The Speculum :

Between Image and Text in the Mysticism of Marguerite D’Oingt

Marguerite d’Oingt’s Speculum, written in Franco-Provencal, presents meditative practices to a non-latinate audience.  As the title suggests, the speculum is the main figure of interest in the meditation.  The mirror without flaw is Christ; her own heart is a mirror which reflects images to be contemplated; the mirror holds the whole world inside and provides a framed image for the religious to contemplate.  The image and its medium of the mirror is an integral tool in the mystical process of Marguerite.  However, the role and power of image is complicated by the intermediary of the word.  We only hear of the mirror through Marguerite’s writing.  The mirror of her heart reflects the image of Christ holding a book, which is itself covered in letters which are mirrors.  The inside of the book, she writes, is nothing more than two pages which open into a large and beautiful mirror.  Marguerite’s writings refer to the power of writing, the act of putting her meditations onto parchment, as serving a fundamental role in shaping or winnowing the self.  It would seem then that contemplation of the image of the mirror is only one step in a bipartite process towards union with the divine;  the image affects the contemplative but the word, as it turns image into text, allows for communication of inner reflections, also plays a pivotal role in the progression towards Christ.  This paper determines the role of both these tools—image and word—in the mystical process of this Carthusian Prioress.