CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by ASU Digital Repository M.N. and the Yorkshire Circle: The Motivation Behind the Translation of the Mirouer des Simples Ames in Fourteenth-Century England by Robert F. Stauffer A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Approved April 2011 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: Rosalynn Voaden, Chair Robert Sturges Markus Cruse ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY May 2011 ©2010 Robert F. Stauffer All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT In 1999, Geneviève Hasenohr announced the discovery of a fragment of Marguerite Porete's Mirouer des Simples Ames, a work condemned by the Church at the University of Paris in 1310, hidden in a manuscript at the Bibliothèque municipale in Valenciennes. The fragment corresponds with roughly two chapters in the only extant French version of the manuscript (Chantilly, Musée Condé MS F XIV 26), and when compared with other editions of the Mirouer, it appears to be composed in what might have been Marguerite Porete’s native dialect. The discovery changed scholars' perceptions of the weight of the various versions and translations – the Chantilly manuscript had been used previously to settle any questions of discrepancy, but now it appears that the Continental Latin and Middle English translations should be the arbiters. This discovery has elevated the Middle English editions, and has made the question of the translator's identity – he is known only by his initials M.N. – and background more imperative to an understanding of why a work with such a dubious history would be translated and harbored by English Carthusians in the century that followed its condemnation. The only candidate suggested for translator of the Mirouer has been Michael Northburgh (d. 1361), the Bishop of London and co-founder of the London Charterhouse, where two of the three remaining copies of the translation were once owned, but the language of the text and Northburgh's own position and interests do not fit this suggestion. My argument is that the content of the book, the method of its translation, its selection as a work for a Latin-illiterate audience, all fit within the interests of a circle of ! !""! writers based in Yorkshire at the end of the fourteenth century. By beginning among the Yorkshire circle, and widening the search to include writers with a non-traditional contemplative audience, one that exists outside of the cloister – writers like Walter Hilton, the anonymous authors of the Cloud of Unknowing and the Chastising of God's Children, and Nicholas Love – we may have a better chance of locating and understanding the motives of the Middle English translator of the Mirouer. ! !"""! DEDICATION $%&!'()!*%+&!,%-).!,(%!-%/'!".*0+).1)2!'("/!,%&34! ! $%&!56&7+)&"')8!-9!/+:;)1'8!,(%!"./<"&)2!-)!:9!,&"'".7!'()!!"#$%&#'( ! $%&!=%/609..8!-9!')61()&8!,(%!"./<"&)2!-)!'%!&)62!'()!!"#$%&#'( ! $%&!>)0).8!-9!6+.'8!,(%!"./<"&)2!-)!'%!<+&/+)!-9!2)7&))'( ! ?.28!-%/'!)/<)1"60098!! $%&!@)1398!-9!,"*)8!,(%!"./<"&)/!-)!)#)&9!269A! ! !"#! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS B%!=%/609..!C%62).8!56&3+/!D&+/)8!6.2!=%:)&'!E'+&7)/8!-9!1%--"''))8!*%&! 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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1 2 THE ORIGINS OF THE YORKSHIRE CIRCLE.............................. 19 Richard Rolle....................................................................................33 John Thoresby ..................................................................................46 John Wyclif.......................................................................................54 3 THE YORKSHIRE CIRCLE .............................................................. 69 Walter Hilton ....................................................................................74 The Cloud-author..............................................................................88 The Chastising-author ....................................................................100 Nicholas Love.................................................................................112 4 IN M.N.'S OWN WORDS................................................................. 127 M.N.’s Glosses ...............................................................................130 The Valenciennes Manuscript........................................................152 Three English Manuscripts.............................................................181 5 CONCLUSION: THE MIROUER IN THE 15TH CENTURY........ 185 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................. 196 APPENDIX COMPARISON OF THE THREE VERSIONS OF THE MIROUER .. 204 ! !#"! Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Who was the Middle English translator of Marguerite Porete’s Mirouer des Simples Ames? When did he live, and why did he translate into the vernacular a book judged heretical, which would increase the number and type of people who could be exposed to this condemned work? In the century since the Middle English Mirror was rescued from obscurity by Evelyn Underhill in 1911, scholars have speculated on his identity.1 Since the work was identified as the condemned Mirouer des Simples Ames of Marguerite Porete by Romana Guarnieri in 1946, speculation has been made about why this book would have been translated into English. Several assumptions have been made in attempting to answer this question, not only about the work but also about the time in which he lived and worked. These assumptions have shaped the modern conception of spiritual contemplation in England during the fourteenth century. By examining this work and the assumptions made about the translator in the context of other writers of the period, we might discover a more dynamic spirituality and a more widespread literacy than has been realized for the end of the fourteenth century. In 1927, Clare Kirchberger – the first scholar of the twentieth century to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Evelyn Underhill, “The Mirror of Simple Souls,” Fortnightly Review (1911): 345-354. Evelyn Underhill translated portions of the translator’s prologue in her introduction to the Mirror. ! !^! render the entire Mirror into modern English2 – suggested that the Middle English translator of the Mirouer — known to us only by the initials M.N. — might be Michael Northburgh, the Bishop of London who died in 1361. She was, however, dubious about the possibility because of Northburgh’s “character, occupation, and date of death (1361).” She did not rule him out completely, but said his identification with the translator was “unlikely, but not impossible.”3 At the time of their respective writing, both Kirchberger and Evelyn Underhill believed the author of the French book M.N. had translated to be a man, probably a contemplative.4 In 1946, Romana Guarnieri identified the author of the Middle French Mirouer found in Chantilly (Musée Condé MS F xiv 26) as Marguerite Porete, a “beguine clergesse” burned at the stake in Paris on June 1, 1310, along with the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 Clare Kirchberger, trans., The Mirror of Simple Souls, (New York, Benziger Brothers, 1927). Kirchberger used Bodleian MS 505 as the basis of her translation. 3 Kirchberger, Mirror, xxxv. 4 Underhill writes: “The original version of this book, then, was probably written in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, and certainly before 1306. Its writer was no provincial recluse, but a person in touch with the intellectual life of his time. He had connections with the University of Paris, but the names of his patrons prove him to have been neither a member nor an enemy of the Mendicant Orders. It is probable that he was a monk, possible that he was a Carthusian; a