Activities record

Coinciding with Women’s Day, March 8, Fr. Josep de C. Laplana, director of the Museum of Montserrat, described the historical importance of the Beguines as a renewing religious movement, exclusively female, in the medieval Church. The Beguines were jealous of their personal freedom, they lived as religious in colonies but without vows or recognized founder. Some of them wrote their mystical experiences, using vernacular languages. These writings, in addition to their mystical value, are monuments of the Germanic philology of the 12^th and 13^th centuries. The mystique of the Beguines was nourished by the texts of the great spiritual theologians of the Rhine area (Ruysbroeck, Eckhart, Tauler and Suso). From this humus emerged the lay movements of the Friends of God and, a century later, the Brothers of the Common Life, laity and priests on equal rights to prayer, study and teaching, without religious vows or founder. In this context the secular sense of the Christian and the reading of the Bible and religious books in the vernacular language were predominant.