These rules of Béguine life were multiplied in various ways as Béguine communities became rapidly very numerous in Belgium, Holland, and Germany.
But to return to Lambert, their founder. His sermons, which contained solemn warnings addressed to the higher clergy by reason of their evil ways, very soon brought upon him persecution and ill-usage. During one of his sermons in the great church of S. Lambert he was seized by order of the bishop, and imprisoned in the castle of Revogne. He employed himself in his dungeon in translating the Acts of the Apostles from Latin into French.
Amongst other accusations which had been brought against him, it was said that he had prophesied the destruction of S. Lambert’s Church. Whilst he was translating in his dungeon, it came to pass, on the 28th of April 1185, that the sexton of the church went up into the belfry to ring the bell. He had taken with him a pan of hot coals in order to warm his hands. A coal must have fallen through a crack in the floor into a space below, where wood and straw were stored up. In the following night the tower was seen to be in flames.
The fire spread quickly, burning not only the church, but the bishop’s palace, which stood near, the houses of the canons, and the neighbouring churches of S. Peter, S. Trudo, S. Clement, and the Eleven Thousand Virgins. For three days the whole town was in the greatest danger.
The charge against Lambert was now changed into an accusation of sorcery. He was brought to his trial, but the “four discreet and learned men” appointed by the bishop to judge his cause, could find no proof of any offence with which he was charged. The people of Liège, who were displeased at his imprisonment, began to clamour for his release; and he himself demanded to be set free, that he might go to Rome and appeal to the Pope.
His request was granted. The Pope acquitted him of all charges brought against him, and authorised his work by instituting him formally as the Patriarch of the Béguines.
He only survived this journey to Rome six months, and died at Liège towards the end of the year 1187. He was buried before the high altar in his church of S. Christopher. Some chroniclers relate these facts in a slightly different way, according to which Lambert was sent to Rome by the bishop with a list of charges brought against him. But the important point remains proved, that he was the founder of the widely-spread community of men and women known later as Beghards and Béguines.
For after his death, possibly before, communities of men were formed on the plan of the Béguine communities. These men maintained themselves by weaving or other handicrafts. They met together for meals and for prayer, but did not have their possessions in common. They had no rule, but were accustomed to wear simple clothes—brown, white, black, or grey.
As time went on, the ranks of the Beghards or Béguines were largely recruited by the “Friends of God,” with whom they seem at all times to have been in constant intercourse; so that in the fourteenth century to be a Beghard or Béguine, meant much the same thing as to belong to the Waldensian Brethren. In consequence, their persecutions during the fourteenth century amounted at last to extermination, their houses being replenished from the ranks of “orthodox” Roman Catholics. The persons, therefore, from that time onwards bearing the name of Beghards or Béguines differed in nothing from members of Roman Catholic orders.