IMC 2025: Sessions

The fourth session in this strand focuses on the philosophies of medieval female mystical authors. The first paper concerns 'meaning' in Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls, which provides fertile ground for extending reflections on meaning, as the allegorical characters engage in lengthy debates on spiritual ascent, continually refining and re-defining their perspectives. Meaning, or signifying, is intentional; it points to an object beyond itself. As such, and much like its Latin root intendere, the act of meaning implies a metaphysical stretching towards, a grasping of the mind. Whereas the Cloud-author conceptualises the act of meaning as an extension of self towards the immaterial, in the Mirror, an equal and opposite action is implied: an absorption of the meaning that is implied by another’s words. Drawing on the original Middle French Mirouer as well as its translation into Middle English, this paper will explore the various shades of meaning gestured at by Marguerite Porete.

The second paper also concerns Marguerite Porete, who is now studied as a philosopher, but it also seeks to expand the 'canon' of medieval female mystics as philosophers. These women - Hadewijch, Beatrice of Nazareth, Mechthild of Magdeburg - develop a Christic theology and a nuptial mysticism that make them the sung relays of a typically beguine spirituality, also found in texts that bear witness to the life and devotion of these women. Yet Porete points out in her Mirror of Simple Souls that her text was not well received by the beguines, and that they even considered her mistaken: “beguines dient que je erre”. And indeed, Porete's thought proved to be more intellectual and subtle than that presented by the other beguines: beyond love lies the annihilation of the will, beyond works lies the contemplative life and identification with God. Is Porete therefore to be considered a 'beguine' mystic? To determine this, we will examine the notions of will and freedom in Porete's Mirror, on the one hand, and in the poetic corpus, on the other, to determine where these thoughts converge and where, conversely, they diverge.

The final paper will turn to Hadewijch of Brabant, who is commonly approached as a “mystic,” but her sophisticated project and priority as vernacular Christian author invite complementary methods. This paper will test the hypothesis of reading Hadewijch as a “philosopher” by examining the way she connects possibility and spatiality, in ways that merit comparison to Neoplatonic traditions.