A Mirror of Clerical Authority

The final chapter extends my examination of spiritual perfection with attention to devotional and theological rivalries in the Life of Dorothea of Montau (d. 1394), the fourteenth-century Speculum inclusorum, and Marguerite Porete’s (d. 1310) Mirror of Simple Souls. I argue that late medieval discourses of perfection, including those formulated in the papal decree Ad nostrum (1311), become a means of securing charismatics more firmly to sacramental devotion. That culture of Eucharistic piety and devotion to the Crucified also carried a strongly affective resonance that assimilated charismatics to a spiritual economy of suffering. It is here that several writings placed increasing pressure on the angelic image, which for centuries served orthodox priorities, and which remained closely associated with charismatic experiences. A stage whereon such developments unfolded, the interaction between imitatio clerici and imitatio sancti became a defining feature of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century anchoritic culture.

The Female Authorship:

This paper raises the possibility of a female authorship for the anonymous 14th century work The Cloud of Unknowing, which academics always attribute to a man. It points out four premises: firstly the error of sexual attribution of the authorship of The Mirror of Simple Souls, maintained until 20th century; secondly, the conception of woman by the English mystical male writers Rolle and Hilton, which is not found in the writings attributed to the author of The Cloud; thirdly, the literary, theological and mystical greatness of a English woman writer of 14th century, Julian of Norwich; and, finally, the scholars' considerations about the author (man for them) of The Cloud and its related treatises, which, notwithstanding, could perfectly be attributed to a woman of the fourteenth century in England. So, the conclusion invites to question the male authorship of this masterpiece, perhaps, for the first time.

Negative Theology and Love in Marguerite Porete’s The Mirror of Simple Souls

In this paper I examine Marguerite Porete’s The Mirror of Simple Souls as an illustration of how the two concepts: love and negative theology can be brought together in an unusual spiritual journey. The thesis I develop is that both have the same impetus: a going out of oneself. Love is extasis because it is the going out into the heart of an other; extasis is the central moment in a negative theology when the soul no longer knows either the self or God but is in the same place as, or is united to, God. Following a brief exposition of negative theology, I explain how Porete portrays the soul become what she truly is by falling out of herself under the impetus of love. When the soul is liberated from will and reason her divine lover can be and love in her. In Porete’s falling into the ocean of the Divine, she is made no thing so that her divine lover can be all. Her self-annihilation is the portal to her deification when she is finally changed into God. The continuous hominification of God and divinization of humanity is the eternal process of Love loving Love’s self. Porete focuses on the self rather than on purifying God concepts; it is a relentless stripping the self of all that is creaturely to make the soul an empty dwelling place for Love to reside. Thus, Porete’s is a radical negative theology: she never “knows” God even when she becomes Love’s dwelling place.

Marguerite Porete and Godfrey of Fontaines

This paper argues that Marguerite Porete asked Godfrey of Fontaines to endorse her book, The Mirror of Simple Souls, because they shared three views in common. The first view is that the will is only contingently connected to the intellect and can be detached from it. The second view is that the traditional moral virtues are neither necessary nor sufficient for right action. The third view is that love has the power to literally transform one’s self. The first is unique to Godfrey, the second part of a shift in the medieval understanding of the role of virtue in ethical theory, and the third in many respects is a commonplace. Marguerite’s choice of Godfrey to sanction her treatise was therefore well motivated on doctrinal, not merely political, grounds.