Translation, vulgarization and female presence in Lower Middle Ages' devotional texts

This article addresses the problem of translation in medieval religious literature, and investigates the relationship between the issue of vernacular devotional texts and a female authorship or audience. After a few general remarks, the author presents two case studies. The first is the Mirror of Simple Souls, written in the vernacular by Marguerite Porete, a woman condemned as a heretic, and the vernacular (re) translations of this well-known text. The other is the pseudo-Bonaventurian Meditations on the Life of Christ, in which a female audience is clearly present; the problems of its date and original language (Latin or Italian) are discussed: recently it has been hypothesized that the original form of the work could have been written by a woman, in the Italian vernacular. The author stresses the point that medieval translation is a complex phenomenon, and often moves from the vernacular as a source language; however, the essay argues that the presence of a female author or audience does not necessarily imply the existence of a preceding vernacular version.