Marguerite Porete exemplifies the learning and personal spirituality that was possible in some Beguine communities. Her book Mirror of Simple Souls is proof of her extensive scriptural knowledge and her familiarity with the work of thinkers such as Bernard of Clairvaux. Her fate and that of her book also reveal the tensions within medieval Christianity. Though the Church feared women who stepped beyond the bounds of traditional piety, at least some of the mysticism in her book found popular acceptance. As Malcolm Lambert has explained, around 1306-1308

Marguerite Porete of Hainault, one of whose books had already been burnt by the bishop of Cambrai, was arrested for spreading heresy "among simple people and beghards" through another book, and was sent to Paris. There she refused to respond to interrogation, and was convicted of heresy on the strength of some extracts taken from this...