Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/139

 MARGUERITE LA PORETE. ^oo formal auto defS of which we have cognizance at Paris, on May 31, 1310. A renegade Jew was burned, but the principal victim was Marguerite de Hainault, or la Porete. She is described as a "ieffume dergesse," the first apostle in France of the German sect of Brethren of the Free Spirit, whom we shall consider more fully hereafter. Her chief error was the doctrine that the soul, absorbed m Divme love, could yield without sin or remorse to all the de- «lands of the flesh, and she regarded with insufficient veneration the sacrifice of the altar. She had written a book to propagate these doctrines which had, before the year 1306, been condem^ned as heretical and burned by Gui II., Bishop of Cambrai He had mercifully spared her, while forbidding her under pain of the stake trom circulatmg it in future or disseminating its doctrines In spite of this she had again been brought before Gui's successor Philippe de Marigny, and the Inquisitor of Lorraine, for spreadin<^ It among the simple folk called Begghards, and she had again escaped. Unwearied in her missionary work, she had even ven- tured to present the forbidden volume to Jean, Bishop of Chalons without suffering the penalty due to her obstinacv. In 1308 she extended her propaganda to Paris and fell into the hands of Fr^re Guillaume de Paris, the inquisitor, before whom she persistently refused to take the preliminary oath requisite to her examination He was probably too preoccupied with the affair of the Templars to give her prompt justice, and for eighteen months she lav in tne inquisitorial dungeons under the consequent excommunication This would alone have sufficed for her conviction as an impenitent heretic but her previous career rendered her a relapsed heretic instead of calling an assembly of experts, as was customary in Languedoc, the inquisitor laid a written statement of the case be Mlvi'thT/t 1 'I'" ^""^^^'y' ■'^'^ unanimously decided, May 30 that if the facts as stated were true, she was a relapsed heretic, to be relaxed to the secular arm. Accordingly, on May 31, she was handed over, with the customary adjuration for mere/ to the prevot of Paris, who duly burned her the next day when her noble manifestation of devotion moved the people to tears o^ compassion. Another actor in the tragedy was a disciple of Mai- guerite, a clerk of the diocese of Beauvais named Guion de Cres- sonessart. He had endeavored to save Marguerite from the clutches of the Inquisition, and on being seized had, like her