Beghards

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Men who lived in lay religious communities in medieval Europe, devoting themselves to prayer and charitable work without taking full monastic vows
2. Members of semi-monastic lay brotherhoods that flourished in the Low Countries and Germany during the Middle Ages, often caring for the sick and poor
3. Plural of beghard, referring to unordained laymen who joined informal religious fraternities in medieval northern Europe and lived communally

Etymology: Beghards were lay members of religious communities in the Low Countries and Rhineland in the later Middle Ages, men who lived a devout, communal life without taking the vows of a monk. The name is the plural of "Beghard," which comes from French "bégard" or "béguard," a word formed on the same pattern as the better-known "beguine," the name of the women's equivalents. Both names seem to belong to a family of medieval religious terms, and the French forms are the direct source of the English one. The word is a plural form, so "beghard" is the singular, and the English term is essentially a borrowing of the French word rather than a native coinage. Its use is confined largely to historians of medieval religion, which is why it can look unfamiliar to most readers.