Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, ed. Ellen Babinsky. Paulist Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8091-3427-6. Ysabel una vecchia beghina che si occupa, con amore e dedizione, dell'ospedale del beghinaggio e anche dell'orto dal quale ricava le erbe medicinali. Carson, Anne (2002). "The Mirror of Simple Souls: An Opera Installation Libretto". The Kenyon Review. 24 (1): 58–69. JSTOR 4338292. The title of Porete's book refers to the simple soul which is united with God and has no will other than God's own. Some of the language, as well as the format of a dialogue between characters such as Love, Virtue and the Soul, reflects a familiarity with the style of courtly love which was popular at the time, and attests to Porete's high level of education and sophistication. [18] [19]

The characters were complex, but I really only liked one of them, beguine healer Ysabel; runaway child bride Maheut was just a horrid person, Ade meek to a maddening extent, and the only male main character, a monk called Humbert, I got rapey vibes from at the beginning that I was never able to shake - no idea if that was the author’s intent to be honest! There’s also some tosh about a (real) book written by a beguine mystic, Marguerite Porete, who was burned for heresy in 1310, but because I couldn’t give a fig about religion, I just skipped the sections where Porete’s book gets quoted. The more interesting facet about Porete and her book is that she represented a type of individuality and free spiritedness, especially coming from a woman, that the Catholic Church and the French King wanted to destroy, which is also why the institution of the beguines ends up being destroyed at the end of this novel (it’s not a spoiler if it happened 700 years ago is it?). Not the most cheery note to end on when you think about that it would be several hundred years before women finally gained some proper agency again. In 2006 poet Anne Carson wrote a poetic libretto entitled Decreation, the second part of which takes as its subject Marguerite Porete and her work, The Mirror of Simple Souls as part of an exploration of how women ( Sappho, Simone Weil and Porete) "tell God." [28] See also [ edit ] The record tells us that Porete’s 14th century prosecutors saw in her work elements of antinomianism, or the view that people are saved by faith or grace but not by following moral laws. My impression is that Porete thought of moral laws as a starting point but that the clarified soul need not consult them because the clarified soul reflects God’s will; Augustine’s “love, and do what you will” comes to mind here.This book is a dynamic conversation between the personifications of Love, Reason, and Truth. The mystic states that she believes there is a sevenfold annihilation of various components of the soul. They are also graces, she claims. The first and the seventh are explained: The first annihilation is the removal of sinfulness in the human soul. The final stage is perfect oneness with God in love. Hanning, Robert W. (1977). The Individual in Twelfth-Century Romance. New Haven: Yale University Press.

In spite of this, the work was translated into Latin, Middle English, Middle French and Italian and circulated in France, Italy, Germany, England and Bohemia, [2] albeit not with Porete's name attached. In fact Porete was not identified as the author until 1946. Since then it has been seen increasingly as one of the seminal works of Medieval spiritual literature and Porete, alongside Mechthild of Magdeburg and Hadewijch, can be seen as an exemplar of the love mysticism of the Beguine movement. The full, original title of the book is Le Mirouer des simples âmes anienties et qui seulement demeurent en vouloir et désir d’amour, or The Mirror of the Simple Souls Who Are Annihilated and Remain Only in Will and Desire of Love. There are English translations available in book form. There is a PDF of a 1927 edition online here and what seems to be an updated translation with commentary here. When Dr. Romana Guarnieri, in a letter to Osservatore Romano (16 June 1946), announced her discovery that Margaret Porette (d. 1 June 1310) was the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls , certainly a major French document of pre-Reformation spirituality, a sensation was created in the academic world. Although The Mirror is one of the few heretical documents to have survived the Middle Ages in its entirety, both its title and its authorship were among the most persistent and troublesome problems of scholarly research in the field of medieval vernacular languages. The Mirror , in its original French, survives only in the fifteenth-century manuscript which the great Conde (Louis II de Bourbon) had acquired for his palace at Chantilly. And, so far as can be known, all that remains with which to compare the readings of this manuscript text are those translations of The Mirror which, also in manuscript, are to be found in Latin, Italian, and Middle English. This edition of The Mirror of Simple Souls is a translation from the French original with interpretive essays by Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., Judith Grant, and J.C. Marler, and a foreword by Kent Emery, Jr. The translators of this Modern English version rely primarily on the French, yet take other medieval translations into account. As a result, this edition offers a reading of The Mirror which solves a number of difficulties found in the French, and the introductions contributed by the translators narrate the archival history of the book, for which Margaret Porette was burned alive in Paris in 1310. The Mirror of Simple Souls (Notre Dame Texts in Medieval Culture) by Marguerite Porete – eBook Details

