{"product_id":"cities-of-ladies-beguine-communities-in-the-medieval-low-countries-121565-the-middle-ages-series-9780812218534","title":"Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries  12-1565 (The Middle Ages Series)","description":"\u003cp\u003eSelected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title  In the early thirteenth century  semireligious communities of women began to form in the cities and towns of the Low Countries. These beguines  as the women came to be known  led lives of contemplation and prayer and earned their livings as laborers or teachers.  In Cities of Ladies  the first history of the beguines to appear in English in fifty years  Walter Simons traces the transformation of informal clusters of single women to large beguinages. These veritable single-sex cities offered lower- and middle-class women an alternative to both marriage and convent life. While the regions expanding urban economies initially valued the communities for their cheap labor supply  severe economic crises by the fourteenth century restricted womens opportunities for work. Church authorities had also grown less tolerant of religious experimentation  hailing as subversive some aspects of beguine mysticism. To Simons  however  such accusations of heresy against the beguines were largely generated from a profound anxiety about their intellectual ambitions and their claims to a chaste life outside the cloister. Under ecclesiastical and economic pressure  beguine communities dwindled in size and influence  surviving only by adopting a posture of restraint and submission to church authorities.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45666142421045,"sku":"ByrdShop_0812218531","price":53.94,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780812218534.jpg?v=1782420790","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/cities-of-ladies-beguine-communities-in-the-medieval-low-countries-121565-the-middle-ages-series-9780812218534","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}