Essays in Medieval Studies
4
[Page numbers of the printed text appear at the right in bold.]page 91
The Use of Courtly Language in Le Mirouer des simples
ames anienties
Ellen Louise Babinsky
University of Chicago
What we know about Marguerite Porete comes to us from the
inquisitorial documents: she was a beguine from Hainaut.1 There is no indication that someone else wrote the text of the
Mirouer from the author's dictation, which gives us reason to believe she was well
educated.
Le Mirouer des simples ames anienties2 was written sometime between 1296 and
1306. While Godefroid de Fontaines, a scholastic at Paris between 1285 and 1306, gave his
approval to the text, he also counseled the author to use caution in her expressions. The text
received approval from two other lesser known orthodox churchmen as well.3
The approvals were not universally shared, however, and the text
was condemned and burned in the author's presence at Valenciennes by the Bishop of Cambrai,
with the warning not to disseminate her views under threat of being turned over to the secular
arm. Apparently the author continued to promulgate her theology, for she was committed to the
flames in Paris on May 30, 1310.
Marguerite wrote Le Mirouer des simples ames anienties
in Old French and the work enjoyed fairly widespread popularity, for it was translated into Middle
English, Italian, and Latin, and copies were made in Old French.4 The Mirouer is a theological treatise which analyzes how
love in human beings is related to divine love, and how by means of this relation the human soul
may experience union with God in this life, without a mediary. The basic format of the text is a
dialogue in the Boethian tradition among the allegorical figures of Reason,
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Love, and the Soul and the fundamental structure of the
discourse is grounded in traditional Neoplatonist philosophy. Since the argument is articulated by
means of the French courtly expressions, the Mirouer can be seen as a significant example
of one way in which French courtly language was used to express Neoplatonist categories of
religious experience and it is this aspect of the text to which I give attention.
I use the term 'courtly' as an indicator of the kind of language,
concepts, and images we might expect to find in this treatise. Marguerite uses these courtly terms
to describe a love-relation, but the nature of the relation discussed gives the courtly terminology a
fresh twist. While the genre of literature called 'courtly' dealt with the love-relation of a man and
woman, the Mirouer is concerned with an analysis of the love-relation between the soul
and God. The former is attentive to very concrete matters; the focus of the latter is upon
abstraction of a more speculative sort. I hope to show that Marguerite Porete uses the language
of the courtly tradition as a vocabulary with which to describe and analyse both the soul's
progress toward and the soul's experience of union with God.
The Prologue introduces the treatise with an exemplum that is
purely courtly in its content. Here the author has clearly stated that she intends her readers to
understand the ways of divine love by means of l'amour du monde, or courtly love.
Here speaks Love: Thus listen with humility to a little exemplum of love in the world
and understand it as a parallel to divine love.
Exemplum: Once upon a time, there was a maiden, daughter of a king, of great heart and
nobility and also of noble courage; and she lived in a far off land. So it happened that this maiden
heard tell of the great gentle courtesy and noblesse of the king Alexander, and very soon her will
loved him because of the great renown of his gentility. But this maiden was so far page 93
from this great lord, toward whom she had offered her
love by herself, that she was able neither to see him nor to have him. Thus she was inconsolable,
for no love except this one would be sufficient for her. When she saw that this faraway love, who
was so close or within her, was so far outside of her, she thought to herself that she would
comfort her melancholy by imagining some figure of her love, about whom she was continually
wounded in heart. And so she had an image painted which would represent the semblance of the
king she loved, an image as close as possible to that which presented itself to her in her love for
him and in the affection of the love which captured her. And by means of this image with her
other habits she dreamed of the king.
