Ordering the University with the Order of Love: Robert of Sorbonne, Pastoral Care, and the Beguinage of Paris

Founded and supported by the French kings, frequented by Parisian theologians, and inhabited by the daughters and widows of the Parisian bourgeoisie, the Paris beguinage (founded in the early 13^th century) was the site at which courtly, monastic, and urban influences intermingled. The vibrant spiritual and intellectual culture of the beguinage attracted clerics affiliated with the College of the Sorbonne, who copied and preserved sermons delivered at the beguinage into their personal manuscripts and sermon collections. University sermons and treatises suggest that the beguine life resonated with Sorbonne clerics, who strove to adapt and apply the virtues they associated with beguines, particularly caritas, to their own lives. Drawing on sermons, exempla, and devotional literature for and about beguines (religious laywomen), this paper examines the ways in which university theologians, particularly those affiliated with the Sorbonne, depicted the beguine as the embodiment of caritas, or selfless love of God and neighbor, in sermons and treatises directed towards university audiences. The Sorbonne’s founder, Robert of Sorbonne, portrayed the beguine as caritas in order to shame university clerics, whom he accused of ambition, selfishness, and pride. By depicting the beguine as the embodiment of virtue, Robert hoped to promote a university program focused on personal piety, humility, and commitment to pastoral care. This portrayal of the beguine as caritas, however, brought both positive and negative attention to the beguinage of Paris as clerics affiliated with the Sorbonne worked out the basis of their pastoral authority through a comparison with the beguine status. By exploring this relationship, this paper not only illuminates the vibrant culture of the beguinage of Paris that inspired the university clerics who preached there, it offers a new perspective on the University of Paris, an institution assumed to have had little to do with women.