The Mirror of Simple Souls

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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.

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. Quand des historien.ne.s chercheur.e.s reconnus recommandent avec autant de chaleur un roman et prennent le temps de le discuter, ça attise la curiosité. Je me suis plongée dans ce livre et je ne l'ai pas regretté : il est vraiment bon. 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. I have no joy of the one nor misease of the other, since my Beloved in this neither loseth nor winneth. All is one to me concerning him that is one; and this point maketh me one or else I should anon be twain. If my will were set on the one more than the other, whether of mercy or of righteousness, then were I ‘with’ myself, and so should I be twain. The Son of God is my mirror in this, for God the Father gave his Son our Saviour to be an ensample to us. Ce roman nous fait entrer dans le plus grand béguinage de Paris en nous expliquant qui étaient ces femmes sans hommes (veuves ou pas encore mariée) non religieuses et dont certaines travaillaient.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. 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 ] Carson, Anne (2002). "The Mirror of Simple Souls: An Opera Installation Libretto". The Kenyon Review. 24 (1): 58–69. JSTOR 4338292. 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: Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, ed. Ellen Babinsky. Paulist Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8091-3427-6.

To Porete, there are two kinds of revelation: there is normal revelation, which is easily accessible to the senses, which includes the religious ideas and traditions around Christianity, and there is a second one that pertains more to this book than normal revelation: divine revelation. The book is predicated on Porete's own ethos, because she is writing about her own personal, subjective understanding of some objective mystery that lies beyond the reach of her mind. She metaphorizes and personifies concepts to help communicate concepts that might be difficult to communicate directly. Oneness with God Humbert, il frate francescano che fa una promessa al suo priore, quella di salvare un libro che la Chiesa considera eretico.Nous sommes quelques années avant l’abolition des béguinages, l’Eglise ne pouvant tolérer de laisser des femmes mener leurs vies sans hommes. Miller, Tanya Stabler. The Beguines of Medieval Paris: Gender, Patronage, and Spiritual Authority (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) ISBN 9780812224115 Hanning, Robert W. (1977). The Individual in Twelfth-Century Romance. New Haven: Yale University Press. Medieval manuals on "discretio spirituum" — the clerical judgement of mystical visions — called for the clergy to serve in an advisory role but nevertheless cautioned them about their own ultimate inability to make a definitive judgement on such matters (see late-medieval manuals such as Gerson's "De probatione spirituum" and "De distinctione verarum visionum a falsis"). Such manuals tell the clergy to provide learned guidance, not ultimate judgement, warning them that they might make a mistake and end up opposing the Divine Will.

There has been some speculation as to why Porete was considered controversial. Growing hostility to the Beguine movement among Franciscans and Dominicans, the political machinations of Philip IV of France, who was also busy suppressing the Knights Templar, and ecclesiastical fear at the spread of the anti-hierarchical Free Spirit movement have all been suggested. [ citation needed] The translation by "M. N." included a number of glosses by him, and divided the text into divisions and chapters. 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 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 Mirror of Simple Souls recounts events happening in and around one of the last royal béguinages, in Paris. These communities housed independent women, neither fully civilian nor religious, but hardworking, educated, pious and reclusive, (comparatively) free of male control. They are free to decide for themselves whether they will live a life of work or contemplation, whether they will focus on study or devote themselves to serving the community. At the height of the Inquisition, these women are a thorn in the side of the Church and of male authority in general. Aline Kiner’s La nuit de béguines centers on a controversial group of historical women called beguines. Long a source of fascination for medieval historians, beguines are currently having a moment in historical fiction. La nuit des béguines interweaves a climate of suspicion of heresy into a story that centers on the Parisian women whose lives are imperiled by the unwanted scrutiny Marguerite Porete (the only medieval author to die for a book, in 1310) inadvertently drew to their status and community. Aline Kiner’s engrossing novel follows the Parisian beguines’ descent into obscurity (the “night of beguines” referenced in the title). 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

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). After Porete's death, however, the Mirror was circulated as an anonymous work. Originally written in Old French, it was translated into Latin, Italian, and Middle English and circulated widely. [24] In spite of its reputation as a heretical work it remained popular in Medieval times. At one point it was thought that John of Ruusbroec had written it. Upon hearing Love's argument, Reason responds with skepticism. How could the soul be stripped of its moral goodness and still be good? Love responds that all of God's goodness can be enjoyed directly, without thoughts. She says that the truth of divine love is inaccessible through thought or philosophy and must be experienced directly as the soul purges itself of blinders. Update this section!urn:lcp:mirrorofsimpleso0000pore:epub:ffa6c348-48a4-4d2a-8b73-797d7b6536eb Foldoutcount 0 Grant_report Arcadia #4281 Identifier mirrorofsimpleso0000pore Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t09x0q87j Invoice 2089 Isbn 0809104644 come gli strarti delle cipolle, i momenti della vita non scompaiono, ma si depositano, gli uni sugli altri. Al centro della pianta che cresce, si arrotonda e si deforma, il germoglio, che ne determina la natura, resta lo stesso”.