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Claire Taylor Jones' suggestions
The medieval example that has most recently become important is that of Marguerite Porete, a female mystic who was burned at the stake in Paris in 1310. Her writings and teachings (contained in her treatise De l’âme anéantie) are generally assumed to have inspired the heresy of the ‘Free Spirit,’ a movement which ran rampant in the fourteenth century, despite the Dominicans being on the case. Along the same lines, an immense controversy sprang up around Joan of Arc, providing the occasion for Jean Gerson (a prominent Paris intellectual) to spill much ink, as well as bringing the famous poet Christine de Pizan out of retirement to write her last work, La ditié de Jehanne d’Arc.
As far as contemporary examples go, there are some entertaining films in which medieval ‘undergrounds’ are depicted:
- Extramuros (film directed by Miguel Picazo in which nuns fake stigmata in order to direct attention toward their convent)
- The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco (and the fabulous film with Sean Connery)
- Brother Sun, Sister Moon (a rather silly movie about Saint Francis, portrayed as a medieval hippie)
Last but not least, in February 2008, Julia Kristeva published a 700-page novel about 16th-century Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila entitled Thérèse mon amour