Beguines, Jews, and Friars: The Narrative of Urban Religion in Thirteenth-Century Europe

Since the 1960s medieval historians have transformed the study of medieval religion. Groups once wholly at the margins, such as beguines and Jews, have become integral to its study, and institutions once at the center, such as the papacy, now at times hardly put in an appearance. This talk takes up the question of narrative, the story-lines explicit or implicit in the stories we are now telling, whether the pieces can be brought together with mutual integrity, whether we have in fact created a new master narrative or are left with only many disparate stories. The talk focuses on the earlier thirteenth century and mainly northern Europe. While centered on three distinct religious groups, it seeks to position them in interlinked political and legal contexts.

Prof. John Van Engen, Andrew V. Tackes Professor of Medieval History at the University of Notre Dame, is a distinguished historian of the religious culture of the European Middle Ages. His books and essays on monasticism, women’s writing, schools and universities, inquisition, canon law, and notions of reform have shed fresh light on cultural and intellectual renewal during the twelfth century, religious movements in the later Middle Ages, and notions of “Christianization” in medieval European history.  Van Engen’s recent Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life (2008) received numerous awards, including the 2013 Haskins Medal from the Medieval Academy of America.  A former director of Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute and past president of the American Society of Church History, Van Engen is a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and a corresponding member of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Religious Studies Program.