Soul: In truly similar fashion, speaks the Soul who had this book written, I tell you of such
a thing: I heard tell of a King of great power who was by gentle courtesy and by very great
courtesy of nobility and generosity a noble Alexander. But He is so far from me, and I from Him,
that I do not know how to take comfort for myself. And for the sake of my memory of Him, He
gave me this book which makes present in some fashion His love itself. But nevertheless I have
His image, so that I might not be in a strange land and far from the palace where the very noble
friends of this Lord dwell, those who are completely pure, refined, and free through the gifts of
this King with whom they remain.5
The exemplum, a traditional way of presenting a treatise on love, and its parallel, referring to
the relation of divine love and the soul, provide the terminological basis for this treatise. The
courtly terms courtoisie, largesse, the images of the distant love, the noble friends
of the king, the gifts of the beloved will all be pressed into service as Marguerite develops her
thought.
Immediately following the courtly setting of
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the exemplum, we are presented with the topics of the
treatise. First, the soul is stripped of sin by the grace of God in the first stage of seven as the soul
strives for the fullness of her perfection. Moreover, the love which the author will discuss is the
love that comes from God for us, love which accomplishes all things without harm to anyone.
Third, Love herself, who is the divine love of God for creation and within the Trinity,7 indicates that there are seven stages of noble
being from which all creatures receive being. Love disposes herself to all the stages, so that the
soul may indeed achieve the goal of fullness of perfection. Thus the treatise is concerned to
demonstrate the process by which the soul attains the fullness of perfection, that is, Being itself,
and the author intends to accomplish this task by using courtly terms, concepts and images.
At this point a brief summary of the seven stages of ascent to
perfection is helpful.
First Stage: The soul is touched by grace and stripped of her power to sin,
commanded by God to love him with all her heart and her neighbor as herself.
Second Stage: The soul abandons self in the mortification of nature to accomplish the
counsels of Evangelical Perfection.
Third Stage: An abundance of love for the works of perfection boils up in the soul,
creating a desire to multiply her good works. Since what is most prized in love is to give to the
beloved what is most loved by the lover, the soul pulverizes her spirit, beating and bruising herself
in order to enlarge the place where Love would want to be.
Fourth Stage: The soul is consumed in an ecstasy of love, in which she is deceived in
thinking that God has no greater gift in store for her. But Love carries her higher, beyond
herself.
Fifth Stage: The soul considers that God is Who is, from whom all things are; that in
herself page 95
alone, apart from God, she is nothing, that
her existence is only in the One from whom all things are. She sees that free will has been placed
in her freely from the being of God who is pure Being, and that her will ought to be placed freely
in its source in the same way in which it was given. At this point the will departs from its own will
and renders itself back to God without retaining anything of its own.
Sixth Stage: The soul neither sees herself because of the abyss of humility into which
she has fallen, nor does she see God because of his highest goodness. Instead God sees himself in
her by his divine majesty which makes the soul transparent.
Seventh Stage: This stage cannot be described and it will be known only when the soul has
left the body.8
The main focus of the treatise is the dynamic of the relations
between the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages, and Marguerite makes use of courtly language to its
fullest possibility in her effort to describe these relationships. Two moments in particular will
demonstrate her use most clearly: the transitional point where the soul annihilates her will and
moves into the fifth stage, and the moment when her distant love, the Loingprès, the
Farnearness which is the Trinity, comes to her, creating the sixth stage.
The fourth stage is an ecstasy of love, but it is an ecstasy in
which the soul remains her created self, in which her will is caught up in its own ardent desire.
Despite the delights and rapture of this stage, the soul has not yet attained the nobility of the souls
who are in the state of willing nothing and are thus in the court of the Most High King. Such a
state can be attained only by me annihilation of the will.
The process of annihilation begins when the soul comes to
understand her nothingness according
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to the
traditional Neoplatonist formula of polarity, in which what is predicated of God is negated for the
soul, and, conversely, what is predicated of the soul is negated for God.9 Thus the soul understands her wretchedness only insofar as she
understands God's goodness, and what the soul understands of God's goodness is what she
understands of her own wretchedness. God's goodness is the perfection of all things, and
therefore God is who is, perfect Being itself, through whom all things are. The soul, considered in
herself apart from God, is total wretchedness, and therefore she is not.
