Ramon Lull's Life

Ramon Llull (1232 - 1315) has been mentioned before. Born in Majorca, he married but lived what he later called a licentious life until, at the age of 30, as he writes in his autobiography Vita coaetanea ("A Contemporary Life"),

Ramon, while still a young man and Seneschal to the King of Majorca, was very given to composing worthless songs and poems and to doing other licentious things. One night he was sitting beside his bed, about to compose and write in his vulgar tongue a song to a lady whom he loved with a foolish love; and as he began to write this song, he looked to his right and saw our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, as if suspended in mid-air.

He develops three goals: change his life completely and focus on God, convert everyone to Christianity, write the definitive book against the errors of unbelievers.

The first goal meant leaving his wife and two daughters and travel the world, never to return to his family.

He approached the second goal a little more methodically. In order to convert the Saracens, he needed to be able to talk to them. After giving up all his worldly goods and making several pilgrimages to shrines, he went back to Majorca and purchased himself a Muslim slave in order to learn Arabic from him. He spent the next nine years studying Latin and Arabic, and expanding his knowledge of both Christian and Muslim theology and philosophy.

The third goal would take the remainder of his life, as he wrote and re-wrote a series of books, producing a massive philosophical system that tries to cover so many ways to examine questions and determine proper answers that it includes features that are considered precursors to computation theory and an election theory 450 years before French mathematicians developed it.

His philosophical system was enormously elaborate, and did not catch on in his lifetime. In the generations following, however, people like Nicholas of Cusa adopted some of Llull's ideas. Others were not so supportive. In 1376, an inquisitor named Nicholas Eymerich obtained a papal bull to prohibit Llullian teaching. Llull's philosophy was forbidden in the Faculty of Theology in France.

One of Llull's great successes was part of his second goal: he believed that to spread the truth of Christianity required understanding the language of those you wanted to convert. He argued all over for the creation of schools of language to aid this goal. In 1311, the Council of Vienne at Llull's urging created chairs of Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic at the universities of Bologna, Oxford, Paris, and Salamanca.

As understanding as he seemed to want to be, he argued that Jews refusing to convert needed to be expelled from their countries.

He produced many written works, including his book about knighthood, summarized here.

There is a story that Llull was stoned to death sometime in 1315 or early 1316 in Tunis, where he spent several years trying to convert the Caliph and the people. Llull's tomb is in Majorca, at the Franciscan church in Palma.

Nicholas Eymerich is an interesting character, and since this blog has not looked closely at the job of an Inquisitor, I think it's time.

The Beguines End

Although the Beguines were great role models for how to live a Christian life, all was not rosy. By the end of the 13th century, most regions in the Low Countries had at least one beguinage, a community of Beguines, and some had more. They would often support themselves by working in the wool industry. They also performed good works in the community.

Their Christian attitude did not always exist in their neighbors, or in the Church. Although Cardinal Jacques de Vitry supported them, and the Bishop of Lièges even created a rule for them, some communities cast an unkind eye upon the Beguines because of their ambiguous social status: they lived "in the world, but were not of it."

Beguines became viewed as ostentatious in their lifestyle, as hypocritical because they did not commit to a religious Rule, and even as obnoxiously superior to cloistered religious: the founder of the Sorbonne, Robert de Sorbon, pointed out that they were far more devoted to God than monks, since they pursued the religious life without vows and without being removed from the temptations of the world. This realization could annoy small-minded laity and clergy alike.

There is also the chance that the Church resented a large religious group over which they had no formal control. One well-known Beguine, Marguerite Porete, was burned at the stake on 1 June 1310 because of a book she wrote that was considered heretical. A year later, the Council of Vienne discussed the nature of the human soul. Because the Beguines believed the human soul could be perfected by proper Christian behavior in this world, the Council condemned them as heretics. This same Council condemned the Knights Templar, removing the pope's support from them at the instigation of the French king.

There are Beguines (or Beguine-ish) groups today: the Company of St. Ursula, and recent groups in Vancouver, America, and Germany. The Church also allows "Consecrated Diocesan Hermits," but they must take their formal vows in front of a bishop; then they can live on their own.

But let's go back to Marguerite Porete and find out what she and her book were about more specifically. See you next time.

The Beguines Begin

Christianity inspired many different approaches to life: some became canons regular (parish priests), some joined monasteries or convents, some became mendicants (wandering monks/preachers), some chose to be hermits, and some decided to simplify their lives in a way that they deemed more "Christ-like."

In the early 1100s, some women in the Low Countries (where the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg are now) began devoting themselves to a simplified life of prayer and charitable work. They did not take formal vows of poverty or obedience as nuns would—though they embraced chastity—and there was no compulsion to remain in their chosen lifestyle, if for some reason they decided to change.

The trend among women grew, however, until in the following century it was apparent that this was a movement that stood out among towns and villages. Many women would move to be near each other, forming communities for mutual support. Local clergy would point to them as exemplars of Christian behavior. Jacques de Vitry even appealed to the pope to recognize them formally.

These groups never gained formal recognition by the pope, but local churches encouraged the behavior, even help establish the communities, called beguinages after the name Beguine. (The origin of "Beguine" is unknown; a theory that it came from a priest named Lambert le Bègue, "Lambert the Stammerer" seems unlikely.) Some of these communities were huge: The Beguinage of Paris had 400 women, one in Ghent had thousands of members.

Eventually the Beguines fell out of favor, especially after the Council of Vienne; why that happened will be the subject for tomorrow.