Spiritual practice and learned tradition in Marguerite Porete’s “Mirouer des simples ames”

216 Pages·2012·11.21 MB·English

by  Danielle C. Dubois

SPIRITUAL PRACTICE AND LEARNED TRADITIONS IN
MARGUERITE PORETE'S MIROVER DES SIMPLES AMES
by
Danielle C. Dubois
A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with
the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Baltimore, Maryland
April, 2012
©2012 Danielle C. Dubois
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UMI Number: 3532385
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Abstract
This dissertation traces the intellectual and cultural lineage of Marguerite
Porete's late thirteenth-century text, the Mirouer des simples ames, to reveal its
purpose as a tool for spiritual practice. By exploring Porete's engagement with Old
French literature, sermons, dialogue, and poetry, I demonstrate her didactic approach
to spiritual transformation. Drawing on the trope of annihilation in the monastic
tradition, Porete creates a theological guidebook that emphasizes a novel conception
of the annihilated soul (ame aneantie) as object and locus of transformation. The
examination of hitherto neglected technical language uncovers a model of intellection
that demonstrates the influence of scholastic concepts on Porete's thought. Porete
models the journey of the annihilated soul on the Neoplatonic paradigm of the created
entity returning to its source and borrows themes from the work of pseudo-Dionysius
the Areopagite to provide the soul with a method for coming to God. Furthermore
Porete's religious practice relies on the repetition of spiritual exercises, entailing an
understanding of salvation dependent not on obtaining eternal life after death but on
the present. This dissertation takes our understanding of the Mirror beyond the
traditional interpretation of it as inspired by vernacular love lyric and contributes to
reframing both the role of women in the medieval community of knowledge and the
intellectual rigor of lay elite spirituality.
Advisors: Prof. Gabrielle M. Spiegel and Prof. Hent de Vries
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted to many people for their support and encouragement in writing
this dissertation. Stephen G. Nichols has supported this project since its early stages,
when he supervised a Master's thesis I wrote on dialogue in Marguerite Porete's
Mirouer. Christopher S. Celenza helped shape an early draft on Marguerite Porete's
engagement with the pseudo-Dionysian corpus. Zan Kocher and Sean L. Field,
scholars of Porete, both offered important words of encouragement. For giving me the
space to pursue my ideas, and for asking, ever so gently, that I express them better, I
am grateful to Hent de Vries. Finally, I wish to express my deep gratitude to Gabrielle
M. Spiegel. From the moment she agreed to supervise this dissertation, her advice and
encouragement have been invaluable. For reading and criticizing drafts, and for
always correcting oversights with magnanimity, I owe her the greatest debt. All errors
that remain are of course my own.
Throughout my time in graduate school, others have supported me directly and
indirectly in this endeavor. I would like to thank, in no particular order Willemien
Otten, Babette Hellemans, Burcht Pranger, Katherine L. Jansen, Ruth Leys, Michael
Fried, Yi-Ping Ong, Anne Eakin Moss, Rebecca Pekron, Nicole Jerr, Sarah Powrie,
Gael Montgomery and Marva Philip.
I have received support for this project from the Johns Hopkins' Humanities
Center, the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, the Singleton Center for the Study of
Premodern Europe and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
iii
Canada. Thank you also to the librarians and staff of the Johns Hopkins Eisenhower
library, and especially to Sue Waterman, who was always ready to answer my
questions, no matter how obscure.
A final word of gratitude is owed to my parents, Roberta Dubois and my late
father Gustave Dubois. And to Sarah M. Guerin, Janique Dubois and Neil Middleton,
for caring equally about footnotes, friendship and food. Had they not, I might never
have completed this project.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ii
Acknowledgements iii
Table of Contents v
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: The Historiography of the Mirror 22
Early Scholarship 22
Literary Studies 28
Feminine Discourse 32
Religious Studies 35
Chapter 2: Genre and Didactic Authority 39
Old French Tradition 43
Sermons 45
Dialogue 52
Poetic Play 62
Poetry and the Ineffability of God 70
Monastic and Mendicant Tradition 72
Annihilation in Bernard of Clairvaux's French Sermons 75
Cistercian, Victorine, and Franciscan Models of Spiritual Advancement 79
v
Chapter 3: Theological and Philosophical Arguments 88
The Trinity 91
The Virtues 92
The Soul 94
The Mirror's Model of Intellection 99
The Criticism of Raison 105
Affectivity versus Rationality 112
Chapter 4: Porete and the Pseudo-Dionysian Corpus 118
Neoplatonism in the Middle Ages 118
Neoplatonic Themes in the Mirror 122
The Mirror's Dionysian Strategies 133
Porete's Dionysian Mysticism 142
Chapter 5: The Function of the Mirror 149
Approbatio 149
The Mirror's Soteriology 155
Spiritual Exercises 161
Je Regarday: Lectio Divina and Visual Imagery in the Mirror 165
Divine Usage, Detachment and Quietism 174
Conclusion 180
Bibliography 184
vi
Introduction
To understand the intent of Marguerite Porete's late thirteenth-century Mirouer
des simples ames or The Mirror of Simple Souls (henceforth Mirror), it is necessary to
understand the intricate tapestry of intellectual and cultural influences that shaped the
work. One of the earliest extant books written by a woman in the French vernacular,
the Mirror is also the only surviving medieval text written by a female author burned
at the stake, if not explicitly for her ideas, then for her "contumacious" silence in the
face of the inquisitor.1 In the Mirror, Porete sets out to teach readers how to become