The process of annihilation proceeds as the soul ponders how
she might please God whom she loves. In these considerations she ponders what her will would
consent to, without turning back, in order for her never to have committed any misdeed against
God's will or pleasure. This is the crucial moment of transition, for the most difficult, tortuous
questions present themselves to her, as if God himself were confronting her, testing and pressing
the limits of the soul's love for God.
... He might ask me how I would fare if I knew that He could be better pleased that I should
love another better than Him. At this my mind failed me, and I knew not how to answer, nor what
to will nor what to deny; but I responded that I would ponder it.
And then he asked me how I would fare if it could be that He could
love another better than I. And at this my mind failed me, and I knew not what to answer, or will
or deny.
Yet again, He asked me what I would do and how I would fare if it
could be that He would will that another love me better than He. And again my mind failed, and I
knew not what to respond, no more than before, but still I said that I would ponder it. And this I
did, and I told Him of my thoughts.
I told Him that these three things were far more difficult than what
had been said before. page 97
And [I was] in the distress of
my pondering how it could happen that I might love another better than He, that He might love
another better than me, that another might love me better than He. And there I fainted. For I
could respond nothing to these three things, nor deny, nor refute. Again and again He assailed me
for a response. For as long as I was at ease and loved my self along "with" Him, there was
nothing I could do for myself, nor could I have calm in myself. I was held in bondage, and I could
not move. No one knows this if he has not been tested in this way. So I could have no peace until
He had my response. I loved myself so much along "with" Him that I could not respond from
loyalty. If I had not loved being "with" Him, my answer would have been immediate and loyal.
And suddenly He demanded my answer, if I did not wish to lose both myself and Him, on account
of which my heart suffered great distress.
... Certainly I have never spoken a word about it. The heart alone has
this battle. It is the heart who responds in the anguish of death that it would wish to depart from
its love by which it has lived, if it thought that by so doing it could live longer. But instead it
would thus be that it could will this only by willing its own will. And so I answered and said to
Him:
Response to the three questions: "Lord, if it were. possible that the things said above,
which are in question, ought to be so eternally, as well as in truth of fact, I will say to you, by you
and for your sake, what I would will for the sake of your love.
... you would will these three things which have been so grievous for me to bear and swear. And I
know without doubt that your will would will it without diminishing your divine goodness, and I
would will this without willing, anything further. And thus, Lord, my wall is killed in saying this.
And thus my will is martyred, and page 98
my love is
martyred: you have guided these to martyrdom...."10
The driving force of this moving soliloquy is Love, and dilemmas
of love are traditional in the courtly genre.11 In courtly fashion, the strength of the loyalty of the lover to Love is
tested, and the loyalty Marguerite refers to is the loyalty to the pursuit of the divine life to which
the soul is called by divine Love, who is God. On the one hand the soul's love desires its own
pleasure by pleasing her beloved, God. Yet the desire of this earthly, desirous love for its own
pleasure finally forces this love into the contradiction where it would be willing to abandon its
object if that would somehow allow love to live longer. And yet the contradiction is clear;
desirous love cannot exist without its object. Thus this soul's love is turned upside down, so that,
in order for love to continue to exist, such love must love only for the sake of loving, without any
thought for what is received in return, not even the pleasure of pleasing the beloved. The soul's
desirous love, by the strength of its own ardor, is transformed into the flowing, outpouring love
which is Divine Love herself. In this transformation the soul is emptied of all will and desire, and
the soul moves into the fifth stage. The emptiness of the fifth stage can only be filled by the
goodness of God, which is the fullness of the soul's perfection. This filling occurs on divine
initiative alone, and when it occurs, the divine approach moves the soul briefly into the sixth stage
where God sees himself in the transparent soul. The "Ravishing Farnearness" comes to her in a
dazzling light through an aperture which opens and quickly closes, offering in a flash the gift from
the Trinity which is the vision of what her eternal glory will be like.12 Afterwards the soul has no conscious awareness of the vision, she
only knows she has been filled with the divine life of peace, and she falls back to the fifth stage.
