Portal:Middle Ages/Selected biography/6

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Marguerite Porete (d. 1310) was a French mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian spirituality dealing with the workings of 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 is associated with the Beguine movement, and was therefore able to travel fairly freely. Some also associated her with the Free Spirit movement, 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.

Unlike other religious figures such as Joan of Arc and Meister Eckhart, who were condemned and later rehabilitated by the Roman Catholic Church, it is unlikely that Porete will be so favored. This is partly due to her relative obscurity. Until 1946, it was not even known that she was the writer of the Mirror, which had been published anonymously since her death. (read more . . . )