Antoinette Bourignon

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Antoinette Bourignon de la Porte (January 13, 1616 - October 30, 1680) was a Flemish mystic. From an early age she was under the influence of religion, which took in course of time a mystical turn.

Antoinette, belonging to a rich catholic family, was born at Lille with a facial deformity. After a proposal she left the house and parents, not willing to marry. Inheriting quite an amount of money she started a girls correction home. When one of the girls died, she fled to Ghent and Mechlin. With a follower she moved to Amsterdam, where she met Comenius, Anna Maria van Schurman, Johann Georg Gichtel and Jan Swammerdam. There she published her ideas. Her religious enthusiasm, peculiarity of views and disregard of all sects raised both zealous persecutors and warm adherents. In 1671 she inherited the island Nordstrand not far from Husum, where she moved with a few followers and started a commune. She set up a printing-press and carried on the liveliest literary controversy, calling herself the new Eve until her press was confiscated by the local government. Not being tolerated any longer by the Lutheran clergy, she moved to East-Friesland and founded a hospital. On her way to Amsterdam she died at Franeker, Friesland, on the 30th of October 1680. She left a large number of followers, who dwindled rapidly away.

In the early 18th century her influence revived in Scotland, (see Andrew Michael Ramsay), sufficiently to call forth several denunciations of her doctrines in the various Presbyterian general assemblies of 1701, 1709 and 1710. So far as appears from her writings and contemporary records, she was a visionary of the ordinary type, distinguished only by the audacity and persistency of her pretensions. Her writings, containing an account of her life and of her visions and opinions, were collected by her disciple, Pierre Poiret (19 vols, Amsterdam, 1679-1686), who also published her life (2 vols, 1683):

  • La vie de Damlle Antoinette Bourignone. Ecrite partie par elle-méme, partie par une personne de sa connoissance, dans les Traités dont on void le tiltre a la page suivante. Asterdam : J. Riewerts & P. Arents, 1683. The first volume of the book (s. 137-223) contains her autobiography up to 1668.

For a critical account see Hauck, Realencylopädie (Leipzig, 1897), and Étude sur Antoinette Bourignon, by M. E. S. (Paris, 1876). Three of her works at least have been translated into English, some by Robert Boyle in an earlier stage:

  • An Abridgment of the Light of the World (London, 1786)
  • A Treatise of Solid Virtue (1699)
  • The Restoration of the Gospel Spirit (1707).

[edit] References

  • Mirjam de Baar, 'Ik moet spreken'. Het spiritueel leiderschap van Antoinette Bourignon (1616-1680), Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2004

[edit] External links


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