Marguerite describes the ircumstances of this filling in terms
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99
which are thoroughly courtly.
[Reason]: O God! O God! What is this creature saying? She is now for all purposes
completely beside herself! But what will my children say? I do not know what to say to them, nor
how to respond to excuse this.
Love: True, these are astounded, well astounded, for they are so far from the country
where one has such practice in order to possess the heights. But those who are from the country
where God lives, these are not astounded at all by it.
Soul: Not at all! If it please God, this would be a mark of crudity, and I will say to you
and show you how by an exemplum. If a king should give one of his servants who loyally served
him a great gift, by which gift the servant would be eternally rich, without ever doing any service
again, why would a wise man be astounded by this? Without fail, he must not be astounded by it
at all, for in doing so he would blame the king and his gift and the liberality of the gift.
Courtesy: And I will tell you in what and by what. Because a wise man is not astounded
when one does what is fitting. Instead he praises and values and loves this. And if he would be
astounded by it, he would show in this that this would not be proper to do. But the heart that is
villainous and of little wisdom does not know, because of a lack of discernment, what honor or
courtesy are, nor about a gift of a noble lord. And so he has great astonishment.
Truth: This is not astounding; one has the reason why within him, as you have heard.
Nobility of the unity of the Unencumbered Soul: For God's sake, why is anyone astounded
who has discernment within him, if I say great things and new things, and if I have through All, by
All, in All my full sufficiency? My lover is great who gives me a great gift, and so He is page 100
all new and gives me a new gift. And so He is fertile and
full of abundance of all the blessings of Himself. And I am pregnant and full and abundantly full of
the abundances of delights from the flowing goodness of His divine goodness, without seeking it
through pain nor through the peddling of pain's remedies, which this book describes.
Soul: He is and this satisfies me.
Pure Courtesy: Without fail this is right. It is appropriate for the Lover, since He is of
valor, that He satisfy His beloved by His goodness.
And so she holds her Lover and she says:
Soul: I hold Him, for He is mine. I will never let Him go. He is in my will. Come what
may, He is with me. It would be a lack in me if I should be astounded.13
Courtly terms are employed to describe the nature of the gift of
the Godhead to the soul, the attitude of those who do not understand the nature of the gift and its
giver, and the reaction of the recipient, the soul. The gift of the Godhead is the fullness of the
perfection of the soul, namely perfect Being itself, which is bountiful and overflowing goodness,
l'abondance de tous biens, without limitation. The gift is evidence of the lavish liberality of
the giver, the largesse of God.14
The attitude of those who do not understand the nature of the gift is evidence of a small and petty
heart, le villain cueur. Such a heart has little wisdom and will never know the nature of
honor and courtoisie. The soul, however, experiences from the gift such total satisfaction
that a created thing could never be sufficient for her. The divine initiative, in giving the gift of the
presence of the Trinity, has lifted her into the realm of Being itself; and so she is filled,
pleine, pregnant, with the fertile, plein, goodness of the Godhead. And
Courtoisie, the relation of divine love to the loyally loving soul, understands with divine
knowing
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how this is so. The embrace is complete,
and the soul holds her Lover tenderly, in the sense that He now wills within her without the soul's
willing anything apart from Him.
With these few examples we can see that Marguerite Porete has
made use of courtly language to express Neoplatonist categories of the relationship between the
human and the divine. She presses and stretches the concepts of the courtly genre to analyze how
the soul might be intimately related to and experience union with the divine life of the Godhead,
and to explore who God is that this should be so. In Marguerite's hands, the traditional courtly
terminology takes on deep theological significance as she works to show us what it is like to
loyally love the God who is Love Incarnate.