The Mirror of Simple Souls

Margaret Porette, Judith Grant, J. C. Marler, Edmund Colledge

Description

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.

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.

Sujets

• Medieval
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Edad Media
• Conde
• Louis, Grand Condé
• Spirituality
• Middle Ages
• Christianity
• L'Osservatore Romano
• Louis II de Bourbon
• Translation
• Renaissance
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 1999
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268161514
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Mirror of Simple Souls
Notre Dame Texts in Medieval Culture, vol. 6
T HE M EDIEVAL I NSTITUTE
University of Notre Dame
John Van Engen and Edward D. English, Editors
The Mirror of Simple Souls

Margaret Porette
Translated from the French with an Introductory Interpretative Essay by Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., J. C. Marler, and Judith Grant
and a Foreword by Kent Emery, Jr.
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 All Rights
Reserved www.undpress.nd.edu
Copyright 1999 by University of Notre Dame
Published in the United States of America
Reprinted in 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Porete, Marguerite, ca. 1250-1310.
[Miroir des simples mes. English]
The mirror of simple souls / Margaret Porette : translated from the French with an introductory interpretive essay by Edmund Colledge, J. C. Marler, and Judith Grant; and a foreword by Kent Emery, Jr.
p. cm. - (Notre Dame texts in medieval culture ; vol. 6)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 13: 978-0-268-01435-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 10: 0-268-01435-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Contemplation-Early works to 1800. 2. Spiritual life-Christianity-Early works to 1800. I. Colledge, Edmund. II. Marler, J. C. III. Grant, Judith. IV. Title. V. Series.
BV5091.C7P6713 1999
248.2 2-dc21
98-54869
ISBN 9780268161514
This book is printed on acid-free paper .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
Contents
Foreword: Margaret Porette and Her Book
Kent Emery, Jr .
Sigla and Abbreviations
Introductory Interpretative Essay
The Mirror of Simple Souls
List of chapters
Appendix One: The Prologue of M.N. s English Translation of the Mirror
Appendix Two: M.N. s Glosses to His Translation of the Mirror
Select Bibliography
Index
Scripture Index
Foreword
Margaret Porette and Her Book
In terms of current scholarly interests, how stirring are the events and issues involved in the story of Margaret Porette and her book: a countercultural woman thinker and writer; the Inquisition and heresy; a conflict between dogmatic theology and spirituality, which entails the broader theme of the suppression of intellectual liberty by authority; again the question of courtly love ; a history of underground textual transmission and reception; a brilliant example of scholarly detective work, resulting in a dramatic discovery among the manuscripts.
The reader, I trust, will allow me a few words about my teacher, Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., a co-author of the study and translation presented here. J. Andriessen of the Ruusbroecgenootschap in Antwerp once told me that Father Colledge s scholarly work is a wellspring of the strong current of interest in the history of spirituality in England and North America. Indeed, Colledge s many translations, essays, and editions have done much to establish Middle English spiritual literature in the university curriculum, to introduce modern English readers to the spiritual writings of medieval men and women from Germany and the Low Countries, to show in detail the way in which continental spiritual texts and traditions were received in medieval England, and how vernacular writings related to the authoritative Latin theological tradition. This translation and interpretative study of Margaret Porette s The Mirror of Simple Souls , which treats one of the most difficult and decisive moments in medieval religious history, manifests abiding concerns in Father Colledge s scholarly work. Perhaps no scholar of his generation has contributed more to the study and esteem of medieval women spiritual writers. His critical edition, with James Walsh, of The Book of Showings by Julian of Norwich has generated countless studies and elevated Julian to the status of a major literary figure. His and Walsh s translation and study of Julian s book launched the series The Classics of Western Spirituality, published by the Paulist Press. Especially pertinent to the present work are his previous studies (concerning Meister Eckhart and Jan van Ruusbroec, among others) that treat the complex interplay in the late Middle Ages among vernacular spiritual writings, ecclesiastical and theological authorities, and medieval notions of orthodoxy and heresy. 1 In this translation and study, Father Colledge benefits from the erudition of his co-authors, Jack Marler, his former student and frequent collaborator, and Judith Grant. Marler lends his knowledge of medieval philosophy and speculative theology to the volume, and Grant contributes her knowledge of medieval French literature. Margaret s use of romantic topoi of French literature is one of the most remarkable features of her book.
