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IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 304: Making, Breaking, and Bending Rules: Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls

Monday 9 July 2012, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews
Organiser:Justine Trombley, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews
Moderator/Chair:Frances Andrews, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews
Paper 304-aBreaking the 'Mirror' Anew: Opposition to the Speculum Simplicium Animarum in the 15th Century
(Language: English)
Justine Trombley, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews
Index terms: Manuscripts and Palaeography, Religious Life
Paper 304-bPorete Male Author?: A Resistant Preference
(Language: English)
Alessia Vallarsa, Ruusbroecgenootschap, Universiteit Antwerpen
Index terms: Gender Studies, Religious Life
Paper 304-cThe Case of the Just Man: Porete's Proverbs
(Language: English)
Danielle Dubois, Department of Religion, University of Manitoba
Index terms: Religious Life
Abstract

This session focusses on the beguine Marguerite Porete and her book The Mirror of Simple Souls, the composition of which led Marguerite to be burned at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310. A mystical treatise describing the soul's path to becoming 'annihilated' in God, The Mirror of Simple Souls has a long history of simultaneously adhering to, breaking, and blurring the 'rules' of religious discourse and spiritual expression in the later European Middle Ages. This session will look at the Mirror's relation to rules both within its own pages and in the historical context of heresy and orthodoxy in the 14th and 15th centuries.