A Twisted Vengeance

Had someone in the editorial department of The Economist corrected an error in a headline back in 2013, I might never had created the character Eleanor Clifford. I read “the world’s last Beguine” headlining the obituary of Marcella Pattyn and wondered.[1] My question led me to historian Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane, who has researched and written about medieval religious movements and is presently writing a book about the beguines.[2] As it turns out, Marcella might have been the last beguine living in Belgium, but she was not the last beguine: in Germany the movement has enjoyed a revival in this century.[3]

But the article rekindled my interest in the beguines. Who were they? They were part of a lay religious women’s movement that swept medieval Europe between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. It created an opportunity for women to lead lives dedicated to spiritual practice while still remaining in their lay communities. For some it was an alternative to marriage; for others it was a chance to test whether they truly had a vocation or were simply not yet ready to wed – the beguines took no formal vows and were free to leave; for many it was the only affordable entrance into a religious community, as established orders required a dowry.

Though many people associate them with the Low Countries, hundreds of beguine-like gatherings independently cropped up across what is today France, Germany, Italy, England, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Spain. As Jennifer wrote for my blog: “… beguines were single women of any life stage enacting visibly pious and chaste lives of Christian service and community; they took simple oaths of chastity and obedience, lived according to a specific but local house rule, and were under the supervision of a house mother, elder sisters in the community, and an array of parish and civic authorities; and finally, beguines received charitable donations in exchange for prayers, memorial services, and other charitative services.”

In York there are records of houses of poor sisters, often maison dieux (hospitals), but it’s not clear which were beguine communities – they went by many names throughout Europe – and which were much more closely associated with the major religious orders, often referred to as third orders, or tertiaries, whose rules might be stricter. I use that tension between more traditional orders and beguines in this book.

The sisters and their devotion are a rich example of the medieval mind. It was a quietly private piety, available to those women who had no dowry to offer to a convent in an established religious order. In the early years of the movement, women might remain at home; but the Church in Rome distrusted any group or spiritual teacher who might encourage people to commune with God without the middleman, i.e., a priest, and it was increasingly alarmed by the lay religious movements. After the thirteenth century the Church required beguines to be part of a community, a house of such women headed by a woman of good repute and guided by a male cleric. Hence Eleanor’s search for a cleric to serve as guiding teacher and confessor for her Martha House.

Women mystics were another source of discomfort for the Church. Marguerite Porete, mentioned in this book, was tried and condemned by the Church in Paris in the early 14th century, and burned at the stake. According to her inquisitors, in her book The Mirror of Simple Souls Marguerite claimed that a soul could become one with God, and that in such a state a person might ignore all the moral rules and sacraments of the Church and do what she pleased. But that was not her message. What she actually said was that in such state a person would wish to do only good. Perhaps her two greatest sins in their eyes were that she was a woman who deigned to teach through her writing, and that she refused to retract her work. Her writings inspired another great mystic of the period whom I mention in the book, Meister Eckhart, a Dominican who was also eventually condemned as a heretic. You may not have heard of Marguerite, but it’s quite likely you’ve heard of Meister Eckhart, who is widely respected today.

Despite the Church, the beguine movement, with its message of a life of the spirit combined with charitable work in the community, prevailed.

For the situation in and around York as Henry of Lancaster returned from exile, I depended on the work of Douglas Biggs and Chris Given-Wilson.[4] I found the role of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, of particular interest. He was custodian of the realm while his nephew King Richard II was on campaign in Ireland, but Henry of Lancaster was also his nephew. From itineraries, calendars, rolls, and other official government and household records, Douglas Biggs gleaned sufficient detail for the reader to observe Edmund’s gradual shift from fully supporting King Richard to backing Duke Henry in his rebellion. Edmund went about his duties through the end of June as if unaware that his nephew Henry was planning to return to England to claim his inheritance. And then Lancastrian Sir John Pelham seized Pevensey Castle and held it for Duke Henry. Edmund moved quickly to ensure that Pelham would be contained within the county of Kent, unable to spread the insurrection. Practically, in point of fact, Edmund was hobbled by King Richard’s Irish campaign. The king had taken the most effective and experienced military personnel with him, and much of the available transport such as horses and wagons. And Edmund soon discovered that Pelham’s seizure of Pevensey Castle was but the tip of the iceberg – he soon discovered that most of John of Gaunt’s estates and more important castles were being held by Lancastrian retainers for Duke Henry. This was the situation when Edmund ordered the city of York to hold against Henry. He’d managed to secure a strategic line of castles in the southeast, and was ready to move north to St. Alban’s. Messengers were sent to the king in Ireland to alert him to the situation so that he might return to defend his crown.

At St. Albans, Edmund, Duke of York, proclaimed that he had no desire to hinder Henry’s efforts to reclaim his inheritance. Still, he and the council were mustering an army to ride west and join up with the king on his return from Ireland. Henry, now claiming his inheritance as Duke of Lancaster, was also riding west, with a rapidly growing army. The most powerful northern nobles joined him. By the time Henry reached Pontefract Castle, he was making promises to his supporters that made it clear he now set his sights even higher, on claiming the throne.

Whether it was rumors of the Duke of York’s confusing partial support of Duke Henry or the news of so many barons joining him, we can never know. But soldiers paid by Edmund, Duke of York, began to desert and hie to Henry’s camp. Once it was clear he was heading west, not south to York, the soldiers mustered in preparation for a siege began to leave; it appears that most of them joined Henry.

And a group of York merchants that included William Frost and Thomas Holme, seeing which way the wind blew, sent a messenger to Duke Henry offering monetary support. The duke was promising to end royal taxation, and the merchants liked the sound of that. King Richard had leaned heavily on them for loans which they knew would never be repaid, and they hoped for better treatment from his cousin.

Time would tell.