MARGUERITE PORETE: A WOMAN CONDEMNED

        Not much is known about Marguerite Porete outside of her controversy. Some scholars place her date of birth to be around 1260, and it is known that she came from Hainut county in Belgium (“Background to a Beguine” 27). Based on her text, it can be inferred that Marguerite came from, at the very least, a lower aristocratic family, if not one of the elite upper class (29). Her text proves a sufficient education and vernacular literacy with its use of traditional romance allegories, as well as access to scribes for writing copies of her text (29). The only written information about Marguerite comes from the trial documents from Paris that record the order for her books to be burned, and later, her own execution. These documents also reference the initial burning of her book in her presence in Valenciennes overseen by the Bishop of Cambrai, indicating that this was the city in which she began to circulate her text, likely between the years 1285 and 1306 (Lerner 93). Additionally, the documents of her Parisian trial designate her as a beguine, a laywoman living a devout religious life, usually in communities with other devout laywomen (“Background to a Beguine” 30). This gives more context for Marguerite’s persecution, as the beguines at this time were under heavy suspicion from the Catholic church (30).

Despite the destruction of her book and an order to “desist from disseminating her book or spreading any of its reproved content by word or in writing,” Marguerite continued to circulate her work, likely by both word and writing (Lerner 94). It has been suggested and widely accepted that the first version of Marguerite’s book ended at Chapter 122, and then was revised and added onto after the first trial and book burning (Colledge xli). These revisions were not retractions by any means, but rather clarifications, with Marguerite essentially expanding on the previous chapters in order to prove the orthodoxy of her ideas (Colledge xli). In addition to these clarifications, Marguerite also sought out the approval of three well-known figures of the Church to further prove her book’s orthodoxy: a Franciscan, a Cistercian, and, the most high profile name on the list, a secular master of theology, Godfrey of Fontaines (Lambert 131). While all three men agreed to the orthodoxy of the text, two of them, the Franciscan (called Friar John) and Godfrey of Fontaines, both stated that the Mirror was too complex for just anyone to read, and advised that as such, it should be reserved for only those of high religious learning or who had reached the level of spirituality that the text described (Colledge xl-xli). These practically glowing reviews of her work must have encouraged Marguerite because she continued in proselytizing her ideas, eventually showing the book to the bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne to her own detriment (“Seven Churchmen” 55).

In 1308, Marguerite was arrested and imprisoned under William Humbert (also known as William of Paris), an inquisitor of Paris, on the grounds that she had “refused to appear in Paris several times before she was brought there by inquisitorial officers” (Lambert 131). While in custody, Marguerite refused to cooperate; she would take no oaths and admit no wrongdoing, prolonging the beginning of her trial because she could not be interrogated (Colledge xxxviii). It was not until William of Paris took it upon himself to gather evidence against Marguerite that the trial went forward. He gathered twenty-one theologians in Paris, translated into Latin and presented two excerpts from the Mirror to them, with little to no information about their author, and asked them to decide whether the ideas contained in these excerpts were heretical or not (“Twenty-One Theologians” 129). These theologians decided that the excerpts were full of errors and heresy. On 31 May 1310, William of Paris read out Marguerite’s sentence to the public, condemning her to the stake as a relapsed heretic, and ordering all copies of her books to be brought forward to burn alongside her. At the Place de Grève in Paris on 1 June 1310, after nearly two silent years in imprisonment, the sentence was carried out (Lambert 132). Many chroniclers’ accounts note that those present at the burnings were greatly moved, some even to tears, at the woman’s steadfast nature upon hearing her sentencing and even when going to her death (“Toward the Stake” 163).