The trial and execution of Margaret Porette and suppression of her book (1310), the condemnation of her teaching at the Council of Vienne (1311-1312), the implication of Peter John Olivi in heresy at the same Council, the papal attacks against the Franciscan Spirituals that followed, and the condemnation of Meister Eckhart (1329) produced tremors in the spiritual tradition that reverberated for several centuries. In these events, ecclesiastical authorities were clearly concerned with the manifold spiritualisms sweeping through diverse communities in western Christendom. It is worth remarking that the major contribution of the Council of Vienne to theological history is the dogmatic declaration by Clement V that the substance of the rational, intellectual soul is by its own nature and essentially the form of the human body. 2 This dogma, which in relation to common theological teaching of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries may have seemed novel, circumscribes notions that disembodied or separated spiritual experience is possible for human creatures (see below). Moreover, the outbreak of spiritual movements occurred at a time when the Church was notably asserting its temporal authority and engaging in grand temporal affairs, in the bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII (1302), in the transfer of the papacy to Avignon, in the suppression of the Knights Templar, etc. One is tempted to see in these conditions a kind of Hegelian dialectic between the soul and body of the Church, starkly expressed in The Mirror of Simple Souls , and perhaps meant to be redressed by the Council s dogmatic declaration concerning the human soul.
Margaret Porette s solitary, steadfast, and courageous stand against the mighty engines of cultural authority is bound to evoke the sympathy and enkindle the imagination of every modern reader. There is nothing in the medieval record quite like her story, nor which so much invites modern readers to interpret medieval events according to their deepest convictions about the shape of social reality. The interpretation of the authors of this volume, however, is restrained, as it must be, for the surviving evidence affords little that is certain. As the authors say, the evidence is at once abundant and frustratingly absent. All the surviving documents concerning Margaret were produced by her enemies; singularly lacking are any testimonies by friends, disciples, or Margaret herself. The only document that speaks for Margaret is her abstract and elusive book, and that was meant to be destroyed.
What we know about Margaret is slight. She lived in Hainaut at the beginning of the fourteenth century; her book was proscribed and burned publically by the Bishop of Cambrai, Guy of Colmieu, probably at Valenciennes (before 1306); she made no concessions, but rather added seventeen chapters to her book, sought its approval from another bishop, John of Ch lons-sur-Marne, and continued to circulate it; she was tried by the Inquisition at Paris, condemned, handed over to secular authority and burned at the stake (1 June 1310). Eyewitnesses record that she faced her death with composure, as her doctrine requires. The Parisian inquisitor, William Humbert, O.P., ordered that all copies of the Mirror be confiscated and destroyed.
William had consulted a group of theologians from the University of Paris about Margaret s book; among them was the renowned master of the literal interpretation of Scripture, Nicholas of Lyre. (One wonders what Nicholas would have thought of Margaret s particular glossing of the hidden meaning of Scripture, and of her contempt for those interpreters who, hiding nothing, have nothing to show either.) 3 The theologians extracted fifteen articles from the Mirror for censure. Two of these articles were cited in the judgment pronounced by the inquisitors, and we know a third from another source. At least three of the errors condemned in the constitution of the Council of Vienne, Ad nostrum , refer to Margaret s teaching. 4
In sum, we have no evidence that reveals Margaret s social status or the context of her life. The Mirror reveals this much: she read vernacular literature of fine amor ( refined love ); she acquired knowledge of theological concepts and speculations; despite her literary persona as an indifferent, wholly separated one among the many, she was a participant and leader in some textual community, 5 for otherwise she would not have been so zealous to disseminate her writing and need not have endangered her life by doing so; she had some entr e to important people. On this last point, I refer to the approbations she obtained for her book. The authors indicate how ambiguous are the circumstances of these approbations and the expressions themselves. Yet they must signify something real, and the inquisitors, who surely saw th