[2][4] When Beatrice was seven, her mother, Gertrudis, died; her father, Barthelomeus Lanio, sent her to the Beguines in nearby Zoutleeuw, where she attended the local school.

[6] Not long after, he sent her to become an oblate at a Cistercian convent he had founded called Bloemendael in Eerken,[6][7] where she received an education in the liberal arts, as well as Latin and calligraphy.

[13] Beatrice is associated with the mulieres religiosae, an emerging thirteenth-century group of European women with their own distinctive set of devotional and mystical practices.

[2][8] Beatrice's medieval biographer describes her as practicing intense mortification of the flesh: wearing a girdle of thorns, self-flagellation, sleeping on stones, and walking barefoot in the snow.

[4][12] However, modern commentators argue that Beatrice's biographer, who is known to have taken liberties in his adaptation of her diaries, may have simply copied these ascetic practices from the life of Arnulf of Leuven.

[12] For much of her life, especially in 1217 and 1228–1231,[4] Beatrice suffered from intermittent periods of depression and torpor, which some modern commentators have suggested might reflect bipolar disorder.

[15] She was brought relief by various spiritual experiences, describing incidents in which her spirit was elevated and Christ embraced her or spoke comforting words to her.

[4] Some historians speculate that both these alterations, and the destruction of Beatrice's original works, may have been intended to avoid suspicion from inquisitors, such as Robert le Bougre [fr].

[18] Its authorship was not determined until 1926, when historian Léonce Reypens [nl] identified it with the Latin translation in Beatrice's biography, De caritate dei et septem eius gradibus.

"[19] Beatrice's focus on love ("minne") as a central point of her mysticism may have been influenced both by her contemporary Hadewijch, and by the growing German tradition of Minnesang.