LEUVEN, Belgium – The cobblestone path dips below street level to a small haven of mottled red-brick buildings and arched doorways. The occasional bicycle is propped up against a wall. A trilingual sign forbids sunbathing, picking fruit or loud talking.

YVES LOGGHE/The Associated Press

A father and child cycle over a small canal at the beguinage in Leuven, Belgium. There are no cars and no shops in this urban oasis.

This place looks like one where people live a peaceful, simple life.

Once upon a time, it was.

It now houses students and professors. But, centuries ago, this hamlet in Leuven – a university town 20 miles east of Brussels – was a beguinage, a sort of commune for unmarried, religiously inclined women known as beguines (pronounced bay-GEENS).

Beguines – most likely derived from the Flemish word beghen , which means to pray – were women in the Low Countries who, beginning in the 12th century, chose to live under neither the care of a man nor the vows of the church.

Theirs was, in essence, a feminist movement. Its remarkable architectural legacy is still evident in cities across the Netherlands and Belgium, but nowhere in greater splendor than in this old university town.

The Leuven beguinage (called a begijnhof in Dutch) was founded in 1230. Exquisitely restored in the 1960s, it is a quaint little town of tiny gabled homes and gardens that spreads across 17 acres.

UNESCO has declared the beguinage a World Heritage site, a place of outstanding cultural importance. There are neither cars nor shops in this spectacular urban oasis that delights visitors year-round.

This place housed hundreds of beguines in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today, it offers a quiet escape from urban life, a place where a person could reach a higher plane. Or go stark, raving mad.

What is so unusual about the beguinages here and in the Netherlands is that they survived revolutions, social strife and wars across six and seven centuries.

The history of beguines is somewhat muddled.

Beguinages were home to generations of religious women who sought to live a more independent life than that of women who married against their will. They made their homes, catered to the sick and poor, and sought to serve God without separating from the rest of the world.

As Catholic women devoted to prayer and good work, beguines lived simply, wore loose robes and headwear similar to nuns' habits.

But they definitely were not nuns. Beguines took no religious vows. They could leave and marry if they chose. They could own property and took no alms. Women of all classes were welcomed. They carried on professions, often in the textile industry. They elected women to be leaders – Grand Dames – and each Grand Dame often was assisted by an elected council.

Living an essentially religious life without taking vows made many of the more conservative members of society and the Church suspicious of the beguines.

To supporters, however, the beguines represented a worthy attempt to live a godly life without shutting themselves in.

The clergy felt threatened by beguines' attempts to provide spiritual guidance to the community around them. After investigation by church authorities, some smaller beguinages died out.

Some, particularly in the Netherlands, escaped condemnation by accommodating the church hierarchy and espousing Catholic tenets, up to a point. Vigorous condemnations led to decimation of beguinages in the Rhine Valley.

By the 17th century, the beguinages had almost disappeared from the Calvinist provinces of the north, but were maintained in the Catholic Lowlands.

In the 19th century, the fates of the beguines varied. Some retained possession of their homes. Others were taken over by religious orders or transformed into hospices and orphanages.

In 1998, 13 Flemish beguinages were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, including the Grand Beguinage of Leuven.

Leuven Beguinage

Leuven is 17 miles east of Brussels on the E40 Highway. There is train service three times an hour from the Brussels Central Station. The beguinage is a 20-minute walk from the Leuven rail station through the town's centuries-old heart. Also, several buses (among them No. 2 and 16) pass by the beguinage. Route and map: www.neurogastro.be/images/begijnh.htm. Information: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/855.