This book is the latest, most comprehensive study of the Beguines, written in accessible language, well footnoted and meticulously referenced, thorough and factually reliable. This is the rock on which I want to build my novel, and it documents a women's movement of the 13th century that was nervy, adventurous, centered in spirituality but not servile, and grounded in social activism. The Beguines broke all the old rules. They lived together in small groups and large; they made it possible for women to pursue careers as artists and managers as well as teachers and healers; they served the poor and the weary; they put their lives where their values were; and none of them had to marry or join a convent in order to live the way they wanted to. Some married but chose to live separately from their husbands (and some of their husbands then became Beghards, the male equivalent); some had children and brought them up in community; some stayed single; some lived intimately with other women, and some had very close relationships with Augustinians, Dominicans, Benedictines, and Cistercians. This movement included several hundred thousand women and a few thousand men. As the movement became more threatening to the status quo in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it came under great pressure and persecution, but for a couple of shining generations, it was a great way to live.