Translated from Etudes Religieusea, Historiques, et Littéraires, par des Pères de la Compagnie de Jesus.
A CITY OF WOMEN.
THE ANCIENT BEGUINAGE OF GHENT.
BY THE REV. A. NAMPON, S.J.
According to some authors, St. Begghe, daughter of Pepin, Duke of Brabant, and sister of St. Gertrude, must have given her name to those pious assemblages of Christian virgins and widows called from very remote times beguinages.
These holy women, united under the protection and the rule of St. Begghe, had nothing in common except the name with those Beguines whose errors were condemned by the council of Vienne.
Beguinages exist at Ghent, Antwerp, Mechlin, Alost, Louvain, Bruges, etc., etc. The rule is not in all places the same, but everywhere these pious establishments are places of refuge open to devout women, wherein they may sanctify themselves by prayer, labor, and retirement from the distractions of the world.
Let us transport ourselves to the capital of Flanders. From the centre of that tumultuous city, in which industry, commerce, activity, and pleasure reign supreme, are separated two other smaller towns of venerable aspect—closed to the world, destitute of shops, coaches, public criers, and all modern inventions. These two towns are the Great and the Little Beguinage.
These places are delightful oases, wherein you breathe a pure air, where, in the noonday of the nineteenth century, you find the simplicity of the faith and customs of antiquity. They are surrounded, as they were five or six centuries ago, by a ditch and a wall; you enter them by a single gate carefully closed at night, and not less carefully watched all day. This gate, surmounted by the cross, was formerly protected by a drawbridge.
As soon as you have passed through this gateway, you are forcibly struck with the calm and pious atmosphere of this peaceful city, and with the grave and edifying looks of its female inhabitants. I say female inhabitants, for no man has ever dwelt in this enclosure. The priests who serve the beguinages only enter to fulfil their sacred offices, and have no place therein save the pulpit, the altar, and the confessional. The dress of the inmates is not elegant, but it is in strict conformity with the model traced in their thirteenth century rule.
All the streets, which are at right angles, are named after saints. The houses are also distinguished by the names, and frequently by the statue, of some saint, under whose protection they are placed; thus you may read, gate of St. Martha, gate of St. Mary-Magdalen, etc., etc.
The houses, which are whitewashed annually, display in their furniture, as in their construction, no other luxury but a charming cleanliness. They are of two kinds, convents and hermitages. The convents are inhabited by communities, each governed by a superior. The hermitages, which resemble very much the dwellings of the Carthusians, consist of two or three bed-rooms, a parlor, a kitchen, and a small garden. Prominent among the convents is the dwelling of the superior-general, called Grande Dame, who has charge of the infirmary, and who is conservator of the documents, traditions and pictures, which date from five or six centuries ago. Lastly, in the midst of this peaceful city rises the house of God, a large church, very commodious and clean, surrounded by a [{515}] cemetery, in conformity with an ancient custom, which all the beguinages, however, have not been able to retain.
The object of these societies is very clearly stated in a paragraph of the rule of the beguinage of Notre Dame du Pré', founded at Ghent in 1234. We retain the old style: