Nobility and Annihilation in Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls

Marguerite Porete's complex and at times discordant Mirror of Simple Souls was received into a world hungry for new spiritual ideas and experiences yet wary of innovation. The enduring popularity of her text, the ways in which she has been classified by medieval and modern observers, and her execution as a relapsed heretic in 1310 attest to this pervasive tension. Porete became the target for condemnation in large part for her doctrine of annihilation and its associated ideas, which appeared uniquely innovative to some of her contemporaries. Put simply, Porete challenges the traditional Christian conception of the radically debased nature of fallen humanity by asserting the nobility and freedom of certain individual souls. She expresses her radical ideas about the virtual existence of the Trinity in the soul and the ramifications of that indwelling for mystical union through a distinctly late medieval understanding of spiritual nobility, cleverly employing motifs that suit her doctrine of the preexistence of all things in God. In doing so, Porete shifts the focus of Christian life away from systematic discipline based on the institutional church as mediator of all knowledge of, and access to, God. She thus explicitly rejects the tradition of affective spirituality by attacking the worksbased ethic of the official church and by carving out a new path for what she considers the soul's eternal vocation: union with God.