Noble Service: The Problem of Being Exempla

This thesis studies lay women’s religious relationship to ecclesiastical authority through the lens of promotion. Clerical attempts to promote lay women’s spirituality in the thirteenth century were distorted by male authors three main concerns: anxiety over increased lay piety, promotion of crusading, and advancement of orthodoxy. Church leaders focused on lay female spirituality as a tool to accomplish these ends, primarily on the beguine movement of the Low Countries in what is now Belgium and Germany. The beguines were laywomen who gathered into communities to adhere to a more religious life. Ecclesiastics misunderstanding of beguine piousness caused Catholic officials to misread their objectives. Once their intentions were no longer seen as pure faith, a backlash occurred causing persecution of some beguines. While they were never formally condemned, beguines became more traditional in their structures. The movement became, in essence, pious workhouses.