Beguinage of Kortrijk
With the death of the last Beguine in the world, Marcella Pattijn, on April 14, 2013, in the Sint-Jozef home in Kortrijk (Belgium), the historical epic of the Beguinal movement comes to an end. The movement sprang up in religious fervor which marked the end of the twelfth century and especially the thirteenth and helped to promote that the eminent medievalist historian Raoul Manselli calls “the second evangelization of Europe“.
Still little known or badly known despite its incisive historical heritage, the movement of the beguines seems to regain breath today through some modern experiences of community life that are inspired by it. Sometimes they refer to it by their denomination as for example the Garden of Beguinage in Etterbeek (Belgium) or the Beginenhof in Berlin. At other times, they integrate into the new experiments one or more dimensions which have characterized the very life of historical Beguines.
We will therefore list by geographical zone the emerging initiatives that are inspired by the Beguinal movement in their daily life:
In Austria
In Belgium
In Germany
In France
In Italy
Others in Europe
Others in the world
informations up to dated at July 2022