Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 11-20-08
Marguerite d'Oingt
(d.1310)
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"NOW IMAGINE HIS GREAT BEAUTY."
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Marguerite d'Oingt was a member of a powerful family from the area around Lyon. She entered a women's Carthusian community at Poleteins, and by 1288 she was its prioress (Carthusian houses did not have abbesses or abbots). The Carthusian Order, founded 200 years earlier at the Chartreuse in the Alps (hence the name given to each foundation: "charterhouse"), combined the hermit's life with that of the monk. The few women's charterhouses followed the same austere life as did the men's.
By 1288 Marguerite had begun to write a Latin set of meditations, Pagina Meditationum. Later she wrote in Franco-Provencal, which suggests a readership that included the laity, or at least an audience less skilled in Latin than Marguerite. By 1294, she had completed her most popular work, the vernacular Speculum (Mirror); a Carthusian prior took this work to the General Chapter at the Chartreuse, where it was approved for copying and distribution. References in her letters suggest that she wrote several works that have not survived; her last extant work was written sometime after 1303, the vernacular spiritual biography Li via de seiti Beatriz, virgina d'Ornaciu, about Beatrice of Ornacieux, a nun at another charterhouse, whom the Carthusians believed to be a saint.
In most of her extant writing, Marguerite's goal is to teach her readers how to meditate; to do this she most frequently uses images of reading and writing, of manuscripts and their illumination, and she presents these images in a simple and direct style.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information about secondary sources.
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1. In English:
(a) Use your browser's search function to go to "Oingt" for an excerpt from a letter to a critical priest, explaining why in one of her works, she described a scene in Jesus' life that was not given in Scripture (we don't know to which of her writings the letter refers). The translation is by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski.
(b) Go to "Oingt" for an alternative translation of part of the above (for more from this letter, see below, under "In print.")
(c) Go to "Oingt" for two excerpts from Pagina Meditationum (Sections 33 & 36), beginning "Jesus are you not my mother?"
(d) Go to "Oingt" for three excerpts (from Chapters 2 and 1 of Speculum) on the book that it seemed to her Jesus held for her to read; the translation is by Richard J. Pioli.
(e) Go to "Oingt" for a passage from Chapter 2 of Speculum, on the experience of those in heaven,"within their Creator as the fish within the sea."
(f) A passage from Chapter 6 of Li via de seiti Beatriz, virgina d'Ornaciu, describing Beatrice's vision of Jesus as a child and her reaction to that vision; the translation is by Blumenfeld-Kosinski.
2. In the original Franco-Provencal:
(a) Go to "Oingt" for the opening of Chapter 3 of Speculum, in which "a person whom I know" sees Jesus' glorified body, in which one could see herself "more clearly than in a mirror." (The passage is also given in modern French.)
(b) In a Wikipedia entry on the Franco-Provencal language, go to "Oingt" for a passage from Chapter 9 of Li via de seiti Beatrix, virgina d'Ornaciu, describing the difficulty of securing the bodies of Beatrice of Ornacieux and two other nuns from the monastery where they had died.
3. Abstracts, etc.:
(a) Go to "Oingt" for a 2005 abstract of a conference presentation by Jeb Grisham, "From Passion to Catharsis: Writing as Panacea in Marguerite d'Oingt's Pagina Meditationum," on that work's vision of the power of writing.
(b) An English-language abstract of Catherine M. Muller's 1996 dissertation De l'autre cote du miroir: Pour une lecture feminine du 'Mirouer' de Marguerite Porete et du 'Speculum' de Marguerite d'Oingt, on the two writers' use of the concept of writing as a reflection of the self; and elsewhere, an English-language review of the the 1999 study that grew out of Muller's dissertation, Marguerite Porete et Marguerite de l'autre cote du Miroir.
4. Other reviews (for information on the books' treatment of Oingt, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) Carolyn Muessig on the 1999 essay collection, Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality.
(b) James A. Wiseman on Bernard McGinn's 1998 history, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200-1350); and another review, by Lawrence S. Cunningham.
(c) Catherine M. Mooney on Elizabeth Petroff's 1994 study, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism.
