Marguerite Porete
| Marguerite Porete | |
|---|---|
| Born |
circa 1248/1250 County of Hainaut, Holy Roman Empire (now Hainaut (province), Belgium) |
| Died | 1 June 1310 Paris, France |
| Occupation | Beguine |
Marguerite Porete (c. 1248/1250 – 1 June 1310) was a French-speaking mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian mysticism dealing with the workings of agape (divine love). She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial, after refusing to remove her book from circulation or recant her views. The book is cited as one the primary texts of the medieval Heresy of the Free Spirit.
Porete's life is recorded only in accounts of her trial for heresy, at which she was condemned to be burnt at the stake. Her biography is probably biased and certainly incomplete. She was said to come from the County of Hainaut, a French-speaking principality in the Holy Roman Empire, though this is uncertain. Her high level of education means she is likely to have had upper-class origins. She is associated with the beguine movement and was therefore able to travel fairly freely.
Marguerite appears to have written the first version of her book in the 1290s. Sometime between 1296 and 1306 it was deemed heretical, and the Bishop of Cambrai condemned it to be publicly burned in her presence at Valenciennes. One of the taboos Porete had broken was writing the book in Old French rather than in Latin and she was ordered not to circulate her ideas or the book again. Nevertheless, she continued to do so and in 1308 was arrested by the local Inquisitor (the Dominican William of Paris, also known as William of Humbert) on grounds of heresy, in spite of claims in the book that she had consulted three church authorities about her writings, including the highly respected Master of Theology Godfrey of Fontaines, and gained their approval. Marguerite refused to speak to William of Paris or any of her inquisitors during her imprisonment and trial. In 1310 a commission of twenty-one theologians investigated a series of fifteen propositions drawn from the book (only three of which are securely identifiable today), judging them heretical. Among those who condemned the book were the ecclesiastical textual scholar, Nicholas of Lyra.
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