History
Around 1150, a group of women came together to live in a religious community, primarily to look after the sick. These were the first 'Beguines’ although the name was not yet used. The women were not nuns and nor did they live in the seclusion of a convent. They had no founders nor did they make lifelong vows. They were unmarried women who made a vow of chastity and promised obedience to the parish priest, but since they were not expected to make a vow of poverty, they were free to dispose of their own possessions as they wished. They could renounce their vows at any moment and leave the Beguinage, for instance, to get married. We do not know exactly when the Beguinage was founded. According to the Amsterdam City Archives, the first time the word ‘beguines’ was used was in an official document of 1307 found in the accounts of the Bailiff of Amstelland. Another document, dated 31 July 1346, speaks of the Beghijnhuis (house of the Beguines) ceded to them by one Cope van der Laene on St Peter’s Eve.
Read more about this topic: Begijnhof Chapel (Amsterdam)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)