Francesca Barresi

The research project explores the significance of evangelical poverty within the forma vitae of the Beguines, women who played a central role in the burgeoning female and lay religious movements that shaped Christian Europe from the 12th to the 14th century. Through an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon documentary, hagiographical, and literary sources, the research will analyse the complex relationship between the Beguine commitment to poverty and their practical engagement with mendicancy. The results of this study will be aimed at shedding new light on the ways in which the problem of pauperism and mendicitas were experienced and resolved in environments other than those peculiarly Minorite, particularly within the diverse landscape of non-institutionalized female religious life that is now recognized as crucial to a comprehensive understanding of medieval European religious history.