(d) John Freccero on Caroline Walker Bynum's 1987 study, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women.
5. A bibliography of the editions of Marguerite's works.
6. A stone relief image of Marguerite, installed at Oingt by her family shortly after Marguerite's death.
7. The publisher's description of Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski's 1990 translation, The Writings of Margaret of Oingt (for excerpts, see below, under "In print").
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[Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski has translated Marguerite's surviving major works, parts of four of her letters, and some contemporary stories written about her. The book has a thorough introduction, useful notes, and an interpretive essay on Marguerite's use of the theme and image of writing:]
The writings of Margaret of Oingt, medieval prioress and mystic
(d. 1310) / translated from the Latin and Francoprovental, with
an introduction, essay and notes, [by] Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski
(Focus library of medieval women). Newburyport, MA: Focus Information
Group,1990. (vi, 86 p.)
LC#: CB355 .M274x; ISBN: 0941051080
Includes bibliographical references. Includes index
[1999 reprint by Boydell & Brewer: ISBN: 0859914429]
Pagina Meditationum
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"I fixed in writing the thoughts that God had ordered into
my heart."
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[Marguerite begins her first work (in Latin) by describing an experience she had at mass in 1286: the hymns being sung made her think first of her own sins and then of the mercy of God. Thinking of these things made her lose her appetite and her ability to sleep, but she was afraid that if she stopped thinking of them, she would forget them, hence her decision to write them down:]
I thought that the hearts of men and women are so flighty that they can hardly ever remain in one place, and because of that I fixed in writing the thoughts that God had ordered into my heart so that I would not lose them when I removed them from my heart, and so that I could think them over little by little whenever God would give me His grace.
And for that reason I ask all those who read this text not to think badly because I had the presumption to write this, since you must believe that I have no sense or learning with which I would know how to take these things from my heart, nor could I write this down without any other model than the grace of God which is working within me.
[She decided that she would write down all the thoughts that she has had since that first experience at mass:]
And indeed, as I remembered my sins, they all came into my innermost self in order, beginning with the hour in which I began to write this and up to the moment when I had put everything down in writing.
Now you will find out how I converted completely to Him.... [p.26]
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"...you won't permit me to serve and be subject to men."
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[She gives many examples of the love and mercy of God: his role as her father, brother, mother --- and his freeing her from subservience to a human husband:]
Sweet Lord, if you gave me no other grace than that you won't permit me to serve and be subject to men, I would be satisfied. And surely, sweet Lord, even if you did nothing else for me, I should well be drawn to loving you; for you never gave me a grace --- except for your passion --- for which I am so deeply grateful and which draws my heart as strongly towards loving you as that; that you wanted me and let me be joined to no one but you. [p.40]
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"The flesh is full of laziness and sleepiness."
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[Despite her gratitude, she still fears herself. The reference to sleepiness reflects the almost constant prayer and little rest of the Carthusian life:]
Sweet Lord, I beg you to help me since my enemies surround me: the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world invites me with its honors and its riches to find my pleasure there. The flesh is full of laziness and sleepiness and always goes against the spirit. The devil labors day and night to entrap me and make me sin.
But I trust in your great goodness, for just as I have put beneath my feet the world which I do not value more than something completely worthless, I truly believe that you will make me vanquish the flesh and the devil with all his insults. [p.40]
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"Write into my heart what you want me to do."
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[And she concludes:]
Sweet Lord, write into my heart what you want me to do. Write your law, write there your orders so that they will never be erased.
Sweet Lord, I know well that my flesh is full of laziness and sleepiness, but my spirit is ready to do your will.
Sweet Lord, I used to reject your consolation, but now when I remember you, I delight in desire and love for you, sweet Lord. [p.41]
Speculum
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"When you listen to someone tell...."
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[In a later, vernacular, work, Speculum, Marguerite instructs her readers on meditation. In the opening, she explains to her readers her reason for writing:]
It seems to me that you have heard it said that, when you listen to someone tell of some grace given by our Lord to some of his friends, you are the better for it for a long time. And because I desire your salvation as my own, I will tell you, as briefly as possible, of a great favor done not long ago to a person of my acquaintance. And so that you will profit from this as much as possible, I will tell you the reason why God, in my opinion, did this favor for her. [p.41]
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"But she always had to return to the beginning."
