Discuss the point of the selection from Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron Reading 16.1. What similarities do you find between the Spanish wife's reasoning in the story and the movement of Modern Devotion (discussed in Continuity and Change)?

What will be an ideal response?

In fifteenth century northern Europe a new mode of devotion took hold in numerous cities. Lay citizens gathered together to promote a lifestyle similar to that lived by monks and nuns and integrate their religious practice with daily life. These movements stood in contrast with the ostentation of the Church in Rome.

Marguerite de Navarre's excerpt from the Heptameron (Reading 16.1) displays a similar longing for authenticity and simplicity in religion. Oisille says at line 71: "Indeed, I am frequently astonished that they presume to be able to appease God by means of the very things, which, when He came to earth, He condemned—things such as fine buildings, gilded ornaments, decorations and paintings. But, if they had rightly understood what God has said of human offerings in a certain passage-- that the sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt thou not despite"(Reading 16.1 lines 71-79).