Rita Fenendael, beguinages of yesterday and today | 1RCF Belgium

Marguerite Porete

Professor of Germanic languages, philosopher and theologian, Rita Fenendael has read many original works in the original language, such as the major works of Hadewijch of Antwerp. It is inspired by the mystical beguine and poetess Marguerite Porète, tragically burned in 1310 for heresy under Philip the Fair but now largely restored and increasingly popular. “She was so burnt in spirit that all that was needed was to burn her body,” says Rita Fenendael. She had written “The Mirror of simple souls annihilated and which only remain in want and desire for love”, a medieval work from the 13th century (1295), the oldest known mystical text in the French language. She deals with the functioning of divine Love. In the seven phases of “annihilation” the soul travels, through love, the path of its unity with God. We read there verbatim the propositions condemned by the Council of Vienna under the name of “error of the begards and the beguines”, the oldest decision of the magisterium on the problem of mysticism. We then verify that they are inspired by a “free spirit” movement, repeatedly denounced in the 11th century. But by putting them back in their context, we also see that they are susceptible to a largely orthodox interpretation. We also discover that this work, almost immediately translated into Latin, English and Italian, has profoundly influenced all Western mysticism.

The work takes up the vocabulary of courtly love by applying it to God. Its object is to show that the soul unites with God when it annihilates itself by renouncing all self-will. She thus frees herself from all slavery to sin, but also from good works and the virtues which are its wages. It is love that “works in her without her” (ch. 7). She then gives herself up to amorous contemplation, in the spirit of Cistercian-inspired nuptial mystique.

The Mirror was approved between 1296 and 1309 by two doctors, including Godefroid de Fontaines, an independent Thomist from the University of Paris. But the book encountered strong opposition from the bishops of the dioceses where it preaches and was condemned by the inquisition, in particular for the following proposal among fifteen others. “May the annihilated soul give leave to the virtues, and may there be no more servitude towards them, because it does not make use of them, and the virtues obey it at discretion” (Mirror, ch. 21). The Council of Vienna also condemned the idea “that one is not obliged to obey the precepts of the Church” (prop. 3).

Since then, this book, which supports theses similar to those later developed by Meister Eckhart and the Rhineland mystic, has increasingly been considered one of the major works of medieval literature. Marguerite Porete, alongside Mathilde de Magdebourg and Hadewijch d’Anvers, reflects a model of mystical and spiritual love, which can be linked to the beguine movement.

The beguinal movement is illustrated by great flexibility over the centuries. In Nivelles, at the beginning of the 19th century, sensitive to the moral and intellectual distress of the popular circles of their time, the last beguines for example created the famous Institute of “Enfant-Jésus” which also includes the nursery and primary schools of the Béguinage located 1, rue du Béguinage in Nivelles.

Rita Fenendael, beguinages of yesterday and today | 1RCF Belgium