Porette, Margaret 591were, however, limited in scope and in time to only the
particular property and people inventoried, with little on
anything outside the estate. They recorded what the lord
thought he should be able to collect from his estate and
his tenants, not what he actually collected. The polyptych
was particular to the Carolingian period, but other kinds
of similar surveys and inventories existed for later estates,
especially for taxation purposes in ENGLAND.
See alsoAGRICULTURE; DOMESDAYBOOK;MANORS AND
MANORIAL LORDSHIP; PEASANTRY.
Further reading:Georges Duby, Rural Economy and
Country Life in the Medieval West,trans. Cynthia Postan
(1962; reprint, Columbia: University of South Carolina
Press, 1968), especially 366–371; Adriaan Verhulst, The
Carolingian Economy(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002).
poor SeeCHARITY AND POVERTY.
Poor Clares SeeCLARE OFASSISI,SAINT.
pope(s) See individual popes;PAPACY.
popular art and religion Medieval popular religion
was made up of the practices, images, behavior, beliefs,
representations, and ideas of the majority of the popula-
tion of CHRISTENDOM,ISLAM, or JUDAISM. It could also
include the artistic output, both secular and religious,
designed to teach people or to convey their beliefs and
images. Such a concept is vague but can form a useful
starting point for studying and understanding popular and
marginal culture in the Middle Ages and RENAISSANCE.
Some historians had called it folk religion. It has
been studied primarily in terms of its relationship and
interaction with what is called learned or institutional
religion or that of the clergy or specialists in religious
matters, those who teach and formulate its norms. It has
been a way to transcend mere religious doctrine and the-
ological disputes to analyze religions and cultures as
they functioned in society and were understood by the
unlettered but not necessarily passive. It can also indi-
cate how the literate and pastoral class saw their flocks
and tried to influence them. This relationship worked
both ways: doctrines and pastoral care could be influ-
enced by popular ideas and expectations. It has been a
tool to study influenced by methods and focuses of
anthropologists and folklorists, who compare the “ratio-
nal” with the “irrational” or the “written” with the “oral”
in a society or culture. It can discern the real issues or
needs of the mass of religious believers or unbelievers.
The study of popular art and religion reminds us that
both popular and learned religion existed together. Nei-
ther concept or classification reflects by itself the reality
of any religious community.
See alsoBEGUINES ANDBEGHARDS; DEVIL; FEASTS AND
FESTIVALS; GHOSTS; HAGIOGRAPHY; HERESY AND HERESIES;
INDULGENCES; LAITY; MAGIC AND FOLKLORE;MARY,CULT
OF;MASS,LITURGY OF;MISSIONS OF MISSIONARIES, CHRIS-
TIAN; PILGRIMAGE AND PILGRIMAGE SITES; PREACHING AND
PREACHERS; PURGATORY; WITCHCRAFT.
Further reading:John Shinners, ed., Medieval Popu-
lar Religion, 1000–1500: A Reader(Peterborough, Canada:
Broadview Press, 1997); Rosalind B. Brooke and Christo-
pher N. L. Brooke, Popular Religion in the Middle Ages:
Western Europe, 1000–1300(London: Thames and Hud-
son 1984); Andrew D. Brown, Popular Piety in Late
Medieval England: The Diocese of Salisbury, 1250–1550
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Gábor Klaniczay, The
Uses of Supernatural Power: The Transformation of Popular
Religion in Medieval and Early-Modern Europe, trans.
Susan Singerman and ed. Karen Margolis (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990).Porette, Margaret (Marguerite Porete) (d. 1310)
member of the heresy of the Free Spirit
Margaret was probably a BEGUINEand a native of Hain-
ault in FRANCE. As a visionary and adherent of the sect of
the Brethren of the FREE SPIRIT, she was burned at the
stake in PARISon June 1, 1310, for continuing to circulate
copies of her book, The Mirror of Simple Souls,written
sometime between 1296 and 1310. It can be seen as a
NEOPLATONICdialogue among allegorical figures about
the nature of the relationship between the individual
SOUL and GOD. It had been explicitly condemned as
heretical. Known as an executed heretic, she became bet-
ter understood when her authorship of that work was
discovered in the 20th century. The work itself was long
considered to be anonymous. It had circulated in Latin,
English, and Italian translations.
Her The Mirror of Simplewas a rare and important
witness to the beliefs and ideas of adherents of what has
been called the HERESYof the Free Spirit, whose beliefs
were only really known from the records of their trials
and references to their ideas by their persecutors. The
major threat they posed for Christianity was their suspi-
cion of the necessity of clerical intermediation between
the Christian and God. To suggest and circulate such
ideas usually led to a death sentence.
See alsoVISIONS AND DREAMS.
Further reading:Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of
Simple Souls,trans. Edmund Colledge, J. C. Marler, and
Judith Grant (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1999); Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the
Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (d.
203) to Marguerite Porete (d. 1310)(Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1984); Amy M. Hollywood, The
Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite
Porete, and Meister Eckhart(Notre Dame, Ind.: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1995); Joanne Maguire Robinson,