A beguinage, from the French term béguinage, is an architectural complex which was created to house beguines: lay religious women who lived in community without taking vows or retiring from the world.
Our-Lady Ter Hooyen, Small Béguinage of Ghent
View of the Beguinage in Kortrijk
A beguine, inhabitant of a beguinage. Excerpt from a manuscript of the beguinage of Sint-Aubertus in Ghent. Made ca. 1840.
View of the Groot Begijnhof in Leuven
The Beguines and the Beghards were Christian lay religious orders that were active in Western Europe, particularly in the Low Countries, in the 13th–16th centuries. Their members lived in semi-monastic communities but did not take formal religious vows; although they promised not to marry "as long as they lived as Beguines", to quote an early Rule of Life, they were free to leave at any time. Beguines were part of a larger spiritual revival movement of the 13th century that stressed imitation of Jesus' life through voluntary poverty, care of the poor and sick, and religious devotion.
Beguine of Ghent. Excerpt from a manuscript of the beguinage of Sint-Aubertus, Ghent, c. 1840.
Print of a Beguine in Des dodes dantz of Matthäus Brandis, Lübeck 1489.
A house in Bad Cannstatt formerly used as a beguinage. It was built in 1463 and restored in 1983.
Béguinage of St Elisabeth, Kortrijk