Marguerite was born around 1240 to the noble family of the Barons of Oingt in the Lyonnais region of France — the medieval Franco-Provençal noble family whose fortified village of Oingt survives to the present day as one of the 'Plus Beaux Villages de France' ('Most Beautiful Villages of France').
She entered the Carthusian Charterhouse of Poleteins (Chartreuse de Poleteins) in the Lyonnais — the Carthusian women's-monastic community — becoming prioress around 1288 and serving in that office until her death in 1310.
Marguerite is most famous in the medieval Catholic-literary tradition as the author of a literary corpus that includes three principal works:
1. Pagina Meditationum (Page of Meditations, Latin) — Latin mystical meditation on the Passion of Christ, one of the principal late-13th-century Catholic Passion-meditation texts.
2. Speculum (Mirror, Franco-Provençal vernacular) — Franco-Provençal vernacular treatise on the contemplative life; one of the earliest documented Franco-Provençal vernacular literary texts, in institutional parallel with the Hadewijch Middle Dutch and Mechthilde of Magdeburg Middle Low German vernacular women's-mystical writings.
3. Vita of Bl. Beatrice of Ornacieux — Franco-Provençal vernacular hagiographical biography of Bl. Beatrice of Ornacieux (fellow Carthusian nun and mystic, cousin of Marguerite).
Marguerite's literary corpus is one of the principal medieval Franco-Provençal vernacular literary monuments and one of the earliest documented Catholic women's Franco-Provençal-vernacular mystical writings.
She died at Poleteins on February 11, 1310.