In March 2022, the DFG project “Beguines in Cologne: Social History of Urban Piety from the 13th to the 15th Century” began at the CCeH. The aim of the project is to provide the most comprehensive presentation and data processing to date on the Beguines from the 13th to 15th century in Cologne. The project is being carried out under the direction of Dr. Letha Böhringer at the Cologne History Research Centre in cooperation with the Cologne Center for eHumanities.
Beguines were pious women who led a life of prayer and contemplation outside the monasteries and without enclosure. From the early 13th century, they lived in numerous towns in the German-speaking region and in Flanders. Cologne was a major center of beginal life.
The project is producing a monograph on the Beguines in Cologne, for which Dr. Letha Böhringer is responsible, and a database, which is being designed and developed at the CCeH. Both the monograph and the database are based on an extensive collection of data on 2100 known beguines, which was compiled over a period of 20 years from the analysis of the Cologne shrine books.
Jan Bigalke will work as a research assistant on the project at the CCeH. Jonathan Blumtritt and Tessa Gengnagel are jointly responsible for the project.
More about the project: https://cceh.uni-koeln.de/portfolio/beginen-in-koeln/
Picture credits
Photo: Letha Böhringer. Statue in the beguinage in Tongern, Belgium.