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[To help her reader, Marguerite will tell how this "person of my acquaintance" progressed in her ability to meditate. First she imagined Christ standing before her with a closed book in his hand; she could look at the cover but not at the inside until she has first studied the books of the humanity of Jesus and of her own conscience. She tried to think of God in heaven:]
But she always had to return to the beginning of the life that our Lord Jesus Christ led on earth, until she had amended her life, based on the example of this book. In this way, she meditated for a long time. [p.43]
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"One could see oneself reflected in it, more clearly than
in a mirror."
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[After "a long time" she sees the closed book held by Christ opening:]
The inside of this book was like a beautiful mirror, and there were only two pages. Of the things she saw in this book I will tell you only little, for I have neither the understanding that could conceive it, nor the mouth that could tell it. Nevertheless, I will tell you some of it, if God gives my the grace to do it. [p.43]
[The pages of the opened book reflected the angels and saints in heaven, whose happiness Marguerite describes. Finally she imagined herself seeing the glorified Christ:]
And right away her heart was so ravished that she thought she was in a place much larger than the entire world, and more brilliant all over than the sun; and it was full of such beautiful and glorious people that no human mouth could tell of it.
Among others, she seemed to see Jesus Christ, so glorious that no human heart could conceive of it. He was clothed in this glorious garment which he assumed in the noble body of Our Lady. On His noble hands and feet appeared the glorious wounds that He suffered for love of us. From these glorious wounds poured forth such a great light that one was stunned by it; it was as if all the beauty of the Divinity was passed on through it.
This glorious body was so noble and so transparent that one could see clearly the soul inside of it. This body was so noble that one could see oneself reflected in it, more clearly than in a mirror. This body was so beautiful that one could see the angels and the saints, as if they were painted on it.... [p.45]
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"...to look at a beautiful painting when he has painted
it well."
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[She invites her reader to visualize the scene --- right now --- and to consider the results of such visualization:]
Now imagine His great beauty, so great that He has given to all the angels and all the saints who are His members, the gift of being as brilliant as the sun. You can imagine how beautiful the place is where there are so many brilliant lights....
Now you can imagine the great goodness that is in Him who has thus given everything He has to His friends. He did even more for them, for He has given Himself. He made them so beautiful and so glorious that each of them sees the Trinity in himself, as one sees in a beautiful mirror that which is in front of it....
And just as the saints take pleasure in seeing the beauty of Our Lord, so our good Creator takes pleasure in the beauty and love of the beautiful creatures He has made in His image and semblance: thus a good master likes to look at a beautiful painting when he has painted it well.
I truly believe that he who would devote his heart to the contemplation of the great beauty of Our Lord and of the glory that He manifests in his saints, he could rightly say that these are true marvels...; he could say that God kept the promise He made to His saints through the prophet David: "I say, you are gods." For it seems to everyone of them that he is a little god, because they will be his sons and heirs.
I truly believe that there is not a heart in this world so
cold that it would not be set on fire with love, if it could
imagine and know the very great beauty of Our Lord. [pp.45-47]
Li via de seiti Beatriz, virgina d'Ornaciu
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"She was very humble."
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[Beatrice was a nun who had died in 1303 at a Carthusian house at Parmenie. Marguerite may have known her personally, but at any rate, after Beatrice's death, she was asked to write a vita. The work is for the most part conventional hagiography, but the order in which Marguerite presents her subject's virtues is revealing:]
She was very humble in her thoughts and actions. She was very charitable and compassionate and cared for her companions in all humility. She inflicted on herself fasts and abstinences which were as severe as her feeble constitution could bear. [p.48]
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"She used practices... which were sometimes immoderate."
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[That last point --- fasts and abstinences --- is one that a prioress like Marguerite has to be careful not to praise too highly to her own nuns:]
Because she was so afraid of the deceptions of the devil she used practices... which were sometimes immoderate. But she did everything in great fear and with great fervor, and every time, our Lord put everything back in order. [p.49]
Letters
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"...but I know... that it seemed to her that she saw all
these things."