spiritually self-aware through her conception of "annihilation." Perhaps most
interestingly, Porete demonstrates throughout her work a clear engagement with
contemporary intellectual concerns, even though she was not a member of the male
intellectual elite.
Scholars have variously described the work as a theological guidebook, a
pedagogical manual, and a mystical writing. Recent years have seen an explosion of
studies on various aspects of the book.2 These studies were made possible in part by
the growing body of literature on female spirituality and a sustained interest in the
1 The inquisitorial document 15b describes Marguerite Porete as "contumax et rebellis": Paul Verdeyen,
"Le proems d'inquisition contre Marguerite Porete et Guiard Cressonessart," Revue d'histoire
ecclesiastique 81 (1986): 47-94, at 81.
2 Throughout this study, I will refer to Marguerite Porete by her surname, as is common, though not
ubiquitous, in Porete scholarship. Robert E. Lemer, for instance, refers to our author by her given name.
For an explanation of his choice, see "New Light on The Mirror of Simple Souls," Speculum 85 (2010):
91-116, at 93.
1
writings of women more generally.3 Porete studies have advanced as a result, and in
particular our knowledge of the literary models that shaped her writing. The influence
offine amour, romance and trouvere literature, for instance, is now well documented.4
Despite these advances, few scholars have examined the influence of models
that were not, until now, considered to have been within the purview of women. In
part because women lacked the formal education that would allow them to express
their ideas like men, their writings were read primarily as personal affective reflections
and not as the construction of intellectual models, those theological and philosophical
concepts that were the currency of the educated male elite.5 Consequently, while the
cross-pollination of literary idioms emerged as a fruitful avenue of research for the
Mirror - literature was, after all, available to schooled women - discussions of the
dissemination of intellectual content through other modes such as sermons and
dialogues have been, at best, brief. Additionally, scholars have failed to comment on
the technical language that suggests Porete was aware of learned modes of knowledge.
The neglect on the first point is understandable - how and when Porete came into
31 will discuss the evolution of studies on Porete in Chapter 1.
4 The following are a sampling of studies that consider the Mirror's possible literary intertexts: Ellen L.
Babinsky, "The Use of Courtly Language in Le Mirouer des simples antes," Essays in Medieval Studies
4 (1987): 93-106; Ellen L. Babinsky, A Beguine in the Court of the King: The Relation of Love and
Knowledge in the Mirror of Simple Souls by Marguerite Porete (Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Chicago, 1991); Barbara Newman, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Women
and Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), esp. chapter 5, "La mystique
courtoise: Thirteenth-Century Beguines and the Art of Love,'" 137-167; Barbara Newman, "The
Mirror and the Rose: Marguerite Porete's Encounter with the Dieu d'Amours," in The Vernacular
Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Duncan Robertson,
and Nancy Bradley Warren (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 105-123; Suzanne Kocher, Allegories of Love
in Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls (Turhout: Brepols, 2008), 57-79.
5 Caroline Walker Bynum observed early on that Porete's Mirror rejected sentimentalized responses
that would have placed her in the affective camp: Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance
of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 186.
2
contact with learned ideas is notoriously difficult to ascertain. It is not however a
reason to ignore the presence of these ideas in her writings, nor her engagement with
them.
Porete and the Mirror gained notoriety sometime in the two decades preceding
her death. Trial documents tell us that Porete was a native of the province of Hainaut,
which today covers an area of northern France and southern Belgium, and that she
might have lived, at least for some time, in the town of Valenciennes.6 It is on the
public square of this town that, at some point between 1296 and 1306, the book was
condemned and burned.7 Undeterred, Porete continued to distribute her book, a
dialogue in which the three main female protagonists, Ame (Soul), Amour (Love) and
Raison (Reason), describe the soul's journey back to its source. Between March and
May 1310, the chief inquisitor William of Paris conducted proceedings against
Marguerite and presented excerpts of her book to Parisian masters of theology and
canon law. Declared a relapsed heretic, Porete was turned over to secular authorities
on 31 May 1310, and burned in Paris' Place de Greve the next day.
In the absence of biographical data on Porete, what is known of medieval
Valenciennes in the province of Hainaut can help us imagine the people she might
have encountered and from whom she may have garnered her learning. Valenciennes'
6 The fact that Porete's first trial was conducted in Valenciennes, and that, Jean Gerson, in writing in
1401 of a woman who might have been Porete, identifies her as Marie of Valenciennes, have sustained
the supposition that Marguerite was from Valenciennes or the surrounding area: Verdeyen, "Le proces
d'inquisition," 82; Jean Gerson, De distinctione verarum revelationum a falsis, in Gerson, Oeuvres
completes, ed. Palemon Glorieux, 10 vols. (Paris: Desclee, 1962), 3:51-52.
7 These dates correspond to the time that Gui II of Colmieu was bishop of Cambrai: Louis de Mas
Latrie, Tresor de chronologie d'histoire et de geographie pour I'etude et I'emploi des documents du
moyen age (Paris: V. Palme, 1889), 1402. For a reproduction of the trial document that recounts this
episode, see Verdeyen, "Le proces d'inquisition," 82.
3