Natural and supernatural virtues in the thirteenth century: the case of Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls

This article argues that Marguerite Porete’s seemingly unorthodox presentation of the virtues in the Mirror of Simple Souls is not a critique of scholastic learning, but in fact reflects the thirteenth-century university discourse on this topic. The rediscovery of Aristotelian thought in this period led to the redefinition of the standard Augustinian definition of virtue as being divinely infused. Philip the Chancellor’s discussion of cardinal virtues in particular prompted thinkers to distinguish between natural and supernatural virtues. It is contended that the Soul’s abandonment of the virtues should not be read as a rejection of the virtues, but rather as the affirmation that only supernatural virtues lead to God. A consideration of how Godfrey of Fontaines, theologian and reader of the Mirror, understands the virtues confirms the basic orthodoxy of Marguerite Porete’s position, lending further support to the argument that the Mirror echoes sophisticated scholastic ideas.     

New evidence on the origins of the Latin Mirror of Simple Souls from a forgotten Paduan manuscript

This article examines an overlooked fifteenth-century document which attacks and refutes 35 extracts from a Latin copy of the condemned fourteenth-century work The Mirror of Simple Souls. It gives an overview of the document's origins, provenance and contents, and then discusses how certain omissions in the text's source citations have crucial implications for more firmly establishing the date of origin for the Latin translation of the Mirror.