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[Marguerite's letters continue the work of her other writings: teaching the men and women who are her readers how to meditate on Christ. In one to a priest, however, she defends herself from from the criticism that she had described scenes that were not in Scripture. This was not a minor point; the heresy-hunters were busy in the France of 1300:]
I only wrote these things so that I could concentrate my thoughts on them while my heart was occupied with the things of this world, and so that I could turn my heart towards my Creator and away from the world.
My sweet father, I do not know whether the things that are in the book are in the Holy Scriptures, but I know that she who put them in writing was one night so enraptured by our Lord that it seemed to her that she saw all these things.
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"We did not harvest the wheat..., and our vineyards are
devastated by a storm."
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[At the end of the same letter, on those "things of this world" with which a prioress had to be occupied:]
My sweet father, I tell you that I am so occupied with the business of our house that I cannot think of those things that are good, for I have so much to do that I do not know where to turn first. We did not harvest the wheat in the seventh month of the year, and our vineyards are devastated by a storm. In addition, our church is in such bad repair that we have to rebuild it in part. [pp.64-65]
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[This anthology includes Richard J. Pioli's translation of Oingt's Speculum. Elizabeth Petroff's introduction (pp.277-80) discusses both Speculum and Pagina Meditationum. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Medieval women's visionary literature / [edited by] Elizabeth
Alvilda Petroff. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. (xii,
402 p.)
LC#: BR53 .M4 1986; ISBN: 0195037111, 019503712X
Bibliography: p. 373-391.
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[This collection includes an essay, "How to Do Things with Mystical Language: Marguerite d'Oingt's Performative Writing," by Catherine Muller, which offers a detailed analysis of Marguerite's language: the importance of words to her spirituality as well as to her writing. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Performance and transformation: new approaches to late medieval
spirituality / edited by Mary A. Suydam and Joanna E. Ziegler.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. (xxi, 361 p.: ill.)
LC#: BV5083 .P47 1999; ISBN:031221281X
Includes bibliographical references and index
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[Volume 3 of Bernard McGinn's history of western Christian mysticism includes a brief but cogent discussion of Marguerite (pp.288-292). McGinn's notes give full bibliographic information on earlier translations and studies; they also give the original of all translated passages. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
McGinn, Bernard.The flowering of mysticism: men and women
in the new mysticism (1200-1350) (The presence of God; vol. 3).New
York: Crossroad, c1998. (xiv, 526 p.)
LC#: BV5075 .M37 vol. 3; ISBN: 0824517423, 0824517431
Includes bibliographical references (p. [465]-505) and indexes
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[In one of her essays, "Writing the Body: Male and Female in the Writings of Marguerite d'Oingt, Angela of Foligno, and Umilta of Faenza," Elizabeth Petroff considers Marguerite's use of the image of the body as a text. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Petroff, Elizabeth. Body and soul: essays on medieval women
and mysticism. New York : Oxford University Press, 1994. (xii,
235 p.)
LC#: BV5077.E85 P48 1994; ISBN: 0195084543, 0195084551
Includes bibliographical references and index
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[Stephanie Paulsell's article sees in both Marguerite's Pagina Meditationum and in Virginia Woolf's memoir, "A Sketch of the Past" the very act of writing about emotional experiences as leading to increased self-knowledge. Paulsell discusses Pagina in some detail, quoting passages in the Latin original and in her own translation:]
Paulsell, Stephanie. Writing and Mystical Experience in Marguerite
d'Oingt and Virginia Woolf. Comparative Literature, 44
(1992), 249-67.
LC#: PN851 .C6; ISNN: 0010-4124
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[In her study, Caroline Bynum Walker briefly discusses Marguerite's writings in several places; these can be found via the book's index. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Bynun, Caroline Walker. Holy feast and holy fast: The religious
significance of food to medieval women. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1987. (xvi, 444p.)
LC#: BR252 .B96 1987; ISBN: 0520063295
Includes notes & index
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Updated 11-20-08