About Marguerite Porete

On ne va pas se mentir, je suis une sacrée fainéante, et j’ai beaucoup de mal en général avec l’Histoire et ses dates et ses noms que j’ai oubliés depuis que j’ai passé le bac. Romana Guarnieri, 'Il movimiento del Libero Spirito: II, Il Miroir des simples ames di Margherita Porete', Archivio italiano per la storia della pieta 4, (1965), 501–708. This was reprinted, along with an edition of the Latin text, in Paul Verdeyen, Marguerete Porete: Le Mirouer des Simples Ames, CCCM 69, (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986).

R. Lahav, "Marguerite Porete and the Predicament of her Preaching in Fourteenth Century France," in Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Carmen Mangion (eds), Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe, 1200–1900 (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011),After her death extracts from the book were cited in the decree Ad Nostrum, issued by the Council of Vienne in 1311 to condemn the Free Spirit movement as heretical. I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love, [c] and this Soul is God by the condition of Love. I am God by divine nature and this Soul is God by righteousness of Love. [d] Thus this precious beloved of mine is taught and guided by me, without herself, for she is transformed into me, and such a perfect one, says Love, takes my nourishment. [23] (Chapter 21: Love answers the argument of Reason for the sake of this book which says that such Souls take leaves of the Virtues) Miller, Tanya Stabler. "What's in a Name? Clerical Representations of Parisian Beguines, 1200–1327," The Journal of Medieval History, 33:1 (2007): 60–86. Porete had been arrested with a Beghard, Guiard de Cressonessart, who was also put on trial for heresy. Guiard declared himself to be Porete's defender. After being held in prison in Paris for a year and a half, their trial began. Kiner’s novel is actually named after the early writings of Marguerite Porete who was a French speaking mystic. Porete’s ideas of God and divine love had her put on trial and executed in 1310. What is remarkable about Porete is that aside from being a medieval author, she showed a strong will and fortitude during her lengthy interrogation. She refused to speak or recant her ideology. Firm she was in her beliefs.

When Dr. Romana Guarnieri, in a letter to Osservatore Romano (16 June 1946), announced her discovery that Margaret Porette (d. 1 June 1310) was the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, certainly a major French document of pre-Reformation spirituality, a sensation was created in the academic world. Although The Mirror is one of the few heretical documents to have survived the Middle Ages in its entirety, both its title and its authorship were among the most persistent and troublesome problems of scholarly research in the field of medieval vernacular languages. The Mirror, in its original French, survives only in the fifteenth-century manuscript which the great Condé (Louis II de Bourbon) had acquired for his palace at Chantilly. And, so far as can be known, all that remains with which to compare the readings of this manuscript text are those translations of The Mirror which, also in manuscript, are to be found in Latin, Italian, and Middle English. Michael Frassetto, "Marguerite Porete: Mysticism, Beguines and Heretics of the Free Spirit," in idem, Heretic Lives: Medieval Heresy from Bogomil and the Cathars to Wyclif and Hus (London, Profile Books, 2007), 135–150. Les béguines étaient des femmes « hors normes », parmi lesquelles, on retrouve des jeunes veuves, soulagées de ne plus devoir répondre aux exigences d’un époux souvent brutal ; certaines d’entre elles ont été littéralement « vendues » par leur famille, où la vie d’une fille ne compte que dans la mesure où elle peut être offerte en alliance pour régler des dettes ou un litige. Sells, Michael A. (1994). Mystical Languages of Unsaying. University of Chicago Press. p.117. ISBN 0-226-74786-7.Very basically, to Porete the simple or clarified soul becomes a mirror “without blemish or obscurity.” To reflect what? Porete doesn’t use the word mirror all that much in the text. But this passage from Chapter VII might be helpful: Porete, Marguerite; Babinsky, Ellen (1993). The Mirror of Simple Souls. Paulist Press. p.104. ISBN 978-0-8091-3427-4. Field, Sean L. The Beguine, the Angel, and the Inquisitor: The Trials of Marguerite Porete and Guiard of Cressonessart (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). ISBN 0268028923