Humbert, il frate francescano che fa una promessa al suo priore, quella di salvare un libro che la Chiesa considera eretico. What I like about the storyline is that it centres not on the lives not of royalty or nobility, but of ordinary women, who live in a close community, helping and caring for one another. There is much that one can learn about their unencumbered lives of doing good and quiet reflection on the Scriptures. Written originally in the Picard dialect of Old French, [2] it explores in poetry and prose the seven stages of 'annihilation' the Soul goes through on its path to Oneness with God through love. Enormously popular when written, it fell foul of the Church authorities, who, detecting elements of the antinomian Heresy of the Free Spirit in its vision, denounced it as "full of errors and heresies", burnt existing copies, banned its circulation, and executed Porete herself. Babinsky, Ellen L. (1993). "Introduction". The Mirror of Simple Souls. Mahwah: Paulist Press. p.30. ISBN 0-8091-3427-6.

Porete's life is recorded only in the accounts of her Inquisition trial for heresy, at which she was condemned to be burnt at the stake. [12] This information about Porete is probably biased and certainly incomplete. She was said to have come from the County of Hainaut, a French-speaking principality in the Holy Roman Empire, but this is uncertain. Her high level of education means she is likely to have had upper-class origins. She was associated with the beguine movement and was therefore able to travel fairly freely. [13] Trial and death [ edit ] 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] Mais j’ai toujours été fan de la petite histoire qui se cache dans la grande Histoire, j’aime savoir comment on vivait, je veux des anecdotes croustillantes, bref du ludique et pas une liste interminable de noms pompeux et de lignages consanguins.This is the key to the spiritual anarchy which laces all mystical texts: the idea that a person can experience the divine while still alive. This is the claim that calls into question the limits of what humans can know and what they can be. 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. Ieri sera, prima della puntata di Alberto Angela, ho terminato questo romanzo ambientato a Parigi nel XIV secolo, durante l'uccione dei Templari. La « nuit » s’est certes abattue sur les béguines, dont l’ordre a été dissous au 15ème siècle, mais elle s’est aussi abattue sur le royaume de France, qui bientôt connaîtra non seulement la peste, mais aussi la guerre de cent ans. Some also associated her with the Brethren of the Free Spirit, a group which was considered heretical because of their antinomian views. The connection between Porete and the Free Spirits is somewhat tenuous, though, as further scholarship has determined that they were less closely related than some Church authorities believed. [27]

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. Ysabel se redresse, fourrage de nouveau dans le foyer, ajoute une bûche. Le feu hoquette puis tressaute, s’élance en vagues désordonnées, bleuit et se calme, ronronne. Lccn 93014479 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-7-gc75f Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9387 Ocr_module_version 0.0.11 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA18565 Openlibrary_edition This is indeed a beautiful piece of writing about the French mediaeval world, a milieu that I knew nothing about. I’m glad I read it. Here she seems to be saying that the simple soul as mirror perfectly reflects the Son of God; individual will, preferences, or concerns do not obstruct the reflection. That’s how I am reading it, anyway. Why Was This Heresy?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. It has recently been suggested that she was arrested in Châlons-en-Champagne in 1308, after she gave her book to the local bishop. [14] She was then handed to the Inquisitor of France, the Dominican William of Paris, also known as William of Humbert, on the grounds of heresy, in spite of her assertion in the book that she had consulted three church authorities about her writings, including the highly respected Master of Theology Godfrey of Fontaines, and had gained their approval. 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.

The complete title of this work of Christian mysticism is: The Mirror of the Simple Souls Who Are Annihilated and Remain Only in Will and Desire of Love. For these comments on divine love, Marguerite Porete was excommunicated and executed by the Catholic church in the early 1300's. Je connaissais le terme de béguinage, sans savoir exactement de quoi il retournait. (Chez moi, on les appelle les béates)J’ai aimé la plume de l’autrice, classique et précise, les différents personnages, bien entendu majoritairement féminins avec leurs spécificités, et le ton résolument féministe de ce roman, qui aborde plusieurs sujets en sous-texte avec pudeur et respect. 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. 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.