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 All Rights Reserved UMI Number: 3532385 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 3532385 Published by ProQuest LLC 2012. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 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 ii 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. iv 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