The quick rebuilding of the cathedral at Chartres reveals the religious fervor of late-twelfth-century city dwellers. This helps explain the new religious orders that appeared in the cities. The church accepted many new orders; some, however, so threatened the established doctrine and hierarchy that they were condemned as heresies. Francis c.
Son of a well-to-do trader in the city of Assisi in Italy, Francis began to experience doubts, dreams, and illnesses that spurred him to religious self-examination. He brought religious devotion out of the monastery and into the streets. Intending to follow the model of Christ, he received, as his biographers put it, a miraculous gift of grace: the stigmata, bleeding sores corresponding to the wounds Christ suffered on the cross. By all accounts Francis was a spellbinding speaker, and he attracted many followers.
Recognized as a religious order by the pope, the Brothers of St. Eventually they dispersed, setting up fraternal groups throughout Italy and then in France, Spain, Germany, England, and the Holy Land. Francis converted not only men but women. One of these, Clare, formed the nucleus of a community of pious women, that became the Order of the Sisters of St. At first, the women worked alongside the friars; but both Francis and the church hierarchy disapproved of their activities in the world, and soon Franciscan sisters were confined to cloisters under the rule of St.
Clare was one of many women who sought outlets for religious expression. Some women joined convents; others became recluses, living alone like hermits; still others sought membership in new lay sisterhoods. In northern Europe at the end of the twelfth century, laywomen who lived together in informal pious communities were called Beguines.
Without permanent vows or an established rule, the Beguines chose to be celibate though they were free to leave their Beguinage to marry and often made their living by weaving cloth or tending to the sick and old. Some of them may have prepared and illustrated their own reading materials. See the illustration of a Beguine Psalter. One renowned Beguine, Mary of Oignies β , who like St.
