like the monastic orders, many of the mendicant orders, especially the larger ones, underwent splits and reform efforts, forming offshoots, permanent or otherwise, some of which are mentioned in the lists given above. Mendicant orders that formerly existed but are now extinct, and orders which for

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204-423: The goodwill of the people to whom they preached. The members of these orders are not called monks but friars . The term " mendicant " is also used with reference to some non-Christian religions to denote holy persons committed to an ascetic lifestyle, which may include members of religious orders and individual holy persons. The Second Council of Lyon (1274) recognised four main mendicant orders, created in

221-435: The poor. At their foundation these orders rejected the previously established monastic model, which prescribed living in one stable, isolated community where members worked at a trade and owned property in common , including land, buildings and other wealth. By contrast, the mendicants avoided owning property at all, did not work at a trade, and embraced a poor, often itinerant lifestyle. They depended for their survival on

238-475: The smaller beguinages as well as the court beguinages answered such women's social and economic needs, in addition to offering them a religious life coupled with personal independence, which was a difficult thing to have for a woman. ‡ marks the thirteen " Flemish Béguinages" listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites in 1998. Convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks , nuns , friars or religious sisters . Alternatively, convent means

255-574: The twelfth century. In most cases, beguines who lived in a convent agreed to obey certain regulations during their stay and contributed to a collective fund. In the first decades of the thirteenth century much larger and more stable types of community emerged in the region of the Low Countries : large court beguinages were formed which consisted of several houses for beguines built around a central chapel or church where their religious activities took place; these often included functional buildings such as

272-411: Was caused by men dying in war, that theory has been debunked. Since the groundbreaking work of John Hajnal , who demonstrated that, for much of Europe, marriage occurred later in life and at a lower frequency than had previously been believed, historians have established that single women moved to the newly developed cities because those cities offered them work opportunities. Simons (2001) has shown how

289-420: Was to the gathering of mendicants who spent much of their time travelling. Technically, a monastery is a secluded community of monastics, whereas a friary or convent is a community of mendicants (which, by contrast, might be located in a city), and a canonry is a community of canons regular . The terms abbey and priory can be applied to both monasteries and canonries; an abbey is headed by an abbot , and

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