Panacean Lookalikes?

Panacean lookalikes?

by volunteer Derek Turner

“An association [...] living together or in close proximity of each other under the guidance of a single superior..... In these houses dwelt a small number of women together [...] in the houses, small, informal communities- agreed to obey certain regulations during their stay and contributed to a collective fund.”

Sounds familiar? Obvious similarities certainly, but the Beguines were remarkably different too in many ways, most obviously in that their organisation came into existence some 900 years earlier than the Panaceans, originally in Flemish cities and then spreading more widely into north-west Europe. In the unredacted Wikipedia account I have emboldened the key words that make them interesting to compare with the Panaceans.

“Originally the beguine institution was the convent, an association of beguines living together or in close proximity of each other under the guidance of a single superior, called a mistress or prioress. Although they were not usually referred to as "convents", in these houses dwelt a small number of women together: the houses small, informal, and often poor communities that emerged across Europe after the twelfth century. In most cases, beguines who lived in a convent agreed to obey certain regulations during their stay and contributed to a collective fund.”

A different and much more detailed account -Beguines_and_Beghards paints a rather different picture, denying that they ever lived in a convent, stating their origins sere in the twelfth century and their role was to help the poor and live modestly, retaining financial independence. Unlike nuns, they took no lifelong vows, voluntarily avoided marriage, but could give up living as a Beguine at any time. In this way, other than renouncing marriage, they resembled Panaceans, some of whom did leave the Society. Though concentrated mainly in Flanders, the Beguine movement spread to Germany and France.

The Panaceans never lived in a convent as we would now think of them, large single buildings, but the early Panaceans’ lives and religious practices were centred on a single and later a cluster of neighbouring buildings so not very different. Like the Panaceans in the Bower estate, the Beguines came to occupy a whole series of buildings, a Beguinage such as the ‘town within a town’ with restricted access for ‘outsiders’ at Leuven in Belgium, and these were new, custom-built dwellings in a single area rather than already-built houses alongside non-Panacean houses in Albany, Rothsay and the Grove. Great_Beguinage,_Leuven

The Panaceans never titled their ‘superior’ as mistress or prioress, but they did of course recognise as their religious and spiritual leaders first Mabel as ‘Octavia’ and later Emily Goodman as ‘the mother of God’. The Beguines had no overall superior, however. Each group had its ownleader who made up the rules for their community. Both organisations were religious, but the Beguines were somewhat more orthodox, not millenarians, though they did have an equivalent to Joanna Southcote in the person of Marguerite Porete who wrote a mystical book known as The Mirror of Simple Souls. Porete’s views raised eyebrows amongst the male ecclesastial establishment and she was eventually burned at the stake as a relapsed heretic, but so far as is known she left no box to be opened by bishops.

The Beguine communities were entirely composed of women whereas the Panaceans’ membership and religious philosophy though predominantly feminine, did allow some male involvement. There was, however, a male counterpart to the Beguines, the Beghards.

It is interesting to compare the reasons for the foundation of the two organisations. Though you won’t find much mention of female communities, and little at all about women in general, in standard ultra-processed school history textbooks, these all-female communities were numerous and widespread throughout north-west Europe for nearly five centuries.

But what were their reasons for banding together? One could be that, like the Panaceans and for the same reason, they were ‘surplus women’, unable to find husbands because so many men had died in wars. This was the view of the great Belgian Historian Henri Pirenne, who amongst many other achievments wrote a vast History of Europe entirely from memory while incarcerated by the Germans during the First World War. According to the first Wikipedia article Pirenne’s view has now been ‘debunked’; the revisionist alternative being that these were unemployed, unmarried women who gravitated to find work in the thriving Flemish cities. The detailed Wikipedia article puts forward a third view that the Beguines were part of a wider trend of abandoning a wealthy lifestyle to help the poor. In my opinion, a combination of the Pirenne and the charitable works explanations is much more persuasive than the economic argument.

For the Panaceans it was in some ways different. They too were ‘surplus’ women, single of widowed, but they were looking for fulfilling lives and something to believe in rather than wages. Octavia provided the ideology; the members worked in various ways, running printing presses, creating ‘safe areas’ and managing the worldwide healing ministry. Both Paceans and Beguines benefitted from having found a sense of purpose and an ability to lead lives independent of controlling males but in different ways.

Early on especially, the Paneceans cultivated invisibility, dressing like all other women of their class whereas the Beguines were recognisable by wearing a uniform. Today this this might seem to us as very much like a nun’s habit, but it was similar to the kind of clothes ordinary women were wearing at the time.

The original Beguines communities lasted for around five hundred years. It was the religious revolution of the Reformation and the subsequent religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries that mainly caused their dissolution. Flanders became a battle ground. Nevertheless, the concept of Beguine lived on and new communities were created across the world, most recetnly in Vancouver, Canada, comparable to the Panaceans’ overseas groups and wordwide participation in their healing ministry.

The decline and eventual end of the Panacean Society owes much to a general decline in religious belief and, paradoxically in view of their quasi-feminist philosophy, to the advance in women’s rights and employment opportunities than religious strife, though war in the shape of World War 2 certainly contributed to the Society’s decline.

By a remarkable coincidence of dates, Marcella Pattyn, the last traditional Beguine, died on 14 April 2013 in Kortrijk at the age of 92, just eleven months after Ruth Klein, the last Panacean.

Though the Panacean Society lasted for only fraction of the time that the Beguines existed, its material and charitable legacy is much greater. The Museum Trust that followed its demise retained the Society’s property portfolio and other assets, enabling it not only to establish and maintain a museum in three houses set in the well-kept ‘Garden of Eden’, but also to support other local charities. In sharp contrast, the Beguinages buildings gradually decayed and were eventually sold. In Leuven, they were acquired by the University and now provide student lodgings. At the time I visited, in the summer of 2025, the whole area was having a major upgrade. The historic buildings are now a popular tourist attraction. Not only do they serve the needs of some of the Unversity’s 15,000 students but they keep alive the memory of the Beguine movement, creating greater awareness of an imporant feature of medieval and early modern history which, like so much of women’s history, is in danger being overlooked and lost.

This blog has only scratched the surface of Beguine history. For those who might wish to find out more and see a Beguinage first-hand, it is an easy rail trip from Bedford to Leuven, just two changes, at St Pancras and Brussels Midi, a journey time of about four hurs. From Leuven rail station the Beguinage is within healthy walking distance, or a bus from the adjacent bus station will whisk you there in a few minutes.