The Mirror of Simple Souls

Contents Title Page Dedication Contents Maps Cast of Characters Preface Prologue Part One: January to June 1310 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Part Two: November 1311 to November 1312 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Part Three: May 1313 to May 1315 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Author’s Postscript Author’s Acknowledgements Translator’s Note Further Reading Available and Coming Soon from Pushkin Press Copyright 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 For my father, always
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 
 
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Maps 
 Cast of Characters 
 Preface 
 Prologue
 Part One: January to June 1310 
 1 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 7 
 8 
 9 
 10 
 11 
 12 
 13 
 14 
 15 
 16 
 17 
 18 
 19 
 20 
 21 
 Part Two: November 1311 to November 1312 
 1 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 7 
 8 
 9 
 10 
 11 
 12 
 Part Three: May 1313 to May 1315 
 1 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 7 
 8 
 9 
 10 
 11 
 12 
 13 
 14 
 15 
 16 
 17 
 18 
 Author’s Postscript 
 Author’s Acknowledgements 
 Translator’s Note 
 Further Reading 
 Available and Coming Soon from Pushkin Press 
 Copyright 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cast of Characters
 
 
 Beguines
 
 
 mar guerite de porete, a beguine from Valenciennes, author of The Mirror of Simple Souls
 ysabel, a herbalist and hospitaller at the Beguinage
 maheut, a redheaded girl found outside the Beguinage gates one morning
 ade, a pious and educated widow residing at the Beguinage
 agnes, ysabel’s assistant in the infirmary. Her cousin geoffroy is a prominent Dominican.
 perrenelle la chanevacière, the mistress of the Beguinage; succeeded by jeanne la bricharde and then armelle
 guillaumette, gatekeeper
 clémence, daughter of bourgeois pierre and alice de crété
 jeanne du faut, merchant and mistress of the Silk House
 béatrice la grande, her assistant
 juliotte, a mute girl employed in the Silk House
 ameline, embroiderer
 thomasse, servant at the Silk House
 marie osanne, another notions dealer in rue Troussevache
 basile, weaver engaged in sharp practices
 
 
 Others
 
 
 philip the fair, King of France, grandson of St Louis IX who founded the Beguinage. His daughter, Isabelle, married the King of England and his three sons also made important alliances, though the Valois dynasty was notoriously cursed.
 grégoire, the supervising canon, a Dominican
 guillaume de nogaret, Chancellor to King Philip
 clement v, pope
 jacques de molay, Grandmaster of the Knights Templar
 william of paris, Inquisitor General
 humbert, a Franciscan monk from Valenciennes, former student at the Sorbonne
 jean de queyran, Franciscan master at Valenciennes monastery, defender of marguerite
 guillebert, husband to maheut
 brother geoffroy, agnes’s cousin and Dominican prelate
 robert de sorbon, theologian under Louis IX and defender of the beguines
 pierre de crété, burgomaster, silk dealer, and patron of the Beguinage, married to dame alice
 master giacomo, a merchant from Lombardy
 bernard, fellow student of humbert, syphilitic clerk
 héloise, ade’s sister-in-law
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Preface
 
 In the area of paris called the Marais rises a broken tower, at the corner of the rue Charlemagne and the rue des Jardins-Saint-Paul. It marks the northern edge of an ancient wall more than eighty yards long that is punctuated by a second tower. These are the vestiges of the enclosure built at the end of the twelfth century by King Philip Augustus, a curtain wall to protect the city. Centuries later, the buildings of the Lycée Charlemagne were erected upon this souvenir of medieval wars. At its southern border, the wall joins the rue de l’Ave-Maria, named after the convent that occupied the site long before the school. But in the fourteenth century this street had another name: it was called ‘rue des Beguines’.
 Surrounded by grey-paved alleyways, this quadrilateral now muffles the sounds of the city, leaving the air free for the trills of birds, the cries of children playing ball, the laughter of adolescent girls and boys mingling their uninhibited voices. But few people are aware that this site once contained an institution which was unique in France: the Great Beguinage of Paris that was founded by King Louis IX, known as Saint Louis.
 For almost a hundred years in the Middle Ages, a succession of remarkable women lived on this site and in its surroundings. Unclassifiable and hard to categorize, these women had refused both marriage and the nun’s cloister. Here they prayed, worked, studied, and had a haven from which they could roam the town as they pleased, hosting some friends and travelling to visit others, disposing of their wealth as they wished, and even being allowed to bequeath it to their sisters. They had a freedom and independence that women in the Middle Ages had not known before—and would not know again for centuries. At the time, not all of them were aware of how special this freedom was, but some fought hard to preserve it.
 For years I walked the streets of the Marais looking for the traces they had left behind. Day after day, they came back to me. I saw their shadows on the ground—now strong, now faint—I heard their laughter and their songs, the sound of their footsteps on the cobblestones, I felt on my skin the same sun that once warmed them, breathed the scents of the nearby Seine. We dreamt, trembled and strolled alongside each other, like companions whom time has separated but whose desires,