Ingrid de SKÄNNINGE (1220-1282)

This Swedish beguine, from a prominent family, belonged to a group of beguines who dedicated their lives to prayer and to the service of the poor. In the process of canonization of Ingrid, her chaplain, the Dominican Pietro di Dacia, reported that Ingrid had stopped eating meat, rarely drank beer and rarely consumed dairy products. He also described some of her powerful mystical experiences. Like other medieval mystics, Ingrid “allows” herself to experience the Passion of Christ, essentially reliving it on Friday. Witnesses reported that Ingrid, reliving the Passion of Christ, would fall into ecstasy, sometimes bearing the stigmata and other signs of Christ’s suffering on her body. In the last years of her life, Ingrid was part of a group of beguines who embraced the Dominican charisma, as did many Scandinavian Beguines at the end of the 1200s. (Laura Swam, The winsdom of beguines, p.47