Vintage Beguines lace making in Ghent (Gent) Postcard

Beghards (also called Beguards) and Beguines (or Beguins) were Christian lay religious communities active in the 13th and 14th centuries, living in a loose semi-monastic community but without formal vows. There was a Beguinage at Mechlin as early as 1207, at Brussels in 1245, at Leuven before 1232, at Antwerp in 1234, and at Bruges in 1244. Most of these institutions were suppressed during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century or during the stormy years of revolutions and social unrest of the French Revolution. A few convents of Beguines persisted until the early 20th century in parts of Belgium, including those of Bruges, Lier, Mechlin, Leuven, and Ghent, which last numbered nearly a thousand members in 1905.